“It used to be thought that animals don’t feel pain,” says Alicia Karas, DVM, a veterinary pain specialist who is board-certified in anesthesiology. It wasn’t that long ago. “The real start of recognizing that animals feel pain and might need medication for it was probably the early 90s,” she notes. “Until then, a vet might say, ‘If I give the animal pain meds after an operation they might move around too much and hurt their surgical sites, interfering with their healing.’ It was a myth that needed to be battled.
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