Specialists in this area focus on diagnosing and treating behavior problems in companion animals, such as aggression, separation anxiety, and compulsive disorders.
Veterinarians look for deviations from the norm that indicate pathology:
In the future, your vet will not ask, "How is he acting?" They will pull up a behavioral graph from the previous 30 days and say, "He stopped sleeping through the night three weeks ago. Let's run a senior panel."
Aggressive behavior is a reportable public health issue (e.g., dog bites cause >4.5 million incidents annually in the US). Veterinarians are mandated to assess: