We are in person at the 2024 Animal Forensic Conference in Gainesville, Florida! Dr. G will be interviewing several of the speakers to give our audience a bit of the knowledge gained through the presentations. We will be releasing each interview individually to allow our listeners to find topics of interest.

Dr. Rachel Barton, Chief Veterinarian for Tallahassee Animal Services, discusses the importance of recognizing and reporting blunt force trauma in cases of suspected abuse.

We would also like to invite our listeners involved in animal cruelty investigations to visit and join the International Society for Animal Forensic Sciences https://isafs.org/

Mentioned in this episode:

Keep it Humane Podcast Network

The Animal Welfare Junction is part of the Keep It Humane Podcast Network. Visit keepithumane.com/podcastnetwork to find us and our amazing animal welfare podcast partners.

Our next guest is Rachel Barton, Chief Veterinarian at

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the Tallahassee Animal Services.

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Thank you so much for being here

and welcome to The Junction.

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Rachel Barton: Thank you for having me.

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DrG: So can you start by letting

us know about your background,

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what you do now, and how it

involves the field of forensics?

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Rachel Barton: Sure.

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Um, I've been in veterinary

medicine as a practicing

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veterinarian for over 25 years now.

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I spent about seven years

in private practice.

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But 18 years ago, I, um, sort of took

the leap, uh, into shelter medicine,

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which was a new sort of area of practice.

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When I graduated from vet school,

veterinarians didn't work in animal

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shelters, so it's nothing I could

have ever imagined doing back

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when I was a, a new vet student.

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Uh, but at the shelter, um, I

work for the city of Tallahassee.

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And I work with animal control

for the city and also with

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animal control for the county.

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And just occasionally they were

asking me to take a look at animals

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that they had some concerns about.

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You know, hey doc, what, what

might this be or can you help

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us think about this here?

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And eventually some of those

cases were actually moving

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forward and getting prosecuted.

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And so, as time progressed, as our

community became more progressive, as

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our politicians became more interested in

pursuing crimes involving animals, um, I

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recognized that there was a need to get

some extra training and expertise in that,

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so I actually, um, completed the Graduate

Certificate in Veterinary Forensics

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at the University of Florida.

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I also had the opportunity to, um, do

some volunteer work with the ASPCA on some

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of their large, uh, animal crimes cases,

hoarding, dogfighting, things like that.

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And so over the years, just through

my experiences, but then also

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through my education, um, I've

started working more and more.

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And Tallahassee is a very progressive

community and they take crimes

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against animals very seriously.

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So, uh, you When I first started there,

it might be one or two cases a year,

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and now we are seeing one or two cases

a week that are being investigated.

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DrG: Nice.

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That's really good to hear, because it

is, uh, it's something that we see a lot.

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Animal crime's not being investigated

because either there's no resources, or

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people think it's just a dog, it's just

a cat, and they don't think about the,

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the consequences of animal violence.

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Your topic today was

about blunt force trauma.

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So what does that mean?

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Rachel Barton: So blunt force trauma

simply is some sort of trauma, some

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sort of injury that's occurred when a

body and an object impact each other.

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It may be that the object is moving

and it hits a stationary body.

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It may be that the body is moving

and hits a stationary object.

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Or maybe the body and the object

are moving and impact each other.

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And it could be something as simple as

a hit or a kick or a punch or throwing

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an animal across the room and it

hitting the wall or hitting the floor.

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DrG: So is, is all blunt force trauma

intentional or can it be accidental?

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Rachel Barton: Well, I've learned

from watching my own pets and even

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watching my own child that, um,

there can be plenty of accidental,

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unintentional blunt force trauma.

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Accidents happen.

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Pretty much every bruise and, and,

and, uh, cut that I have on my

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body is from an accident, right?

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So, um, blunt force trauma

doesn't equal abuse.

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But blunt force trauma

happens in cases of abuse.

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And it's certainly, there are patterns

to where those injuries occur on

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the body that can be red flags to

suggest that maybe this blunt force

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trauma injury might actually be

from abuse and not from an accident.

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And sometimes there won't necessarily

be patterns on the body that suggest

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that that's abuse, but it might be that

the story that we're told for why that

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injury occurred doesn't fit with the

injuries that we're seeing on the body.

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So it's a combination of where

they are on the body, but also,

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what's the story going along?

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What's the explanation for

why that injury occurred?

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DrG: I saw something like that several

years ago, that I received a dog that

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had a fractured femur, and the story was

that it was walking along the sidewalk,

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and it tripped and it fell off the curb.

