The Honest Vet On Pet Anti-Vaxxers, Banning Frenchies, & Pet Food Myths

0:00 You're my first veterinarian on the show.

0:02 Yeah, your first veterinarian?

0:04 Veterinarian.

0:04 (Dr.

0:04 Hammond chuckles) (gentle music) What's it like being on social media

0:08 as one who has to take care of other species outside of humans?

0:11 I'm almost at a disadvantage,

0:12 especially on social media because of my credentials.

0:15 [Doctor Mike] Do you think there's certain breeds of dogs that should be banned?

0:18 Well, this is so controversial, I have opinions.

0:21 [Doctor Mike] How does one know how much to feed their animal?

0:24 The back of the bag will kind of have a guideline.

0:26 And those are accurate and valuable?

0:27 Well, no, right?

0:29 Oh, okay.

0:29 Since we've been doing vaccines, now more pets are getting cancer.

0:32 Yes, more pets are getting cancer now because not only are they living longer,

0:35 we're also able to diagnose it.

0:37 If your cat or dog is overweight, is it always the human's fault?

0:41 (suspenseful music)- Imagine if you got a mosquito bite,

0:44 and six months later, there was a worm in your heart.

0:47 I'll never forget I had one dog.

0:49 She was a year old.

0:50 Her human loved her.

0:51 He brought her in because she was ADR, right?

0:53 Ain't doing right.

0:54 He was crying next to me as I'm

0:57 helping this dog pass and relieving her suffering.

1:00 And he just kept saying like, "This is all my fault.

1:02 This is all my fault, this is all my fault." I told him,

1:05 after the fact and I said, you know,

1:07 "Don't beat yourself up too badly." In her honor,

1:09 you will never ever forget to give another dog heart and preventative.

1:12 [Doctor Mike] Right.

1:13 And you will tell your friends.

1:14 I'm accused of being a vaccine chill all the time,

1:17 but did you know the same allegations

1:19 are being thrown at your local veterinarian?

1:21 Doctors who treat humans aren't the only ones battling against misinformation.

1:25 Today's guest, Dr.

1:27 Sylvalyn Hammond, is known online as thehonestvet.

1:30 She's amassed millions of views of the day-to-day life,

1:33 she has treating dogs, cats, and even the occasional cow.

1:36 I assume Dr.

1:37 Hammond and I would have completely different experiences in healthcare,

1:41 given I treat creatures with two feet and she mostly treats creatures with four,

1:47 but I was surprised to learn how much we actually have in common, Ozempic cats,

1:51 anti-vax dogs, and people who insist on the health

1:55 benefits of feeding their animals raw milk.

1:57 So I invited Dr.

1:58 Hammond onto the show for a deep dive

2:00 into topics like pet food and banning dog breeds.

2:03 We also got a bit personal when I asked her to help

2:06 me figure out what exactly went wrong when my sweet girl,

2:09 Roxy, lost her leg at the vet a few years ago.

2:12 No matter how exotic your pet, whether it be a cat,

2:15 dog, or sugar glider, I promise Dr.

2:17 Hammond has some insight for you,

2:18 starting with what being a veterinarian is really like.

2:21 Your job is hard, not just in your day-to-day practice,

2:26 but fighting on social media,

2:28 all of these trends that are happening in the world of animal medicine.

2:33 I'm gonna stay away from veterinarian.

2:35 Yeah.

2:36 (Dr.

2:36 Hammond chuckles)- I'm still saying it wrong.

2:39 But in all seriousness, what's it like being on social media as one who

2:43 has to take care of other species outside of humans?

2:47 So, I guess the best way for me to explain

2:49 it to you is kind of just being a pediatrician, right?

2:52 Oh, okay.

2:53 Because-- I've said that before and I've gotten some weird faces.

2:55 I mean, well, it is, because the animals are like the children,

2:59 and they don't get to consent to treatment or not.

3:03 They don't get to approve or deny what you do.

3:08 And you have to have the parent or owner or pet guardian or whoever be

3:14 willing to do the treatments that are

3:17 necessary or the follow-ups and all those things.

3:19 So I always tell doctors, it's like being a pediatrician,

3:22 because not only do you have to care for the patient,

3:26 but you also need to be really,

3:28 really good at communicating and educating the client or the parent.

3:32 Right?

3:33 Sure.

3:33 So that's like the best way to make it make sense.

3:36 And it's tough in this age of social media, and the internet.

3:43 And, I mean, it's just the Wild West out there.

3:46 Anybody can get a fancy microphone and some lighting, and put together a really,

3:53 really good looking piece of content and say something extremely controversial,

3:58 and it's gonna go viral.

3:59 Yeah.

4:00 And what's on that content could be so false, and so just harmful potentially,

4:09 but people don't know what to look for, they don't know what to watch out for.

4:14 The person on screen looks very confident, what they're saying makes sense,

4:17 because the people who are listening to it don't have a background in medicine,

4:22 they don't understand, they can't see all the holes that we can see.

4:25 And then it's already got millions of views and shares and clicks,

4:29 and the damage is done.

4:30 Yeah.

4:31 Right?

4:31 So, being a veterinarian or a doctor on social media, it's hard right now.

4:38 I do feel like we are kind of losing the war with misinformation a little bit.

4:41 Do you feel like the vet organizations are doing

4:43 a good job trying to enter this space or not really?

4:47 You know, I think we could be doing more.

4:50 [Doctor Mike] Okay.

4:51 There are a lot of veterinarians like

4:53 myself who are really putting ourselves out there, who are making content.

4:57 We are trying to bust myths,

5:00 and also just present information in a easily digestible way,

5:04 and just trying to get in front of it a little bit,

5:07 but I do feel like most of the time we are on the back foot.

5:10 Yeah.

5:10 Right?

5:11 Most of the time we are trying to reverse damage that is done,

5:14 and that's so much harder than trying to get in front of it.

5:17 Yeah.

5:18 So I do wish some of these bigger veterinarian organizations,

5:21 or veterinary organizations or whatever would also

5:24 be more involved on social media and things.

5:28 But right now it's really just veterinarians like me.

5:29 What do you think they're afraid of 'cause in the human side of things,

5:33 the organizations have been laid to the game because they

5:36 said we should be only talking at medical conferences and-- Yeah.

5:40 [Doctor Mike] Medical journals.

5:41 Is that the same world there?

5:42 It is very similar, yeah.

5:43 And I can see their point.

5:46 There's a huge argument about it's not

5:49 professional to be a veterinarian on social media.

5:51 (Doctor Mike stammers) It's hard, right?

5:54 (chuckles)- They say that in human land.

5:55 They're like, "They're just making silly little TikToks

5:58 or whatever," but I think we're doing something necessary.

6:02 I really think, because if we're not there

6:05 on social media trying to show people like, "Hey, look how much we care,

6:09 and look how much we know and look how much we can do

6:12 for you." And if we're not there doing that, then who's there, right?

6:17 Just the people who-- Yeah, the bad actors.

6:18 Right, yeah.

6:19 And these people mean well.

6:20 I don't think that they have any malicious intent.

6:24 Most of the people who are putting out potentially harmful pet information,

6:29 I think they truly love animals.

6:30 Hmm.

6:31 Many of them have animals, but they don't know what they don't know, right?

6:36 And they don't know how harmful it is because they

6:38 don't have the background and the knowledge that we do.

6:41 Yeah.

6:43 And that's why it's dangerous.

6:45 Are there any specific examples you can point to?

6:47 Like, in our current world,

6:49 the longevity side of things is getting blown out of proportion,

6:54 vaccine misinformation, what's happening on the vet side of things?

6:57 Yeah.

6:58 I mean, (sighs) most of it mirrors human medicine.

7:00 Really?

7:01 Right.

7:01 A lot of it parallels, right?

7:02 There are trends in human medicine, and then people think, "Okay, well,

7:06 if I'm doing this for me and for my health,

7:08 I should do it for my pet too."- Right.

7:10 Right?

7:10 And so, we do see this kind of trickle down.

7:13 So yeah, we're having a lot of the same problems,

7:18 I should say, a lot of the same battles.

7:21 Vaccine misinformation is huge.

7:23 Really?

7:23 What are the claims that they make?

7:25 Do they also say it causes autism?

7:27 No, it's pautism.

7:29 Oh, is that a thing?

7:30 (chuckles) No.

7:30 Oh, okay, I was gonna say, I don't know.

7:32 I say it as a joke.

7:33 There may be people who believe that it

7:35 could cause mental problems in pets, I'm not sure,

7:38 but we see a lot of people saying it causes immune system problems,

7:42 so like autoimmune disorders.

7:44 Got it.

7:44 They link it to allergies, any chronic disease.

7:47 They're like, "Oh, all of these diseases are caused by your pet

7:49 having gotten the vaccine because their immune system was weakened,

7:52 blah, blah, blah, blah,

7:53 blah." We see a lot of people saying it causes cancer in pets.

7:58 There's the argument that, okay, it's kind of hard, right?

8:01 There's some people who are saying online that pets are living shorter lives,

8:05 that they used to live to be 20 to 30, which isn't true.

8:07 Pets are actually living longer now than they ever have before,

8:09 because of all of the things that we can do for them that we couldn't do before.

8:14 And so, on one hand, you have people saying that.

8:16 They're like, "Oh, pets aren't living as long because

8:18 of your vaccines." But then on the other hand, you have people saying, "Oh,

8:21 the vaccines are causing cancer and making pets

8:24 live shorter lives." Both of these for some reason,

8:27 very viral things on social media, but one of the big things is that, okay,

8:32 the vaccines, since we've been doing vaccines, now more pets are getting cancer.

8:35 And I'm like, "Yes, more pets are getting

8:37 cancer now because not only are they living longer,

8:39 but we're also able to diagnose it." I mean,

8:42 think about 30 years ago, when your pet got sick,

8:45 maybe even longer than that, I mean,

8:48 the '50s, '60s, it was still like a lot of farm dogs, right?

8:51 And what happened to those dogs when they got sick?

8:55 They just-- "Old Yeller?"- Died.

8:57 Yeah, we could talk about "Old Yeller."

8:59 If you've never read "Old Yeller," and you're

9:00 listening to this, please go read "Old Yeller."

9:02 If we're talking about the importance of vaccines.

9:05 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

9:05 For those of you who don't know,

9:06 and I don't wanna ruin the book, but "Old Yeller" gets rabies, okay?

9:11 Very sad, 100% fatal.

9:13 Yeah.

9:13 Okay, and Old Yeller dies and it's horrible.

9:16 But all the Old Yeller doesn't die of rabies.

9:18 I don't remember, oh, yeah.

9:20 You know, yeah.

