Our next guest is Rachel Barton, Chief Veterinarian at the Tallahassee Animal Services. Thank you so much for being here and welcome to The Junction.

Thank you for having me.

So can you start by letting us know about your background, what you do now, and how it involves the field of forensics?

Sure. Um, I've been in veterinary medicine as a practicing veterinarian for over 25 years now. I spent about seven years in private practice. But 18 years ago, I, um, sort of took the leap, uh, into shelter medicine, which was a new sort of area of practice. When I graduated from vet school, veterinarians didn't work in animal shelters, so it's nothing I could have ever imagined doing back when I was a, a new vet student. Uh, but at the shelter, um, I work for the city of Tallahassee. And I work with animal control for the city and also with animal control for the county. And just occasionally they were asking me to take a look at animals that they had some concerns about. You know, hey doc, what, what might this be or can you help us think about this here? And eventually some of those cases were actually moving forward and getting prosecuted. And so, as time progressed, as our community became more progressive, as our politicians became more interested in pursuing crimes involving animals, um, I recognized that there was a need to get some extra training and expertise in that, so I actually, um, completed the Graduate Certificate in Veterinary Forensics at the University of Florida. I also had the opportunity to, um, do some volunteer work with the ASPCA on some of their large, uh, animal crimes cases, hoarding, dogfighting, things like that. And so over the years, just through my experiences, but then also through my education, um, I've started working more and more. And Tallahassee is a very progressive community and they take crimes against animals very seriously. So, uh, you When I first started there, it might be one or two cases a year, and now we are seeing one or two cases a week that are being investigated.

Nice. That's really good to hear, because it is, uh, it's something that we see a lot. Animal crime's not being investigated because either there's no resources, or people think it's just a dog, it's just a cat, and they don't think about the, the consequences of animal violence. Your topic today was about blunt force trauma. So what does that mean?

So blunt force trauma simply is some sort of trauma, some sort of injury that's occurred when a body and an object impact each other. It may be that the object is moving and it hits a stationary body. It may be that the body is moving and hits a stationary object. Or maybe the body and the object are moving and impact each other. And it could be something as simple as a hit or a kick or a punch or throwing an animal across the room and it hitting the wall or hitting the floor.

So is, is all blunt force trauma intentional or can it be accidental?

Well, I've learned from watching my own pets and even watching my own child that, um, there can be plenty of accidental, unintentional blunt force trauma. Accidents happen. Pretty much every bruise and, and, and, uh, cut that I have on my body is from an accident, right? So, um, blunt force trauma doesn't equal abuse. But blunt force trauma happens in cases of abuse. And it's certainly, there are patterns to where those injuries occur on the body that can be red flags to suggest that maybe this blunt force trauma injury might actually be from abuse and not from an accident. And sometimes there won't necessarily be patterns on the body that suggest that that's abuse, but it might be that the story that we're told for why that injury occurred doesn't fit with the injuries that we're seeing on the body. So it's a combination of where they are on the body, but also, what's the story going along? What's the explanation for why that injury occurred?

I saw something like that several years ago, that I received a dog that had a fractured femur, and the story was that it was walking along the sidewalk, and it tripped and it fell off the curb. And it's like, there is no curb high enough. I don't care how small the dog was. And then after investigating and showing people the images, we did find out that it was a case of domestic violence and the boyfriend had kicked the dog. So, it's very important, as you mentioned, to hear the story and then see how your findings match the story, right? So, what kind of injuries do you normally find when you're evaluating for blunt force trauma?

When we see blunt force trauma injuries, uh, we see things like abrasions, which, you know, is where the skin is irritated but not completely damaged all the way through. Certainly, we can see bruising. Uh, we can see what we call lacerations, which is where the skin or the tissue, if it's inside the body, you know, an organ can lacerate, it's where it splits, and that's different from a cut where it's made with a sharp, clean, you know, a knife or a blade. Um, the, the wounds look a little bit differently when the skin splits from force versus being cut. And then we also see things like, uh, avulsions where a tissue tears off another tissue where it's supposed to be connected, like a, a ligament or a tendon can rip off of the bone. And we also see broken bones. And even, um, we can see trauma to the brain and spinal cord that can cause, um, certain signs and symptoms that we might see in a patient.

So can you always find evidence of blunt force trauma just from a physical examination, or are some of these signs, hidden?

That's an excellent question. We don't always see signs on the outside of the body. So an animal, or a person for that matter, can sustain a significant blunt force. impact that can sort of move through the tissues in the body, and it may not cause a big injury to the skin, but can cause a substantial injury to the tissues deeper below. The other thing that's a little bit different is, it may seem a little counterintuitive actually, is that animals skin acts differently to blunt forces than people's. So if I were to get smacked by a baseball bat, I would expect to have a bruise that I could just see with the naked eye, but our pet's skin may not bruise. They have the hair that can protect the skin, the tissues with the skin are a little bit different than ours are. And so there are times where I have animals that have sustained significant blunt force trauma injuries. They may have significant broken bones, um, lacerated organs inside their body, and we don't see a single bruise on the outside of the body. Plus, it can take a while for a bruise to develop. So if I'm examining an animal shortly after it's undergone that trauma, I may not be able to see any bruising anyways, cause they haven't developed yet.

So once you have examined, uh, an animal and found these injuries and you're writing your report, what kind of things can you say or not say as far as if it looks like an accidental or intentional injury?

A lot of what we do is we take our, our findings during our examination, uh, you know, our, our evidence, if you will, and, and we really do have to sort of put it in context to the whole investigation, and so that's where we're communicating with the investigators and wanting to get as much information about the situation. My report may not be able to say this bone is broken because the animal fell off of a step that was, you know, six feet high, but my report can certainly say that they're saying this dog was hit by a car and these injuries did not happen from being hit by a car.

I actually just recently had a case like that. The owner basically beat his dog to death with a rock. But he had said that the dog had been hit by a car just previous to that. And we were able to say, okay, these are the injuries that we found. And we did not find any injuries that were consistent with being hit by a car. Right? How is this important, not just for bringing justice to the animal victim, but just as protecting the community in general?

We know there is a direct link between violence against animals and violence against people, especially other people living in the same home as that animal. There's a saying, you know, when animals are being abused, people are at risk. When people are being abused, animals are at risk. And so, in some, and that's one of the reasons I think why in Tallahassee, we're taking these crimes more seriously, is because local law enforcement enforcement recognizes that, you know, well, yes, it may just be a dog to some people. Um, there may be children in the home. There may be seniors, elderly individuals in the home. There may be vulnerable adults in the home. Um, and everybody in that home is at risk. And certainly, you know, violence against animals can be a sentinel for violence against others.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and thank you so much for everything that you do for animals and for the community.

Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed speaking with you.