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And it's like, there

is no curb high enough.

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I don't care how small the dog was.

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And then after investigating and showing

people the images, we did find out

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that it was a case of domestic violence

and the boyfriend had kicked the dog.

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So, it's very important, as you mentioned,

to hear the story and then see how

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your findings match the story, right?

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So, what kind of injuries do

you normally find when you're

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evaluating for blunt force trauma?

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Rachel Barton: When we see blunt force

trauma injuries, uh, we see things

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like abrasions, which, you know, is

where the skin is irritated but not

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completely damaged all the way through.

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Certainly, we can see bruising.

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Uh, we can see what we call lacerations,

which is where the skin or the tissue,

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if it's inside the body, you know,

an organ can lacerate, it's where

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it splits, and that's different from

a cut where it's made with a sharp,

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clean, you know, a knife or a blade.

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Um, the, the wounds look a little

bit differently when the skin

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splits from force versus being cut.

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And then we also see things like, uh,

avulsions where a tissue tears off

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another tissue where it's supposed

to be connected, like a, a ligament

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or a tendon can rip off of the bone.

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And we also see broken bones.

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And even, um, we can see trauma to

the brain and spinal cord that can

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cause, um, certain signs and symptoms

that we might see in a patient.

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DrG: So can you always find

evidence of blunt force trauma just

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from a physical examination, or

are some of these signs, hidden?

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Rachel Barton: That's

an excellent question.

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We don't always see signs

on the outside of the body.

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So an animal, or a person for that matter,

can sustain a significant blunt force.

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impact that can sort of move through

the tissues in the body, and it

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may not cause a big injury to the

skin, but can cause a substantial

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injury to the tissues deeper below.

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The other thing that's a little

bit different is, it may seem a

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little counterintuitive actually, is

that animals skin acts differently

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to blunt forces than people's.

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So if I were to get smacked by a baseball

bat, I would expect to have a bruise

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that I could just see with the naked

eye, but our pet's skin may not bruise.

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They have the hair that can protect

the skin, the tissues with the skin are

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a little bit different than ours are.

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And so there are times where I

have animals that have sustained

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significant blunt force trauma injuries.

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They may have significant broken

bones, um, lacerated organs inside

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their body, and we don't see a single

bruise on the outside of the body.

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Plus, it can take a while

for a bruise to develop.

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So if I'm examining an animal shortly

after it's undergone that trauma, I may

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not be able to see any bruising anyways,

cause they haven't developed yet.

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DrG: So once you have examined, uh,

an animal and found these injuries

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and you're writing your report, what

kind of things can you say or not

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say as far as if it looks like an

accidental or intentional injury?

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Rachel Barton: A lot of what we do is

we take our, our findings during our

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examination, uh, you know, our, our

evidence, if you will, and, and we

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really do have to sort of put it in

context to the whole investigation, and

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so that's where we're communicating with

the investigators and wanting to get as

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much information about the situation.

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My report may not be able to say this

bone is broken because the animal fell

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off of a step that was, you know, six

feet high, but my report can certainly

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say that they're saying this dog was

hit by a car and these injuries did

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not happen from being hit by a car.

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DrG: I actually just recently

had a case like that.

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The owner basically beat his

dog to death with a rock.

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But he had said that the dog had been

hit by a car just previous to that.

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And we were able to say, okay, these

are the injuries that we found.

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And we did not find any injuries that

were consistent with being hit by a car.

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Right?

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How is this important, not just

for bringing justice to the animal

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victim, but just as protecting

the community in general?

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Rachel Barton: We know there is a

direct link between violence against

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animals and violence against people,

especially other people living

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in the same home as that animal.

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There's a saying, you know, when animals

are being abused, people are at risk.

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When people are being

abused, animals are at risk.

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And so, in some, and that's one of the

reasons I think why in Tallahassee, we're

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taking these crimes more seriously, is

because local law enforcement enforcement

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recognizes that, you know, well, yes,

it may just be a dog to some people.

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Um, there may be children in the home.

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There may be seniors, elderly

individuals in the home.

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There may be vulnerable

adults in the home.

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Um, and everybody in that home is at risk.

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And certainly, you know, violence

against animals can be a sentinel

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for violence against others.

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DrG: Well, thank you so much for

sharing your knowledge and thank you

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so much for everything that you do

for animals and for the community.

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Rachel Barton: Thank you

so much for having me.

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I've enjoyed speaking with you.