9:21 Behind the shed, right?

9:22 Yeah, that's kind of what would happen

9:23 with these pets who were sick, 50, 60 years ago.

9:29 People weren't gonna do diagnostics for them.

9:32 I mean, they might take them to the veterinarian

9:33 and the veterinarian didn't have diagnostics, right?

9:35 Sure.

9:36 Maybe they had an X-ray.

9:37 Maybe, I don't know when we could start doing blood work on pets.

9:40 Actually, I have no idea when that became a thing.

9:43 But so diagnostics were more limited.

9:45 I mean, we couldn't test for some of these cancers.

9:48 We couldn't recognize them if we saw them.

9:50 So, not only were they not diagnosed, but also, people,

9:53 even if they were, weren't gonna do things for them.

9:57 Yeah.

9:57 It was just like "old age" as the cause of death probably.

10:00 Yeah, old age was the cause of death.

10:01 And also, back then, on the argument of pets were living longer,

10:05 people weren't recording their pet's birthdays.

10:08 Yeah, exactly.

10:08 Right?

10:09 Now it's so cute.

10:09 You see all these birthday parties or the gotcha days or whatever.

10:14 People can tell you to the day how old their pets are.

10:16 [Doctor Mike] Right, yeah.

10:17 Because their pets are family.

10:18 Back then, they're like, "Oh, we think he's 15,

10:20 but he was probably like eight." He just

10:22 looked rough because he was the farm dog,

10:24 like nobody really knew how old their pets were.

10:27 Very true.

10:27 I had a woman bring me a dog once,

10:29 and she told me the dog was 35, or I think it was like 32.

10:32 In spirit.

10:34 She was convinced.

10:36 She brought the dog to us.

10:37 She said the dog hadn't had veterinary care in a very, very long time,

10:40 that it was her mother's dog and her mother had

10:42 passed away and she was taking over ownership of the dog.

10:45 Looking at this dog, I mean, we have ways of aging pets.

10:48 We can look at-- The rings.

10:49 Yeah, we cut them open and we know, teeth, kind of joint health, their eyes.

10:56 As pets age, there's changes to the eyes that you can detect.

11:00 So this dog, I would have guessed was probably like four or five.

11:03 (chuckles) So I kindly said to this woman, you know, I said,

11:05 "I really truly don't think that your dog is 32 or whatever.

11:08 I really think our dog is more like five to six,

11:11 and I think it's important that you know that."- Maybe she said three to five.

11:14 No, no, she was very sure, and she's like, "No,

11:17 my mom got this dog when I was in college." And I was like,

11:21 "Well, maybe your mom's had multiple dogs, you know,

11:24 and has just given them the same name 'cause some people do that."- Sure, yeah.

11:27 You know?

11:28 They just have-- Especially for children.

11:29 Yeah, (chuckles) right?

11:30 Try not to tell them that something happened.

11:32 Right, I don't know, I don't know.

11:33 But yeah, so there is a lot of confusion about when the pet was born

11:38 and back then before they had annual veterinary

11:41 visits and records and all of these things.

11:43 Sure.

11:43 I can see why people thought pets were living a really long time.

11:46 Well, you said that there's parallels in healthcare

11:48 between animals and humans, and it's so true.

11:51 Right now, we have people in the administration who are saying,

11:54 "We have the worst chronic health epidemic in the United States,

11:57 it's 'cause healthcare sucks." And all we have to do is

12:00 look at how good we've gotten at helping people survive acute illnesses.

12:04 Yeah.

12:05 So when they get an infection, when they get a heart attack,

12:07 when they get a stroke,

12:08 when they otherwise would have died with type 1 diabetes early on.

12:11 So, we've gotten so good at keeping them

12:13 alive that they are now chronic health patients.

12:16 Yeah.

12:16 Much in the same way that pets are living longer, so they develop cancer.

12:20 Which is interesting in healthcare, there's this through line of, if you solve

12:24 one problem in health and then you live longer,

12:26 something else breaks down, and it creates a new problem.

12:28 Yeah.

12:29 Well, you can't live forever, right?

12:30 So eventually, something is going to-- Well,

12:33 Brian Johnson would argue otherwise.

12:34 (chuckles) Yeah, yeah.

12:35 [Doctor Mike] 'Cause he's gonna live forever.

12:36 Yeah, okay.

12:37 Yeah.

12:37 Well, good for him, I don't want to.

12:39 I also don't think it's possible, so.

12:41 Yeah, yeah.

12:43 It is really tough.

12:44 And it's hard too when people in a position

12:47 of power are putting out or fueling this information.

12:50 Sure.

12:52 I do agree with some of what's being said, like, yeah,

12:55 maybe we could focus on exercise and eating healthy and access to healthy food,

12:59 but like-- Yeah, that's been said for decades.

13:01 It has, right?

13:01 And here's the thing, everyone knows that.

13:03 These people with some of these chronic diseases

13:07 that could be linked to preventable diseases like weight,

13:10 right, excess body weight, they know, right?

13:14 But there's a reason they can't and there's a reason they're not.

13:16 And it would be a disservice for us to say, "You have this chronic disease,

13:21 but you probably could just exercise and eat more.

13:22 So I'm not gonna do anything for you."- Exactly.

13:25 Go exercise and go eat better,

13:27 and then what's gonna happen to that person, right?

13:30 They might not do it.

13:31 Yeah.

13:31 That argument is hard.

13:33 I did an episode of this episode where

13:35 I was surrounded by folks who disagreed with me,

13:38 and supported the administration.

13:39 And there was a person who kept saying,

13:41 "We can solve all our problems with lifestyle changes like dietary changes,

13:45 exercise." And I said, yes, we preach it,

13:48 that's the first thing I recommend unless it's obviously emerge it.

13:51 But not everyone can, not everyone will, not everyone wants to.

13:54 Yeah.

13:54 And that's their choice.

13:56 It's bodily autonomy.

13:56 Yeah.

13:57 We wanna give people a choice.

13:58 Yes.

13:59 So, how do we get people to do that thing and they

14:03 never have an answer other than-- And will you ignore them?

14:05 Be a good example.

14:05 Will ignore the disease that the person has in the meantime-- Exactly.

14:08 Where you're waiting for them to lose the weight.

14:09 This is a conversation, again, there's so many parallels in animal medicine.

14:15 So, dogs who have really, really bad inflamed, like dermatitis, right?

14:20 Itchy skin disease, essentially.

14:22 There are-- It's not eczema in dogs?

14:25 No, we don't really call.

14:26 Oh, interesting.

14:26 Well, you can have dogs with dry skin and I'm not really sure what causes X.

14:29 I don't know much about humans, to be honest.

14:32 Okay, okay, so eczema.

14:32 What is eczema really?

14:34 Is a dermatitis.

14:35 Okay.

14:35 Atopic dermatitis.

14:36 Atopic dermatitis, yes.

14:37 So, we have atopic dermatitis to dogs.

14:39 [Doctor Mike] So, same thing, yeah.

14:40 Super common, right?

14:41 Now, are there ways that we can help reduce that dog's level of itch naturally?

14:45 Yes, right?

14:47 Removing excess body weight because we know fat is inflammatory.

14:49 Yep, we can do that.

14:50 We can bathe the dog more.

14:52 We can brush the dog more.

14:53 We can wipe the dog's paws with wipes every time it's exposed to pawn,

14:57 wipe its belly, wipe it off, clean it off.

14:59 There are so many things pet parents can do at home to help

15:03 mitigate that dog's level of itch and get them to a comfortable level.

15:05 Some dogs might only need that.

15:08 Some dogs, that would be like maybe one in 10, I would guess,

15:12 maybe a few of them really could be controlled with lifestyle changes, right?

15:17 But many of them won't respond to that alone.

15:20 They'll still need medications to control their itch

15:23 and give them a good quality of life, right?

15:26 There's dogs who literally will come into me

15:28 and they have like scratched their skin off,

15:31 and they're red and they're naked and they look so, so sad.

15:34 And we have these incredibly safe and effective treatments for atopic

15:39 dermatitis now to help control a dog's level of itch.

15:41 And I mean, I have seen it change lives.

15:43 There are millions of dogs on these medications,

15:45 but then there are groups of people who will say like, okay,

15:48 well, these medications are harmful, these medications are unnecessary,

15:52 your veterinarian is prescribing these because they wanna make money, right?

15:59 Is there a vet pharmacill, like.

16:02 do they say that to you?

16:03 So they say that, right?

16:04 There's a huge thing veterinarians are chills for big pharma.

16:07 Oh, okay.

16:07 So this is one example, right?

16:08 Same throughout, okay.

16:09 Like prescribing this medication as opposed

16:10 to having the owners do all those things.

16:12 When in reality, we are prescribing the medication and saying, "Okay,

16:16 let's start this medication to give your pet some relief because gosh,

16:19 they look miserable.

16:21 They have skin infections because they're destroying their skin

16:24 barrier with all this itching and scratching and inflammation.

16:27 So, let's get in control of this, and then see what we can

16:31 control with all these other things we've

16:33 mentioned." But it's also so much work.

16:35 You have a big dog.

16:36 I saw you did a-- Sure.

16:38 You did a video of giving your dog a bath.

16:39 Yeah, it's a lot of work, yeah.

16:41 Right, what was that?

16:42 That was like a two hour process for you?

16:43 More, more easily.

16:44 Yeah.

16:44 The drying is-- Now imagine if your dog

16:46 had a horrible skin disease and I said, great,

16:48 I'm gonna give you this medicated shampoo,

16:49 you need to give him a bath every single day.

16:51 Yeah.

16:52 [Dr.

16:52 Hammond] Would you be able to do that?

16:53 No shot.

16:53 Reasonably?

16:54 Yeah, no, no, no.

16:54 Right?

16:55 It's impossible.

16:55 Right?

16:56 Yeah.

16:56 And so, if that's the solution for a lot of these pets,

16:59 I mean, that's just not realistic, right?

17:01 I wish it were.

17:02 I wish none of us had to work and we could just give our dogs baths all day,

17:05 wouldn't it be lovely?

17:06 Yeah.

17:07 But it's not practical, right?

17:08 And so, these medications can really help us help pets more than ever before.

17:14 And again, yet then we're told that we're

17:16 chills for big pharma and we're told that we're

17:18 not looking after the patient's wellbeing because

17:20 these things can "cause cancer" and all this stuff,

17:22 even though again, there's no evidence to support that.

17:25 We are often told that we are

17:27 chills for big pharma for prescribing parasite prevention.

17:31 [Doctor Mike] Mm, okay.

17:32 So, I don't know about New York City.

17:33 I'm sure there's fleas here because you have rodents.

