Want to avoid stressing shelter cats unnecessarily? Consider changing how you draw blood for medical testing.

At the 2013 North American Veterinary Conference, veterinary anesthesiologist Dr. Heidi Shafford, DACVA, told veterinarians that cats are terrified by jugular blood draws because of their instinctive association of a bite to the neck with death.

“They don’t like sharp objects coming at their faces,” she said. “Who would?”

Many cats struggle and resist not only the procedure, but the restraint techniques used to make it possible to take blood from the neck vein.

Instead, Dr. Shafford recommended all feline blood draws and catheters be done in the medial saphenous vein, which runs along the inside of the cat’s rear leg. She noted that cats resist this approach much less, and appear less stressed by it as well.

This approach has conventionally been used only for small blood draws, because of the small size of the vein. However, with a little practice and attention to technique, the same amount of blood can be obtained with far less stress to the feline patient. That’s good for all cats, but for shelter cats already subjected to high stress levels, reducing the anxiety and fear associated with necessary medical procedures can mean the difference between staying healthy and succumbing to stress-induced diseases.

Dr. Shafford, who said she uses the medial saphenous vein almost exclusively in her practice, told the audience, “I don’t know why a medial saphenous catheter isn’t the most popular catheter in feline practice.”

Although identified as suitable only for smaller blood draws, photos of the medial saphenous technique in cats can be viewed on the website of the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine.