Healthcare technology has advanced steadily, from early surgical tools to robot-assisted surgery. Many breakthroughs have benefited humans and our well-loved pets alike. Yet, post-operative care can still be especially difficult. For a clinic team, the hard part is knowing how a patient is doing between checks. H.A.L.O gives veterinary clinics continuous, remote vitals monitoring for dogs recovering from surgery.

Why Might Pets Need Different Care After an Operation?

Pets can experience increased stress after an operation, and they may struggle to acclimate to the vet clinic and the methods used to monitor their vitals. This is supported by research from Döring et al. (2009), who investigated fear-related behaviour in dogs at the vet. In their study, they examined 135 dogs and found that 106 (78.5%) displayed fear or fear-related behaviours. Of those 135, 18 (13.3%) had to be dragged or carried into the practice, and 49 (36.3%) either entered with hesitant behaviour or hid behind their owner. In the treatment room, many showed signs or symptoms of stress and fear, as shown in the table below.

As this study shows, dogs are already stressed and nervous when entering a vet clinic. Testing a dog in that state is difficult, but imagine doing so after an operation, when the pet is already confused or in pain. This is why a wearable monitor that can track multiple vitals at the same time would be beneficial, since it would reduce the work and stress of running tests multiple times, especially after an operation. (American Animal Hospital Association [AAHA], 2019).

How Can Telemetry Improve Reactivity in Clinical Care?

Telemetry and remote monitoring provide detailed quantitative data that helps clinical teams detect changes in a patient’s condition early. In a retrospective study of about 7,000 dogs wearing activity monitors, vet visits following an alert became more frequent once alerts were delivered (Carson et al., 2023). In a hospital setting, Warhoe et al. (2025) tested a wireless harness on 19 hospitalized dogs and found that heart rate and respiratory rate readings followed the same trends as manual checks, showing that continuous monitoring in the clinic is achievable. H.A.L.O builds on this research with a harness engineered for clinical use and designed to improve the accuracy of continuous vitals monitoring.

Why It’s Needed in the Clinic

For clinics, continuous access to patient vitals is built to take repeated manual checks off a stretched team. Because the monitor records vitals continuously, staff can review a patient’s recovery trend at any point instead of relying only on scheduled checks. H.A.L.O brings that into everyday clinic use with a clinic-worn harness built for a conscious, moving dog: it tracks heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature and activity, and sends instant alerts to whoever is on shift.

AAHA's pain management guidelines note that dogs adjust their behaviour to minimize pain, and that calm behaviour can be a subtle sign of it (AAHA, 2022). This means that clinic staff may miss certain cues between checks. Continuous monitoring is designed to alert staff quickly to those changes after an operation. It could also reduce the stress patients face from repeated handling, especially after an operation.

Continuous monitoring and post-operative care doesn’t need to be a burden. Want early access? Join the Development Partner Program or the waitlist at halovet.ca, or email info@halovet.ca. More about us: About Us - H.A.L.O

References

American Animal Hospital Association. (2019, May 10). Minimizing the patient’s fear in the veterinary clinic. https://www.aaha.org/resources/2015-aaha-canine-and-feline-behavior-management-guidelines/minimizing-the-fear/

American Animal Hospital Association. (2022, February 10). Acute and perioperative canine pain assessment. https://www.aaha.org/resources/2022-aaha-pain-management-guidelines-for-dogs-and-cats/acute-and-perioperative-canine-pain-assessment/

Carson, A., Kresnye, C., Rai, T., Wells, K., Wright, A., & Hillier, A. (2023). Response of pet owners to Whistle FIT® activity monitor digital alerts of increased pruritic activity in their dogs: A retrospective observational study. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 10, Article 1123266. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1123266

Döring, D., Roscher, A., Scheipl, F., Küchenhoff, H., & Erhard, M. H. (2009). Fear-related behaviour of dogs in veterinary practice. The Veterinary Journal, 182(1), 38–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tvjl.2008.05.006

Warhoe, J., Simpson, S., Goldblatt, B., & Zersen, K. (2025). Validation of wireless harness for measuring respiratory rate, heart rate, and body temperature in hospitalized dogs. Veterinary Sciences, 12(7), Article 626. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci12070626