17:36 Rats.

17:37 Yeah.

17:39 Poor rats, I'm sure they have fleas.

17:40 I'm sure they would love parasite prevention.

17:42 Yeah, sure.

17:43 But in many places in the United States,

17:46 there's heavy tick populations in the mountains.

17:48 We have a lot of ticks here.

17:49 [Dr.

17:49 Hammond] You have ticks here?

17:50 I mean, we're right next to Lyme Connecticut.

17:51 Right, yeah, exactly.

17:52 Lyme disease is huge and we see it in pets too.

17:55 And we have heartworm disease, which thank God humans don't get that.

17:58 'Cause imagine if you got a mosquito bite,

18:00 and six months later, there was a worm in your heart.

18:05 Actually, humans can get it, but it's extremely uncommon.

18:07 I don't know, if you know anything about it

18:09 or if you learned about it in medical school.

18:10 No, heartworm for humans.

18:12 I'm very glad.

18:12 It is devastating.

18:14 It is deadly.

18:15 But it is easily preventable,

18:17 we have prolonged released injections for dogs that don't tolerate oral

18:22 medications well or who are very difficult to give medications to.

18:25 We have chewable once a month treats that can do heartworm, fleas and ticks.

18:30 And we are often told-- I've always been curious about

18:32 that 'cause I give my dogs I think Simparico Trio.

18:36 Simparica Trio.

18:37 Yeah.

18:37 What did you thought?

18:38 I don't know exactly what-- [Dr.

18:39 Hammond] Say it again.

18:39 Symparico?

18:40 A lot of people say like Simpaticon.

18:41 Like, that's really cute.

18:42 Yeah, it is really cute.

18:43 Yeah, Symparica Trio is probably what you're giving.

18:46 Yeah, it's a great product.

18:48 Okay.

18:49 So my question about it is, in thinking about flea and tick prevention.

18:54 [Dr.

18:54 Hammond] Yeah.

18:55 How, if I give it on September 1st, on September 5th,

19:01 how is the flea being impacted by what I gave by me?

19:03 Yeah, like how is it still in effect?

19:05 [Doctor Mike] Yeah, yeah.

19:06 So for fleas, so this is where it gets a bad thing, right?

19:09 So, it like disrupts the neurotransmitter or whatever in the flea's mind.

19:15 [Doctor Mike] Okay.

19:16 The flea will basically have like a neurological

19:18 episode and die after it bites your dog.

19:19 So, yes, these things are in your dog system for a number of days.

19:23 Roughly 30 days to control that for fleas and ticks.

19:26 Got it.

19:27 And a very, very small percentage of dogs,

19:30 dogs who are already prone to seizures

19:33 can have seizures if they get this medication,

19:36 the isoxazoline drug family, that's what's in Symparica Trio.

19:41 It can cause a seizure in dogs.

19:42 Again, dogs who for some reason already have

19:45 a seizure like this or-- Lower seizure threshold.

19:46 A lower seizure threshold, exactly.

19:48 And so there now is this big thing

19:51 saying these medications-- But they're not developing epilepsy.

19:53 They're developing a single seizure episode.

19:55 And then stopped, that's it.

19:57 That's it, right?

19:57 So, if we give it to a dog and they have a seizure, then we say,

20:00 okay, we're gonna find a different acceptable

20:03 product that will keep your dog safe.

20:05 You might have to do like a different.

20:07 Zinc.

20:08 What's the other product?

20:09 There's so many, there's so many.

20:12 So, isoxazoline, that's gonna be what's in NexGard,

20:16 Symparica, Cordelio, but then there's the topicals.

20:18 There's Revolution, which doesn't do ticks unfortunately,

20:21 but there's the K9 Advantix,

20:23 there's Vectra, there are so many different medications.

20:25 So, if I have a pet, Symparica is nice because it's convenient, Symperica Trio.

20:30 It's gonna just do all the things you need.

20:32 You just have to give one pill once a month,

20:34 kind of set it in your mind, forget it.

20:35 Right.

20:36 But if the pet has a seizure or something,

20:37 will we find other things that we can do,

20:39 things that are gonna be safe for that patient, it's individualized care.

20:45 It's very, very unlikely that even if your dog were to have

20:47 a seizure taking these medications that they

20:49 would actually succumb-- Sure, of course.

20:51 To that seizure.

20:52 But again, veterinarians-- And it's a low risk, I'm assuming.

20:55 It's extremely low.

20:56 Yeah.

20:56 It's an extremely low risk.

20:57 And again, if a dog already has,

20:58 if they come to me and they've had epilepsy for years,

21:00 I'm obviously not gonna put them on that medication, right?

21:03 Yeah, yeah.

21:03 Have a conversation with the owner about things we should do instead.

21:08 Are there over the counter dog medicines?

21:11 For fleas and ticks, yes.

21:12 Okay.

21:13 Not for heartworm disease.

21:14 The reason being is that heartworms, we need to test for annually.

21:18 Heartworms have developed resistance to ivermectin,

21:22 so you can have breakthrough infections, and because it's very deadly, right?

21:28 If we miss that your dog has heartworms,

21:31 they can have an anaphylactic reaction taking the heartworm medication.

21:36 [Doctor Mike] Wow.

21:36 So, it's not available over the counter 'cause yeah, that could be really bad.

21:39 Got it.

21:40 So, yes.

21:40 But yeah, we're told that we're chills

21:42 for big pharma by prescribing parasite prevention.

21:44 But then we see, right, I have seen dogs die from heartworms disease.

21:48 Right.

21:49 Right?

21:49 Horrible.

21:50 And then, the owners are devastated.

21:53 I'll never forget, I had one dog, she was a year old, a year old, pitty mix.

21:57 Her human loved her.

21:59 He brought her in because she was ADR, right?

22:01 Ain't doing right is what we say in veterinary medicine.

22:04 Oh, okay.

22:06 It's on your "problem list." It's not a diagnosis,

22:07 but they come in the owner's like, ADR, ain't doing right.

22:10 That'll be on the the chart.

22:12 What's my next appointment?

22:13 Now she's ADR.

22:15 And when I saw her, I was like, "Oh, my gosh,

22:17 this dog's in shock." And she was in what's called Caval Syndrome.

22:23 And what happens is that your heart fills up with so many

22:26 heartworms that essentially it cannot function

22:29 and the heartworms clog the heart,

22:31 and then your body goes into shock and like decompensates.

22:34 [Doctor Mike] Wow.

22:35 The only way to treat that is to do an emergency

22:37 procedure where we actually cut into the jugular vein in surgery,

22:41 and we go through and we pull the heartworms out of the dog's heart, right?

22:44 So, this person was your average Joe, right?

22:47 That's obviously what I described as an expensive procedure.

22:50 Most people aren't gonna have the funds

22:52 for that, especially on an emergency basis.

22:54 And so, he elected humane euthanasia

22:56 for his dog as opposed to letting her suffer.

22:58 And he was crying next to me as I'm

23:02 helping this dog pass and relieving her suffering.

23:05 And he just kept saying like, "This is all my fault.

23:07 This is all my fault, this is all my fault." And it's just

23:10 something you don't ever wanna experience again, right?

23:13 This is before I started my social media.

23:16 And this is because he didn't wanna give the heartworm prevention.

23:19 He wasn't giving the dog the heartworm,

23:20 he just didn't think it was that important.

23:21 Got it.

23:22 Right?

23:22 He was told about it at his puppy visits, didn't think it was that important,

23:27 didn't understand the severity of heartworm disease

23:30 and how quickly it could affect his dog.

23:34 And I told him, after the fact and I said, "Don't beat yourself up too badly,

23:40 but use her story, you will never

23:44 ever forget to give another dog heartworm preventative,

23:46 and you will tell your friends in her honor to make

23:49 sure that they do not skip their dog's heartworm preventative." Right?

23:53 That's really hard.

23:54 It's horrible, right?

23:55 (chuckles) We don't ever wanna see that.

23:56 And so, we see those things, or we see the dogs who come in with clotting,

24:00 bleeding disorders, internal bleeding from some of these tickborne diseases,

24:03 like Ehrlichia and Anaplasma.

24:06 We see the dogs with Lyme disease.

24:09 My dog has Lyme disease.

24:10 Your dog has Lyme disease?

24:11 Yeah.

24:11 Were you not giving your preventative?

24:14 I think he was born in a very farmy environment, upstate New York.

24:19 And like with ostriches,

24:21 I think they had like really a wide variety about llamas and stuff.

24:25 Okay.

24:26 Maybe not ostriches, maybe it was llamas.

24:27 [Dr.

24:28 Hammond] Sure.

24:29 It was a very wildlife-- Yeah.

24:31 Exposed community.

24:32 So I think that's where it came from, because

24:34 we were giving it to him and he was fine, and all of a sudden he converted,

24:38 or the first time we tested in the city, he converted.

24:41 He was zero positive.

24:43 Is he just seropositive or did they test-- He had symptoms-- Okay, okay.

24:47 They did like a confirmation test for whatever it is the secondary.

24:51 Our tests are for antibodies.

24:52 Yeah.

24:52 It can be exposure.

24:53 You have the initial screening, and then you have the confirmation test.

24:56 Mm-hmm, exactly, yeah.

24:57 So, if we get a positive snap, we say,

24:59 "Okay, your dog's been exposed."- [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

25:02 But whether or not they have clinical disease requires further investigation.

25:04 It was confirmed.

25:04 And then afterwards, every time they test for-- [Dr.

25:06 Hammond] Yeah, he'll always be positive.

25:08 He gets positive.

25:08 I'm like, "I know, I know."- Yeah, he'll be positive for a very, very long time,

25:11 anywhere from like three to five years sometimes to life,

25:13 just depending on how robust his response was.

25:16 I was actually doing a lot of research at that time trying to figure out,

25:19 this is super specific, and probably the audience, like, we don't care.

25:22 [Dr.

25:22 Hammond] Yeah.

25:23 I was trying to figure out whether or not I should treat him with doxy,

25:27 given the fact that perhaps he had no symptoms.

25:30 Yeah.

25:30 Well, you said he had symptoms though, so he should have been treated.

25:32 So he ended up-- Okay.

25:34 Having joint weirdness.

25:35 Yeah.

25:36 And I wasn't sure that he, again, because it wasn't clear with a dog his size.

25:41 [Dr.

25:41 Hammond] Yeah.

25:42 Is he just having a pulled muscle?

25:44 Is his joint achy?

25:45 Is it Lyme disease?

25:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:46 So you're like, you know what, better safe than sorry.

25:47 Yeah, I would've treated that.

25:49 Yeah, yeah.

25:49 In those scenarios, so yeah.

