  Finally, it is worth noting that a major shift in veterinary practice in regards to animal pain has occurred in the past decade.  Whereas surgery on animals was once routinely practiced without analgesics or anesthetics, the vast majority of veterinary practitioners now accept the basic premise that veterinarians can be trained to recognize animal pain reliably, and that veterinary patients benefit from the same kinds of pain alleviation treatments that are delivered to humans. It has even been argued that animals possess the neurobiological mechanisms responsible for phantom limb pain and neuropathic pain (pain in the presence of no obvious tissue damage or disease), and that these conditions may therefore be detectable and treatable in nonhuman animals (Mathews 2008). 