Practitioners routinely sprinkle their client communication with words that carry a particular emotional change for themselves, their clients or both. Sometimes both assign the same charge to the same word; other times the same word may carry different charges for each.

For example, during the last 50 years the public's perception of the acquisition of shelter animals has gone through three significant transitions as a function of changing terminology. Before and during the 1960s, most people got unclaimed animals that needed a home from pounds or shelters. In phase two, those who chose such animals were referred to as adopters.

Today, the word "rescue" dominates the process from start to finish. Those within the system responsible for the collection, transport and placement of the animals all may refer to themselves as "rescuers" — as may those who add these animals to their households. Often, the animals are described as "rescues."

Examples of all three orientations may be found among today's companion animal owners.

Initially, I perceived these as more or less synonymous terms chosen to facilitate the placement of as many animals as possible. But while this may have been the original intent of any marketing campaigns, over time it became apparent that the words used to describe the addition of an animal to the household could generate different emotions in those engaged in the process. Those different emotions, in turn, could affect how people related to these animals. And that, in turn, could affect the animal's health and behavior.

Of the three, the concept of getting an animal carries the most neutral charge. This doesn't mean that these clients didn't think carefully about adding an animal to their households or value the animal they got. But compared to the other orientations, these folks are the least likely to attach strong emotional symbolism to their animals.

In general, people who perceive their animals as adopted take a more parental approach to the animal. They view the animals as family members whose presence carries certain responsibilities relative to the animal's health and behavior, just as having a child does.

However, this orientation also can cause some people to create highly anthropomorphic relationships with their animals, sometimes referring to them as their fur-kids or fur-babies. But as every veterinarian knows, animals aren't children, let alone human infants. Relating to them as if they were can contribute to multiple medical and behavioral problems as well as complicate the treatment process.

Rescuers' relationships with their animals tend to be the most complex, symbolic and emotional. In general, these people tend to perceive themselves as saviors and their animals as innocent victims rather than the savvy survivors many of these animals are. Two groups of rescuers may pose particular challenges for practitioners.

The first group consists of those who fall victim to Disneyfication, which in anthrozoology refers to the media's effect on people's expectations regarding animal behavior. Those so affected may imagine that their formerly free-roaming Thai street dog spent his spare time yearning to live in a nice home in U.S. suburbia à la Tramp in Disney's "Lady and the Tramp."

"Yes," they tell themselves, "He may have endured some tough times. But now that he's with nice people like us, we'll all live happily ever after." When it doesn’t turn out that way, the veterinarian is often the first one to hear about it. At their worst, these clients feel so betrayed by the animal's failure to live up to their idealized images that they may find it difficult to muster the necessary commitment to correct any health or behavioral problems the animal may have.

Extreme rescuers make up the second group. These people deliberately seek out animals with the saddest or most traumatic (albeit often unsubstantiated or greatly embellished) histories and the worst medical or behavioral problems. That would be fine if these folks felt equally enthusiastic about resolving these issues.

Unfortunately, their primary attachment is to their animals' tales of woe and how they saved the animals and not to the animals' well-being. They need the animal's problems to validate their moral superiority.

For example, an intense woman once accosted me following a presentation and immediately began telling me about her beloved rescue, i.e., dog. After detailing his horrendous history, she proudly boasted that she went to great expense to confine him to a small empty room, the floor and walls of which she'd covered with heavy plastic after he destroyed the rest of her house with his "near constant" urination and defecation. She had no interest in determining the cause of his problem, let alone resolving it.

Initially this made no sense to me. But as she continued, I realized her animal-related behavior had gained her a great deal of attention and admiration from others within the rescue culture that owning a healthy animal would not have. The benefits of this exceeded the cost of cleaning up the dog's room, which she reframed as a labor of love.

Consequently, any suggestions of ways to help the dog fell on deaf ears.

Age and experience teaches most practitioners not to make assumptions regarding an animal's medical or behavioral problem before getting a comprehensive history and conducting a thorough physical examination. But when it comes to clients' relationships with their animals and the emotionally charged words they use to describe them, it's tempting to assume they're on the same wavelength we are.

Only when we get blindsided by the effects of the bond on human and animal physiology and behavior may we suddenly realize "the bond" — and those emotionally charged words people use to describe it — plays a much greater role in the veterinary treatment process than we thought it did.