25:50 But anyway, I mean, these medications,

25:52 we're not making that much money from, to be honest,

25:56 and these days, most people are ordering

25:58 them from Chewy or 1-800-PetMeds or whatever.

26:01 And so, your veterinarian is not making any money.

26:03 In that process.

26:04 I'm not making any money.

26:05 I write the script, I give it to you, you take it to the pharmacy.

26:09 So people say, "Oh, veterinarians are in it and the money,

26:11 or there's chills for big pharma.

26:12 They're pushing this product on my pet that." I'm like,

26:14 "I don't make any money from this.

26:16 I just do not wanna see your dog die, or see your pet suffer,

26:20 because I have to live with it." Like I said,

26:23 I'll never forget that pet that died.

26:25 [Doctor Mike] Of course.

26:27 I could go to that moment at any time.

26:28 There's some cases that just you cannot,

26:31 as much as I almost wish I could forget and I

26:33 don't want to because I wanna honor the memory of that pet,

26:35 but it stinks and I hate it and I hate that feeling.

26:39 And that's ultimately what drove me to actually start

26:41 my social media is I was just kind of generally ketoed.

26:45 Not that case, but cases like it.

26:47 Puppies, you hold a puppy dying from parvo.

26:52 Again, I probably would relate it to being like a pediatrician, right?

26:55 I don't know that I could ever do that, but I mean, yeah, right?

27:02 And easily preventable disease.

27:04 [Doctor Mike] For sure.

27:05 Now we have a monoclonal antibody treatment for parvo actually that's expensive,

27:09 but extremely effective.

27:11 So hopefully, we won't have to see nearly as many puppies die from parvo,

27:14 but we have a vaccine that's like 99% effective.

27:18 Yeah.

27:18 After like the second dose or something.

27:20 Wow.

27:21 And it's extremely safe.

27:22 And people decline it, or people don't think they need it,

27:27 or people think that we're just pushing these unnecessary vaccines on them,

27:30 and then we have to be the ones in that situation, and it sucks.

27:36 Yeah.

27:36 I don't ever wanna be there.

27:39 I had enough cases like this, I think

27:40 I was like two years out of veterinary school,

27:42 and I was just kind of PO'd one day,

27:45 and I was on social media and I was seeing misinformation.

27:49 I was like, "Well, that's not right at all." I'm like,

27:51 who the heck is this person and what are their credentials?

27:53 And if they're putting all this information out there, I could do that.

27:56 Yeah.

27:57 Because in the clinic setting, I talk to maybe 20 to 30 people a day,

28:02 depending on phone calls and appointments and things like that.

28:05 And that's 20 to 30 people a day that I can help.

28:07 But on social media, I mean, I can reach thousands of people a day.

28:11 Millions.

28:11 Yeah.

28:11 I've had a few that have gotten a million views, and I mean, it's a blessing.

28:16 It's a blessing and a curse, because I can help millions of people prevent,

28:21 or I can help them avoid that situation

28:24 that other owners have had to experience.

28:27 And in a selfish sense, I can keep myself from ever experiencing that again.

28:31 Very true, yeah.

28:34 Given that there's so many parallels,

28:36 we say one of the worst habits that someone

28:38 can have is smoking a pack per day of cigarettes.

28:41 Mm-hmm.

28:42 What's the equivalent of smoking a pack per day for a human, but for an animal?

28:47 Yeah.

28:47 Well, so you can have secondhand smoke exposure in pets.

28:49 Is that the worst?

28:51 No, it's probably not.

28:51 Oh.

28:52 We don't see it as a commonly anymore, thank goodness.

28:54 Right?

28:55 Because you guys have done such a good job

28:56 educating the public on the health risks of smoking.

29:00 I don't know if you remember when we were in elementary school,

29:02 they would bring in like the lungs-- Oh, yeah, yeah.

29:04 In the box.

29:05 Of course, yeah.

29:06 And I was like, oh, my God, you saw like the black ones.

29:07 That was great.

29:09 Whatever they were doing.

29:09 Great visual.

29:10 I hope they're still doing that because it definitely was-- Maybe for vaping.

29:13 They should bring in a popcorn lung or something.

29:15 I don't even know about vaping that sounds, yeah.

29:16 I'm sure that's the whole new thing.

29:17 Well, because now that's the new thing's happening.

29:19 Yeah.

29:20 Yeah.

29:20 But anyway, I have seen pets pass

29:22 away unfortunately from secondhand smoke inhalation chronically, right?

29:25 Their lungs have cancer, riddled with cancer.

29:30 But that's probably not the most common thing we see.

29:31 I would say honestly, if you're looking at long-term health and kind

29:34 of keeping your dog as healthy as possible,

29:36 as long as possible or a cat or whatever you have at home,

29:39 but the most common thing is just weight management.

29:42 Okay.

29:43 We love our pets, and so we tend to be pretty heavy handed with treats, right?

29:47 They're looking at you with those big eyes.

29:50 Yeah.

29:51 [Dr.

29:51 Hammond] And you're eating some tasty.

29:52 And you think, "Oh, just one chunk of this food

29:54 won't hurt them." But let's say it's a small pet, right?

29:57 It's like a 15-pound dachshunds, right?

30:00 And so you give them a piece of your food that you're like, "Oh,

30:02 it's just my little leftover,

30:03 I'm not gonna eat." But that's like a whole meal for them.

30:06 And then you're still giving them their regular meal,

30:08 or you're not portioning or being mindful of treats and stuff.

30:12 I mean, the majority of dogs and cats in America now are overweight or obese.

30:18 Wow, just like humans.

30:19 (both chuckle)- Yeah, I mean, again, it all parallels.

30:21 And I try to tell people a lot of times, a dog and a cat,

30:26 their love language, excuse me,

30:27 their love language isn't necessarily treats, it's quality time.

30:32 They just wanna spend time with you.

30:34 Not on your phone, but like take them on a walk,

30:37 and talk to them and let them sniff,

30:40 and if it's your cat, actually play with your cat.

30:45 I think a lot of house cats are really, really bored.

30:48 And when you come home,

30:49 it's an opportunity to give them that mental stimulation that they don't get,

30:53 because they're safe, right?

30:54 Your house cats aren't getting squished by cars,

30:57 eaten by big birds, chased by dogs.

31:00 When does that happen?

31:01 Big birds eating cats?

31:02 Yeah.

31:03 Wow.

31:04 I have giant turkey vultures in my house.

31:06 Would I get a cat?

31:07 Probably, yeah.

31:08 Oh, my gosh, I can't get a cat.

31:09 Don't get a cat unless you're gonna-- A Maine Coon?

31:11 Keep it inside, or you're gonna harness,

31:12 walking on a harness-- What if I'm getting a killer cat?

31:15 Like what are those F1 Savannah things?

31:18 I can imagine.

31:19 I'm not saying I would,

31:20 but I'm just-- Unless you're setting up your house like this cool cat jungle.

31:24 [Doctor Mike] Okay, which I'm not.

31:25 I don't think it's nice to do.

31:26 I don't think it's nice to do,

31:27 because those cats really need so much stimulation.

31:31 But anyway, yeah, I mean, again,

31:33 cats are also living much longer lives because they're kept safe inside.

31:38 But a lot of them are bored,

31:39 and a lot of people free feed their cat, because it's easy.

31:43 And some cats will do great.

31:44 I mean, I have some cats that are

31:45 free fed and they maintain a perfect body condition.

31:48 Usually, because they have a sibling in the house who's obese,

31:51 right, because that cat's like, I'll create all the food, don't worry.

31:55 But they're bored.

31:55 So, the best thing you can do instead of giving

31:58 your pet more food as a symbol of your love for them,

32:02 spend quality time with them.

32:04 Go on a walk, it's better for both of you.

32:06 Or take your cat on a walk if they want to.

32:09 You can harness train a cat, or you could get a stroller for it,

32:12 or one of those cool little space backpacks.

32:14 Some cats might like, but some cats may hate it, right?

32:16 If your cat is like not about it, don't torture your cat either.

32:21 There are so many things you can do to show your pet

32:24 that you love them as opposed to just giving them another trait.

32:27 And I think sometimes people need to be reminded of that.

32:30 And then when I say that, people are like,

32:31 "Oh yeah, that makes tons of sense," you know?

32:34 Yeah.

32:35 Do they have an Ozempic equivalent for cats?

32:38 For cats?

32:39 Yep, they're released-- No way.

32:40 No, I don't actually know if it's been released yet.

32:43 But the FDA is working on approval for an Ozempic for cats.

32:45 And it's just for cats?

32:46 Just for cats so far.

32:46 Okay.

32:47 But I think that's better, because it is a harder thing with cats.

32:50 It's interesting because it's a behavior modification medication.

32:52 [Dr.

32:52 Hammond] Yeah.

32:53 Also, it impacts certain biochemical markers as well.

32:56 [Dr.

32:56 Hammond] Yeah.

32:57 But the behavior modification for humans is the biggest benefit.

32:59 [Dr.

32:59 Hammond] Yeah.

33:00 But if you're, as a human in control of your cat's diet,

33:03 you're the behavior modification.

33:05 I know, right.

33:06 [Doctor Mike] So it's kind of interesting.

33:07 If they're not gonna eat the food that you put in the bowl,

33:08 then that helps, right?

33:09 Yeah, yeah.

33:10 So you can be filling up the bowl and not measuring-- Sure.

33:12 And not doing portion sizes, but now the cat's just gonna actually not eat it.

33:16 [Doctor Mike] Got it.

33:18 And again, that comes back to that conversation

33:20 of does that pet need that medication?

33:23 Well, no, you could do all the other things that I've mentioned.

33:25 You could cut back on portion sizes, you could increase exercise for your cat,

33:31 there's so many things you can do, but not everyone's gonna do that.

33:34 And also, have you tried to get a cat to exercise that doesn't wanna exercise?

33:37 No, no.

33:37 We tried to exercise cat, right?

33:39 Actually, I have almost no cat experience.

33:41 Yeah.

33:41 These guys both have cats.

33:43 Okay.

33:44 Some cats, I mean, I think it depends on if

33:46 you're starting when your cat is like 50% overweight, right?

33:50 We have cats that are coming in 18, 20 pounds, and they should weigh 10.

33:54 And that cat, exercising that cat might be like torture for them, right?

33:58 'Cause their joints hurt?

34:00 Maybe, I would assume so,

34:01 but they're also not used to it, they don't wanna do it.

34:04 But once they're used to it, I think they'll enjoy it more and it'll be easier.

34:08 So, you gotta start slow.

34:10 Yeah, exactly, same with humans, right?

34:12 Again, it's so similar, the physiology is very similar.

34:16 But yeah, I think the GLP-1s could be great for a lot

34:19 of those cats who are suffering from obesity, because cats,

34:21 they wanna jump, they wanna climb, they wanna hunt, they wanna explore,

34:26 and having all that excess body weight prevents them from doing that.

34:28 And then cats are at super high risk

34:31 of developing diabetes from being overweight or obese.

34:36 If your cat or dog is overweight, is it always the human's fault?

34:40 Not always, but I do think people often come to us

34:43 and hope that there will be a medical problem, right?

34:47 Hypothyroidism can occur if your cat has other

34:51 diseases that prevent it from exercising or something.

34:54 But there's not a sudden epidemic of hypothyroidism causing the majority of you.

34:58 No, no, no, usually it is us who are not

35:02 being as mindful as we should with the portion sizes.

35:06 How does one know how much to feed their animal?

35:09 Yeah, that's a great question.

35:10 So, based on what you're feeding,

35:13 if you are going the traditional route of like kibble,

35:16 the back of the bag will kind of have a guideline.

35:19 And those are accurate and invaluable?

35:20 Well, no, right?

35:21 Oh, okay.

35:21 (both laugh) They're like, no, they suck.

35:24 Well, they're a great starting point, right?

35:26 So, I tell people, look at the back of the bag, it will make a range.

35:29 And then your dog is gonna have its own unique metabolism,

35:33 its own unique activity level,

35:35 and other factors like what treats you might give, things like that.

35:40 So, you'll wanna feed your pet, kind of go off that.

35:43 Use your pet as the chart is a better way to say it, right?

35:48 Okay.

35:49 Adjust the food to the animal,

35:51 not make the animal fit the food, if that makes sense.

35:53 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

35:54 For pets that need to lose weight or who are obese,

35:57 I will actually calculate calories for them.

36:01 There are mathematical formulas that we can actually do

36:07 to say this is roughly what your cat should eat,

36:09 give or take, however many calories, and obviously,

36:12 if you start increasing exercise, we can increase a little bit more.

36:15 And then, I want those pets to come in for monthly weight checks.

36:18 Got it.

36:19 Right?

36:19 Oftentimes, people are only weighing their pet once

36:22 a year when they come to the clinic.

36:24 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

36:25 I have to weigh Bear.

36:26 I mean, it's impossible to weigh Bear.

36:27 Right?

36:28 Yeah, he's huge, but how much does he weigh?

36:29 100 pounds?

36:30 No, 130.

36:31 [Dr.

36:31 Hammond] 130?

36:31 Yeah.

36:32 Yeah.

36:32 Looks like me, oh, my gosh, yeah.

36:34 He's heavy to pick up.

36:36 Yes.

36:36 So, for medium to small dogs and cats,

36:39 I'll tell people, step on your scale, weigh yourself.

36:42 Step off the scale, pick up your pet,

36:44 weigh yourself with your pet and then do the math, right?

36:45 Reasonable if you have a chihuahua.

36:47 Yes.

36:47 If not, just swing by the clinic once a month.

36:49 Just swing by the clinic once a month.

36:51 And then I know it's one more thing you have to do.

36:52 And even if you can't do it once a month, just more often than once a year.

36:56 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

36:57 Every three months, because that's so nice because

37:00 then maybe three months in, you can be like,

37:01 "Whoa, Bear just like suddenly lost 10 pounds.

37:03 And I wasn't trying to get him to lose weight." Yeah, right?

37:07 Unexplained weight loss.

37:08 We know how hard it is to lose weight, right?

37:11 We're talking about how these things parents can do

37:13 to help their pets lose weight and it's hard, right?

37:16 And we need GLP-1s for people sometimes to lose weight because it's so hard.

37:19 Yeah.

37:19 And then so if you have sudden unexplained

37:22 weight loss in any species, they're red flag.

37:26 We wanna investigate that, especially if you haven't changed their food.

37:30 You know, during COVID-- Exercising.

37:32 Everyone was like taking their dogs in these four mile heights-- Yeah, yeah.

37:35 And stuff, and we suddenly were seeing a lot more lameness

37:37 and we were seeing a lot of weight loss and stuff.

37:41 It would tough to tell people like, "Okay, well,

37:42 if you suddenly got up and were running five

37:43 miles everyday and you never had done that before,

37:45 you might be a little sore as well,

37:46 so maybe we need to cut back a little bit and like modify."- Ain't right,

37:50 what was the ain't right?

37:51 Ain't doing right.

37:52 Ain't doing right.

37:52 ADR, yeah.

37:53 ADR.

37:53 After five miles.

37:54 But yeah, any pet that's losing weight.

37:55 And that's actually one of the big things for cats.

37:57 Hmm.

37:58 Cats.

37:58 Cats are so good at hiding illness.

38:01 Cats actually only make up about 30%

38:03 of patients at a normal small dog animal hospital, y'all like 70% dogs.

38:08 How come?

38:09 Because they just see fine-- Dogs are sicker.

38:11 They just seem fine, right?

38:13 'Cause dogs are better, right?

38:14 There's multiple (indistinct).

38:15 Do what?

38:16 'Cause dogs are better.

38:17 No, no.

38:17 No?

38:18 No.

38:18 I love them all, they're all great.

38:20 I am a dog owner, lover.

38:23 [Doctor Mike] Okay.

38:24 I have always had dogs.

38:25 We've had cats that growing up, I had barn cats,

38:28 and then we had a couple barn cats and moved into the house.

38:30 It's that just like a free flowing cat.

38:31 Barn cats that lived in the barn to keep the rodents away.

38:34 Oh, cool.

38:34 Yeah.

38:35 Okay.

38:35 Yeah.

38:36 And back to the point about maybe 20, 30 years ago,

38:39 we would just have some cats that just kind of disappeared.

38:41 And we're like, what happened to Blackie?

38:42 (both chuckle)- Gone.

38:44 I know.

38:45 And now that I know everything that I know, I'm like, "Oh,

38:47 my gosh, I failed." I was 10, what was I supposed to do?

38:51 Sure.

38:51 We have bodega cats in New York.

38:53 Like they live in the bodegas?

38:54 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

38:55 But that's great.

38:57 If I saw a cat in a restaurant,

38:58 instead of being like icked out, I'd be like, oh,

39:00 I feel good eating there because rodents can actually smell cat urine,

39:04 and then they won't go there.

39:05 Oh, they stay away.

39:06 [Dr.

39:06 Hammond] Yeah, isn't that kind of cool?

39:07 Is there anything that the cat can accidentally

39:09 give to a human to get them sick?

39:12 Rabies.

39:12 Well, outside of vaccine preventable.

39:15 [Dr.

39:15 Hammond] Nah, nah.

39:16 Like worms.

39:17 People get icked by cats going to the litter box, and then walking on counters.

39:21 Toxoplasmosis.

39:22 So, you get Toxo, but Toxo, I mean, the poop has to sit there for a while.

39:26 The ascites have to become active.

39:28 So if I am a pregnant woman.

39:30 Yes.

39:31 Do I force my partner to change the litter box?

39:33 Okay, so I'm not a human doctor.

39:36 I don't wanna say it.

39:36 But what's the advice you would give?

39:37 But yeah, when people come and ask me, I say just practice hygiene, right?

39:41 [Doctor Mike] Okay, got it.

39:43 Wear gloves if you feel more comfortable, wash your hands.

39:45 But if you're changing your cat's litter box daily,

39:47 like you really don't have to be too worried about it.

39:50 But yeah, just tell people practice good hygiene.

39:52 Got it.

39:52 Wear gloves, wash your hands before and after.

39:54 You're more likely to get toxoplasmosis gardening than

39:57 you are from changing your cat's litter box.

39:59 [Doctor Mike] Okay.

40:00 But they don't tell pregnant women to not garden.

40:02 Yeah, we don't tell them that.

40:03 [Dr.

40:03 Hammond] Right?

40:03 Well, our secretary of health and human services scares them about Tylenol, so.

40:06 I know, I know.

40:08 I've taken Tylenol pregnant, you know?

40:10 My boys are doing great.

40:12 Not to say that if they had autism,

40:13 they wouldn't be doing great, but I'm just saying.

40:14 And also not to say that you're

40:16 recommending everyone take Tylenol while pregnant.

40:19 Yes.

40:19 Yeah.

40:19 That's the nuance to-- Just for fun, just take it, exactly.

40:23 Being pregnant is really hard,

40:24 so I've been pregnant twice, this in my third pregnancy.

40:29 If you see a pregnant person in the wild, just be so nice to them.

40:33 Got it.

40:34 Offer them a seat.

40:35 Offer them a seat.

40:35 They might not wanna take it, that's fine.

40:37 They might hate you like being like,

40:39 "Oh, you're being like misogynist or something,

40:40 but still just offer them a seat." Even if I'm another woman,

40:43 if I see a pregnant one,

40:44 I'm like, "Do you wanna sit down?" And it's usually actually women who

40:47 offer me their seat when I'm pregnant because they've been there and they know.

40:50 Yeah.

40:51 But the hard part is I think, you feel almost the worst in your first trimester

40:55 when no one can really tell that you're pregnant, right?

40:57 From like a nausea perspective.

40:59 Yeah, you're nauseous, you're dehydrated and water tastes really bad.

41:03 [Doctor Mike] Hmm, interesting.

41:04 Why that happened?

41:05 Evolution, I have, like what?

41:07 It's a fly.

41:08 Whose idea was that?

41:08 Be careful.

41:09 But yeah, water tastes really bad so you're dehydrated.

41:12 So, I would get headaches because I'm trying to work.

41:14 I can't eat anything.

41:15 I can't drink anything, I just wanna sleep 16 hours,

41:19 I'm like narcoleptic in my first trimester.

41:22 So yeah, I'm at work, you get a bad headache, you take a Tylenol, you know?

41:25 And so, I think it's really unfair to tell

41:27 women not to take a Tylenol when they're pregnant.

41:30 Sure, that was bad advice.

41:31 Again, I'm not a human doctor.

41:32 No, that was bad advice,

41:34 and they realized it was bad advice and two weeks later they changed it.

41:37 Yes.

41:37 Well, the damage is done.

41:38 Yeah.

41:38 It's still out there.

41:39 That's what I'm talking about.

41:40 Once it's gotten all the views and the likes, I mean, it almost becomes a fact.

41:44 Yeah.

41:44 Right?

41:45 If you hear it often enough, it feels like a fact.

41:47 Right, yeah.

41:47 And so now it's still a thing,

41:48 and there are women who are scared to take Tylenol,

41:50 and I feel really bad for them because it's-- Well,

41:53 hopefully they're seeing their doctor and having that conversation, so.

41:56 And I think again, that comes back to that's why it's important

41:59 to have people with credentials on social media trying to also put

42:02 out the other side of the story and provide an alternative narrative

42:05 to keep people from kind of falling into those same paths-- Yeah.

42:09 And that same echo chamber.

42:11 I love that we got from kitty litter to-- Yeah,

42:13 I don't know where we went with that.

42:15 I don't even know how we got here.

42:17 Can you tell me about the worminess, right, no I'm kidding.

42:19 But anyway, you're talking about cats and the bodegas, there's not many things.

42:22 Toxo is one thing that people can worry about.

42:24 Yeah, I mean, there are some parasites like hookworms and roundworms.

42:27 Hookworms can infect humans.

42:30 They get in our skin, which is like really yucky.

42:31 But again, if you're wiping the counter down.

42:35 The cat poop has to sit on the counter

42:37 for a day for those things to actually become an issue.

42:39 So, really from a hygiene standpoint, cats are great to have in your home,

42:45 they're not gonna infect you with anything and there are very

42:49 little to almost zero diseases that they can spread to you.

42:53 If you're younger, and you wanna convince your parents

42:58 to get you a cat or a dog,

43:01 what would be the speech you would recommend the child gives their parent?

43:05 Oh, my gosh.

43:06 Well, no one's ever asked me that before, but I know what I did.

43:09 I put on my big puppy dog eyes and I promise that I would be really, really,

43:13 really good and I would do my homework,

43:16 and I don't know whatever it is that you offer, what is it?

43:20 Chores.

43:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

43:21 I will take care of the cat, I will clean the litter box.

43:23 I will feed him,- But what about the benefits?

43:25 Are there benefits that we see?

43:26 Oh, I think there are huge benefits to caring for an animal.

43:29 Mm-hm.

43:29 I mean, here's the thing.

43:30 If your chore as a child is to take out the trash,

43:33 and you don't take out the trash, what happens?

43:35 You get in trouble, the house gets a little stinky, right?

43:37 And your parents could yell at you.

43:39 But if your choice, feed the animals,

43:41 and the animals don't get fed, what happens?

43:43 They could die, right?

43:44 I mean, that's pretty drastic.

43:45 I would hope that the parents are checking

43:47 in to make sure these things are actually done.

43:49 But I'm just saying,

43:51 the level of responsibility is different and caring for an animal,

43:54 I think is such a wonderful way to learn that responsibility,

43:57 and what it's like to have people relying, or depending on you.

44:02 I mean, I told you a little bit, I grew up on a farm.

44:04 And my brothers and I were essentially slave

44:07 labor in the best way, child labor laws.

44:11 We were well cared for, but we had a lot of chores.

44:14 That's pretty typical on a farm, right?

44:15 Yeah, kids have out.

44:16 Kids do a lot of the work.

44:17 100%.

44:18 Early in the morning wake ups.

44:19 Yeah, and I'm so thankful for that childhood.

44:22 My brothers and I were up at 5 am,

44:24 and before we could have breakfast, all of the animals had to be fed first.

44:27 Wow.

44:28 That was the rule.

44:29 Same with like when we come home,

44:31 we were in sports and stuff, so we'd go to sports practice,

44:33 we'd come home, we'd take care of all the animals and then we could have dinner,

44:37 and I'm so thankful.

44:39 I think that's one of the reasons I tend to work as hard as I do.

44:43 I don't know, maybe I would be, anyway, but it does,

44:45 I think instill in you such an understanding-- What

44:49 animals were you taking care of at that point?

44:51 So, we had everything.

44:52 Everything?

44:53 Yeah, cows, horses, pigs, chickens and dogs, and the barn cats.

45:00 We did not have sheep 'cause we were in Arizona,

45:02 so wooly animals probably would not fare well.

45:04 But we did have a pygmy goat named Timmy.

45:08 Okay.

45:09 And he was so annoying.

45:10 But my family very much loved him.

45:13 He was like a staple.

45:15 You just gotta have a goat, right?

45:16 Like you have to have some kind of other species.

45:18 But yeah, we had all those and my brothers and I,

45:21 we did like 4-H and FFA, so we raised Sears.

45:25 What's that, four?

45:27 4-H and FFA.

45:28 What does that mean?

45:29 Yeah.

45:30 It's like a club for kids that are in agriculture.

45:33 Wow.

45:33 Yeah.

45:33 And so you can show your horse--

45:35 I'm shielded from this lifestyle-- Show your cow.

45:37 As a New Yorker, yeah.

45:39 I think it translates so well to becoming a veterinarian.

45:42 [Doctor Mike] Really?

45:43 Yeah, I mean, I was exposed to so much

45:45 and learned so much and I know a ton about animals,

45:48 and I loved my childhood, I wouldn't have changed it.

45:54 Besides the dog and cat, what was your favorite animal?

45:57 Cows.

45:58 Cows.

45:58 Yeah.

45:59 Tell me about the cow.

46:00 I just love cows.

46:00 They're sweet.

46:02 Are they?

46:04 Yeah.

46:04 How?

46:05 They're just nice, they'll love on you.

46:07 You rub their back.

46:08 How do they show affection?

46:10 They don't run away from you.

46:11 (both laughing)- They tolerate my presence.

46:16 They'll lick you.

46:16 They have like a sandpapery kind of tongue, like a cat,

46:19 not as rough as a cat's tongue, but they'll lick you.

46:22 They'll kind of nudge you with their head

46:24 a little bit especially if they wanna be fed,

46:26 then it gets a little bit more aggressive.

46:28 Okay.

46:28 They're wonderful.

46:31 And now, I get to talk about cows in a different way,

46:33 I talk a lot about raw milk with people.

46:35 I'm sure you're seeing that too.

46:37 Yeah, yeah.

46:38 But again-- The beauty that is Listeria and Salmonella-- We get a lot

46:42 of people who they themselves see

46:44 that there's purported benefits of drinking raw milk.

46:47 So then again, they wanna give those benefits to their animals that they love.

46:51 Well, that's the loophole, right, that it's sold as a animal product,

46:53 and then the humans just consume it too.

46:56 Well, is that how it works?

46:57 I don't know.

46:57 That's what I thought.

46:58 A lot of states banned the sale of it, but then what they do is they say,

47:01 "Oh, this is for animal consumption only."- Well, humans are animals.

47:04 And then, humans-- Right?

47:05 Yeah.

47:05 "Yeah." (Dr.

47:06 Hammond chuckles) Well, they have human grade food and animals.

47:08 I'm sure different things.

47:09 I didn't know that.

47:09 So, are they selling it at pet stores?

47:11 I don't know where they're selling.

47:12 I think I went to PetSmart.

47:13 No, probably not any big retailer, but maybe local ones, yeah.

47:16 I would hope not.

47:16 I went into a market, there's a little just like mom and pop hardware shop.

47:22 That sounded cute.

47:23 Down the street from where I live and there's

47:25 the USPS in the back, but it's cute.

47:27 There's like a little thrift store in there,

47:29 and people sell like homemade products and stuff.

47:32 And in the front, there's a place where these local

47:35 farmers sell their homemade sourdough bread and things like that.

47:37 And I like to support little farms because I grew up on one,

47:40 so I'll buy their eggs and I'll buy some bread there.

47:42 And I was a little disappointed I saw they were selling raw goats milk,

47:45 but I understand from a business standpoint why they're doing it.

47:50 Right.

47:50 They're just taking this milk that they don't

47:52 have to pasteurize one less step for them.

47:54 Yeah.

47:55 And then they can sell it for more money,

47:57 but I would worry about the liability of it, I suppose.

48:00 Okay, so this is-- But it wasn't in the human food area, so.

48:03 They do that.

48:04 Again, every state has different restrictions, so it's gonna be state dependent.

48:07 As someone who grew up around cows.

48:10 [Dr.

48:10 Hammond] Yeah.

48:11 As a veterinarian.

48:13 Veterinarian.

48:14 Veterinarian.

48:14 (Dr.

48:15 Hammond chuckles) Okay.

48:16 Someone who grew up around cows.

48:17 [Dr.

48:18 Hammond] Yeah.

48:19 As a vet.

48:20 Yeah.

48:20 As someone who's seen this problem unfold in a variety of ways.

48:23 Yeah.

48:24 Do you recommend people give their animals wrong that way?

48:26 So, this is exactly what I'm alluding to.

48:28 I grew up with cattle.

48:31 So, I attracted large animal in veterinary school.

48:33 So, I wanted to be a cattle vet.

48:35 Cows are my favorite animal.

48:36 Wow.

48:37 I did several beef cattle rotations, so more like livestock and production,

48:43 and then I did quite a few dairy cattle productions.

48:45 [Doctor Mike] Okay.

48:46 There are a reason they call them cow patties, okay?

48:49 Hmm.

48:50 Cow poop is very wet and it's splatters.

48:52 Hmm.

48:53 Okay?

48:53 And where are the udders?

48:54 Is that because they're not eating a good diet- No,

48:56 no, that's just how it should be, that's normal.

49:00 Nature, okay.

49:01 That is nature.

49:01 That is the way that their rumen,

49:03 so they have four compartments of their stomach.

49:06 The rumen is essentially a huge vat of fluid and it's fermentating,

49:09 so their stools should be very liquidy.

49:13 But where are the udders, right?

49:14 The udders are right below the rectum.

49:17 Bad design.

49:18 Again, this evolutionary design of the milk is not great.

49:20 And so, it is extremely difficult,

49:24 extremely difficult to manage that on a microbial level, right?

49:30 I mean, you can get the udders very, very clean, but they dip them,

49:33 there's iodine dips and stuff that they

49:36 do for the udders before, but nothing's 100%.

49:38 And it's not just during the collection,

49:39 it's also transport, storage, all of that.

49:43 But yeah, after being around cows my entire life, practicing medicine on cattle,

49:48 and then learning about all of the diseases,

49:51 because we see it affect their offspring and stuff like that.

49:54 Yeah.

49:55 We need to know about the diseases that milk

49:57 can transmit to treat the neonates of these species,

50:01 the babies of these species.

50:03 So, yeah, no, I would never, ever, ever.

50:07 I would probably throw up.

50:08 If somebody was like, "Take a sip of this raw milk," I would be like,

50:10 "I know way too much about what could be in there.

50:14 I have been up in cows, around cows way too close to ever drink that." And what

50:20 I don't understand is like, just heat it up.

50:23 Yeah.

50:24 We're just asking you to heat it up.

50:25 And people are like, "Then it ruins the microbiome of the milk." And I'm like,

50:29 "Well, yes, it's going to kill all the bacteria,

50:31 but then you can just take a probiotic." Drink your milk

50:34 for all the nutrients that will not be changed and take a probiotic.

50:37 Get some yogurt.

50:38 Yes.

50:38 Yeah, yeah.

50:40 It's a disaster that we're even talking about this.

50:42 No, I know, I don't understand.

50:44 I don't understand how it's happening, and how it's effective.

50:48 I see the steps of how we got here because as a person,

50:52 you might think natural is better because natural sounds better.

50:55 [Dr.

50:55 Hammond] Yes.

50:56 And in some ways, natural could be better.

50:57 But in some ways natural can be absolutely toxic.

51:00 [Dr.

51:00 Hammond] 100%.

51:01 When we say we wanna make America healthy again, it's like, what's the again?

51:03 Because before antibiotics, we would all die from stubbing our toes.

51:07 Oh, my gosh.

51:07 On a sharp object.

51:08 I think about that a lot, which is weird, but like I think about diabetes.

51:12 Yeah.

51:12 Before insulin.

51:13 You're dead.

51:14 (chuckles) Anaphylaxis before epinephrine.

51:16 You're dead, like a UTI.

51:19 You get a UTI, so sorry, you're out.

51:22 You're a sepsis, done.

51:23 You're out.

51:24 Game over for you.

51:25 You're 18, you're 20 years old.

51:27 Oh, are you having a heart attack?

51:28 Let me put a cold rag out in your head.

51:30 And we joke, but it is, yeah, it's very compelling, I think.

51:34 Do you know what they did to George Washington when he was having,

51:36 who knows what he was having, because we didn't have the diagnostic tools.

51:39 They drained his humors, which meant they made him have diarrhea,

51:45 forced vomited him, and caused him to bleed,

51:49 because they thought getting rid of the excess

51:50 blood or the poisonous blood was beneficial.

51:56 There's a new account on social media that I'm

51:58 kind of in love with and it's-- Oh, tell me.

52:00 Adoniseatsrocks, and I hope people follow him.

52:03 They're brand new, they have maybe 5,000 followers.

52:07 The dog is Adonis.

52:08 Oh, it's a dog.

52:09 It's a dog's account.

52:10 It's a dog, but there's obviously a person behind it who is a they.

52:14 They are taking screenshots from these natural dog health groups

52:18 on Facebook and things and just kind of being like,

52:22 "This is happening." And they recently came

52:24 across a group that is promoting fasting.

52:28 Fasting?

52:29 [Dr.

52:29 Hammond] For pets.

52:30 Like intermittent fasting?

52:32 No, like, your dog is sick, your dog has a tumor,

52:35 you're not going to feed it until the tumor regresses, and dogs are dying.

52:38 Oh, my God.

52:39 That is animal abuse.

52:41 Yeah.

52:42 And they recently just reported it.

52:44 The people that they're fighting are trying

52:46 to fight back and get this account banned,

52:49 but I'm like, everyone needs to follow this, because this is what happens.

52:51 This is the consequence of misinformation.

52:54 Jesus.

52:55 Dogs are dying from this.

52:56 Again, it's like the bloodletting.

52:58 Like, we'll just "starve the illness," we'll "starve

53:01 the cancer." Did you watch that Netflix series,

53:05 "Apple Cider Vinegar?"- I know what you're talking about, but I didn't watch it.

53:08 It was so good.

53:08 It's based on a true story of that, she's an Australian food blogger,

53:12 and she claimed that she had a brain tumor that she

53:15 cured with a whole food diet and like coffee enemas or something.

53:18 [Doctor Mike] Right.

53:19 She lied, she made it all up.

53:20 There was apparently no-- Shocker.

53:22 Yeah, but people with cancer were taking her advice.

53:25 Of course, all the time.

53:26 And she was profiting from it and they

53:28 were foregoing actual medical treatments, and dying.

53:35 Where's the accountability?

53:36 That's the thing.

53:36 There is no accountability, there's no liability.

53:38 That's the thing.

53:39 If they say something wrong and your pet dies, there is no accountability.

53:42 Yeah, there's no license for them to lose.

53:43 If the doctor says something wrong, then we lose our license.

53:45 Right.

53:45 So we're trying to be careful.

53:46 [Dr.

53:47 Hammond] Right.

53:47 But they don't care about that, because they use

53:49 that to weaponize against us that we're afraid to tell the truth.

53:52 Yeah.

53:52 For fear of our license to be taken away.

53:54 Exactly.

53:55 But the fear is because we're genuinely doing something wrong.

53:57 I know.

53:58 I know.

53:59 So, in addition to the raw milk,

54:00 a big one that we see in veterinary medicine is raw meat-based diets for pets.

54:06 And it's the same concept.

54:07 Is that like the freeze-dried patty thing?

54:09 Kind of freeze-dried as well.

54:10 Freeze-dried is at least a little bit better.

54:12 I mean, we know that listeria can survive freeze,

54:15 but it will still kill some pathogens.

54:17 [Doctor Mike] Got it.

54:18 Forgive me if I misspeak, but I think like E.

54:20 coli and salmonella, you can freeze them out, but like listeria, you can't.

54:23 Got it.

54:23 So, it does reduce some of the risks, but not completely.

54:28 Yeah, there are several food-borne pathogens that are bacterial that are

54:33 deadly in pets and people from consuming raw or undercooked meat.

54:36 There are also different parasites, Sarcocystis, Neospora,

54:41 these things that pets can contract from eating meat and get seriously ill,

54:45 and some of these things are not treatable.

54:47 And every time I bring that up on social media, I'll say like, "Hey,

54:51 really you need to be cooking meat to save temperatures

54:53 before it's served." The argument against me is always like,

54:56 "Oh, you're just a veterinarian.

54:58 You just want me to feed my dog dehydrated kibble

55:00 to make money from big pet food." And I'm like, "Well, firstly,

55:04 kibble is not the only alternative to feeding your dog raw

55:07 meat." If you're already going through the efforts to create your dog's

55:10 food at home and put this raw food in a dish

55:13 with sardines or whatever else it is that you're putting in there,

55:16 firstly, I hope you're making it complete and balanced.

55:17 That's a whole nother thing, but just cook the meat,

55:21 like broil it, bake it slowly, right?

55:24 And I'm not asking you to char it down to ash,

55:27 I'm just asking you to bring it to a safe temperature,

55:29 to eliminate the harmful pathogens, and then feed it to your dog,

55:32 and then your dog will still have all of the same

55:35 benefits of getting this fresh food diet-- Without the risk.

55:37 Without the risk.

55:38 And then again, people go, "Oh, well,

55:40 if I cook the meat, I lose all the protein,

55:42 and then my dog's not gonna get the protein." And I go, "Okay, well,

55:44 all my meat that I eat is cooked."

55:46 And I'm not protein deficient but then they go, "Well,

55:49 dogs aren't humans." This is an argument that we cannot win,

55:54 and then again-- 'Cause it's not following any logic trajectory.

55:56 And there's no logical trajectory.

55:58 There's twists and turns, I get straw manned all the time.

56:02 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

56:03 And again, it comes back to you're just trying to make money

56:05 by selling my dog kibble because veterinarians

56:08 are paid by big pet food apparently.

56:11 I have been waiting for my royalty check.

56:13 I'm like eight years overdue.

56:15 It's gotta be like a million dollars.

56:16 I can't wait for it to come in.

56:18 But I don't sell pet food.

56:20 And even if you did that doesn't negate-- No.

56:23 The problem.

56:24 Sometimes, I will make recommendations.

56:25 People ask me, I say I recommend this.

56:27 First I ask if somebody says, "Hey, Doc,

56:29 what should I feed my pet?" I say, "How do you want to feed your pet?

56:33 What do you have time for and what can you afford financially?

56:36 Do you wanna make your pet's food at home?" If so, amazing, kudos to you.

56:41 The majority of us can't do that.

56:42 I can't even make my own food at home, right?

56:44 I eat breakfast cereal, right?

56:46 I got two little kids, I've got a full-time job, I'm tired.

56:50 We eat out maybe three days of the week because

56:53 by the time I get home from work, we're tired.

56:55 [Doctor Mike] Sure.

56:56 I'm not gonna make dinner every night, you know?

56:58 I wish I could, but I can't.

57:00 Reasonable.

57:01 We try most of the time to make our food at home,

57:02 but again, we're gonna eat some processed stuff here and there.

57:06 We're gonna try our best.

57:07 But if you have the means,

57:09 if you have the money to invest in buying all the ingredients for your dogs,

57:13 if you can consult with a veterinary

57:15 nutritionist to make sure it's complete and balanced,

57:17 I applaud you for doing that and for taking that up.

57:20 That's great.

57:22 If that's not what you want, but you want like a medium,

57:24 there are the fresh food services for pets now, so things like Farmer's Dog,

57:29 or I like JustFoodForDogs a lot where they'll ship you frozen food,

57:35 and then you can defrost it,

57:36 and the portion sizes are based on your dog's specific lifestyle,

57:39 which I really like.

57:40 I've seen a lot of dogs lose weight that way

57:42 because it's a little bit more nuanced to each dog individually.

57:45 And then again, if you want to feed a commercial kibble,

57:48 the majority of us do, my dog eats kibble.

57:51 Yeah, they make a lot of these claims where it's like grain free or-- Yeah,

57:56 I mean, that's all-- 100% meat.

57:58 Keto diet in humans, right?

58:00 Yeah, so tell me about that.

58:01 It's just marketing.

58:01 Are grain's terrible for dogs?

58:03 No, it's just marketing.

58:03 Okay.

58:04 A lot of people will put their dog

58:05 in a grain-free diet because their dog has allergies,

58:07 but really only one in 10 dogs with an allergy will be allergic to food.

58:11 And the majority of the time,

58:13 a dog's food allergies are actually gonna be to proteins.

58:15 So chicken, beef and soy are the most common allergens for dogs.

58:19 Which are probably the most common sources of proteins.

58:22 Yeah, so people will switch their dog to grain free, but it's still got chicken.

58:26 I never will (indistinct) for trying.

58:30 Where did people ideate the idea that grain is bad for dogs?

58:35 Well, the keto diet.

58:36 But is there any logic at all to it?

58:38 Are dogs not in the wild supposed to eat grain?

58:41 So, people say dogs should eat like wolves,

58:43 but think about how long dogs have been with humans.

58:47 Dogs are domesticated.

58:48 So, people confuse taming a feral animal for domestication.

58:54 Mm.

58:54 That's very different.

58:54 I can go get a wolf in the wild and I can "tame" it.

58:57 But that wolf is not domesticated.

58:59 It's not the same thing.

59:01 What makes it domesticated?

59:02 The evolutionary process essentially that the years

59:04 of being by our sides, right?

59:06 [Doctor Mike] Got it, so it's evolved differently.

59:08 It's evolved.

59:09 Their genome is so different.

59:10 So a wolf, you wouldn't feed grain.

59:12 I don't know, I've never taken care of a wolf.

59:14 I don't know what a wolf eats, right?

59:15 (chuckles)- Well, I don't know.

59:16 As a vet, do you have to know how take care of every animal.

59:18 But here the things about wolves is,

59:19 they're not just eating the skeletal muscle, right?

59:21 When wolves hunt, they're not just eating skeleton muscles.

59:23 [Doctor Mike] Or they're eating meat such.

59:25 Right?

59:25 Yeah, they're eating the GI tract,

59:27 usually first, 'cause that's the nutritious part, right?

59:31 Your small intestines are gonna absorb the nutrients first,

59:35 and then the liver, the kidneys.

59:36 These things are actually delicacies in other countries, but in America,

59:39 in pet food, they're called "byproduct," and that's bad.

59:42 It's very bad to give your dogs "byproducts." But the thing is,

59:44 people just don't know what that means.

59:45 People are like, "That's feathers, that's hooves." And I'm like,

59:48 no, no, no, no, no, it's actually defined.

59:50 You can't have feathers and hooves and other things and bone.

59:54 Those things cannot be byproduct, byproduct has to be like the other stuff.

59:58 So the tongue, the trachea, these types of things can be used as byproduct.

1:00:03 And those are actually extremely nutritionists, cuts of meat.

1:00:06 Or I don't know if we call them meat, but-- [Doctor Mike] Yeah, parts of it.

1:00:10 That's why they're byproduct, right?

1:00:11 Yeah, yeah.

1:00:13 I actually think it's huge for sustainability.

1:00:15 Those things would otherwise just be discarded because

1:00:17 people don't wanna eat that 'cause it sounds icky.

1:00:18 If I was like, "Can I offer you

1:00:20 this plate of small intestine?" You'd be like, mm.

1:00:22 A lot of cultures like in Russian culture, they eat beef tongue a lot.

1:00:24 [Dr.

1:00:25 Hammond] Yes.

1:00:27 The stomach trip, right?

1:00:28 Tripe in Hispanic cultures is really big.

1:00:30 Menudo has like the cuts of stomach in it.

1:00:34 But yeah, in other places,

1:00:35 these are considered-- Liver is a big one in some cultures.

1:00:37 Yeah, well, even here, people used to eat liver and onions.

1:00:40 But yeah, I mean, those are just scary buzzwords

1:00:44 that people use to create fear on social media, right?

1:00:47 It's the thing in humans where they say,

1:00:48 "If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it."- [Doctor Mike] Oh, yeah.

1:00:51 But it's like riboflavin.

1:00:52 And you're like, okay, that's a vitamin, right?

1:00:55 You need that.

1:00:56 I love people.

1:00:57 Ascorbic acid.

1:00:57 You're like, that's vitamin C.

1:00:59 Yeah, I was gonna say, they get the acids out of your body,

1:01:01 they're causing cancer, but take your vitamin C.

1:01:03 It's like, hold on.

1:01:04 Yeah.

1:01:04 But that's because, again, they mean well.

1:01:08 And I always like to assume there's no malicious intent.

1:01:10 I'm sure there's some people out there who are bad.

1:01:11 I'm sure there's bad doctors and bad veterinarians.

1:01:13 Of course.

1:01:14 And there are bad nutritional companies for dogs

1:01:17 that put crappy stuff in their kibble.

1:01:19 Yes, yes.

1:01:20 I'm sure that's happened.

1:01:21 Yeah, but here's the thing,

1:01:23 if all you can afford is to give your dog Dog Chow or Pedigree,

1:01:28 which is bottom tier pet food, right?

1:01:30 And what makes a bottom tier?

1:01:32 Well, the ingredients are gonna be lower quality

1:01:36 so that those foods can be more affordable, right?

1:01:38 Okay, so what does that mean, more organ meat?

1:01:42 I couldn't tell you off the top of my head precisely,

1:01:44 but corn is usually those-- [Doctor Mike] Like a filler ingredient.

1:01:48 Well, it's not a filler, so you probably heard that on social media.

1:01:52 Yeah, I've heard that, yeah.

1:01:52 People say corn is a filler.

1:01:53 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

1:01:54 A filler has zero nutritional value.

1:01:56 Mm.

1:01:57 Corn has a lot of nutrients if it's processed correctly.

1:02:00 There's vitamins, there's minerals, there's protein in corn.

1:02:05 But yeah, it's frowned upon to feed your dog corn, but it's cheap.

1:02:09 So if you can't afford something else, but you wanna give a dog home,

1:02:13 you can feed it one of those ingredients that has corn in it.

1:02:16 And honestly, some dogs are gonna do better on that.

1:02:18 And I have seen dogs lived at 15 and 16 eating that food, but were otherwise,

1:02:24 cared for really well by people who just, again, wanted to give a dog a home.

1:02:28 And that's my biggest fear about all this push towards,

1:02:32 I call it, "elitist pet parenting," right?

1:02:34 The people will say, "Well, gosh, do better for your dog.

1:02:38 I can't believe you're only feeding your dog dog child.

1:02:40 You're a terrible pet parent." But there are so many other factors

1:02:43 that go into whether or not you're a good pet parent, right?

1:02:46 Again, going back to, do you spend quality time with your dog?

1:02:48 Do you take your dog on a walk?

1:02:49 Are you meeting your dog's basic needs, right?

1:02:52 Does your dog have access to fresh, clean water?

1:02:54 Does your cat have a warm, safe place to sleep at night?

1:02:59 Are there vaccines up to date to keep

1:03:01 them from falling sick from preventable diseases?

1:03:03 And are they getting parasite prevention?

1:03:04 Because I do think that that is a huge factor on quality of life.

1:03:08 I would not want fleas crawling all over me.

1:03:11 Of course.

1:03:11 Or ticks, or internal parasites.

1:03:13 So, those are the basic needs.

1:03:15 And if you're feeding a complete and balanced diet,

1:03:17 I will never shame you for feeding what

1:03:19 you can afford because all of those things,

1:03:22 that's better than being a dog in the shelter where they're probably

1:03:25 eating that stuff anyway because-- The shelter-- They're in the shelter, right?

1:03:28 Yeah.

1:03:29 Or they're gonna be euthanized.

1:03:30 So, if we start telling people,

1:03:32 you have to cook for your pet at home, which is more expensive.

1:03:34 And you have to give them an XYZ supplements and you

1:03:38 have to do these things or you're not a bad pet parent.

1:03:40 We're creating unnecessary guilt.

1:03:42 And what's gonna happen?

1:03:43 Are people gonna do all those things?

1:03:45 No, because they can't afford to.

1:03:46 So, less pets are gonna have good homes.

1:03:49 I've heard this question asked to wine experts, and wines-- Sommeliers.

1:03:55 Yes, crazy.

1:03:56 Sommeliers, yeah.

1:03:56 Sommeliers.

1:03:57 (chuckles)- Very high numbers, like thousand dollar bottles, $10,000 bottles.

1:04:02 They ask them, what's a level where you're getting great wine,

1:04:06 but you don't have to spend a fortune.

1:04:08 And the number they say is usually like 100 bucks and they give some examples.

1:04:12 They say like, once you're there, you're not really getting anything special.

1:04:15 [Dr.

1:04:15 Hammond] Okay.

1:04:16 What's that for dog food?

1:04:17 What is an example of a dog food where

1:04:19 you're getting something better than whatever the bottom is,

1:04:23 but you don't need to go higher than this?

1:04:27 So, I guess there's not a clear answer

1:04:28 on that, because it depends again on your dog's individual needs.

1:04:31 [Doctor Mike] True.

1:04:32 Some dogs have disorders or cats, maybe they have kidney disease.

1:04:36 [Doctor Mike] Got it.

1:04:37 Maybe they were born with a dysplastic kidney.

1:04:39 We talked about that earlier.

1:04:41 And so they might need to eat a kidney diet to keep their-- Got it.

1:04:43 Kidneys healthy, right?

1:04:44 So, in some of these cases, you can't really go anywhere.

1:04:46 There's a medicated diet.

1:04:47 Right.

1:04:47 You need that diet to keep your cat going.

1:04:50 So prescription diets, which I do not make any money, by the way.

1:04:53 Again, I'm writing the prescription,

1:04:54 I'm sending you to order it from somewhere else.

1:04:58 So, I don't push those either.

1:04:59 I recommend them from a medical standpoint as a treatment.

1:05:04 But there are definitely levels of pet food.

1:05:06 There's the prescription and there's like premium

1:05:10 and then there's like the bottom, right?

1:05:11 And so if we're talking about premium pet food,

1:05:13 that's gonna be like Purina Pro Plan, or Hill Science Diet, or Royal Canin.

1:05:17 And people love to hate those brands because those are the big pet foods.

1:05:23 But because they're so big,

1:05:25 they are able to invest in all the research that I love to see.

1:05:29 Hmm.

1:05:30 They can do lifelong feeding studies on their diets

1:05:33 that these boutique pet foods can't do.

1:05:36 All their foods are AAFCO certified,

1:05:38 meaning that they meet the-- "Complete."- Yeah,

1:05:41 like they're complete and then balanced that they meet all these requirements.

1:05:45 And they also have higher quality assurance standards,

1:05:48 because they can monitor those foods.

1:05:52 And so I always tell people,

1:05:53 I'm not saying that maybe the food that you're feeding is bad,

1:05:56 I just don't know as much about it.

1:05:57 I'm happy to look into it for you.

1:05:59 Now, there are some pet foods I don't recommend,

1:06:01 and I'm not gonna name drop them here.

1:06:03 Oh, why?

1:06:04 Just like quality assurance-- Oh, okay.

1:06:07 Isn't as good.

1:06:08 Research isn't as good.

1:06:09 So, what should one look out for the label of a food for their dog,

1:06:13 is it a warning sign.

1:06:15 Let's start with, what should people ignore on labels of dog foods?

1:06:18 So when dog foods is like all natural or organic.

1:06:20 [Doctor Mike] That means nothing.

1:06:21 It means nothing in terms of the nutrients.

1:06:24 Okay.

1:06:24 Right?

1:06:24 You could still have terrible nutrients that are organic, right?

1:06:29 Or nutrients that are not bioavailability that are organic.

1:06:33 So, just because something is organic, it doesn't make it healthier,

1:06:36 and that's the issue you were kind of alluding to earlier,

1:06:38 natural isn't necessarily healthier or safer,

1:06:41 organic isn't easier, they are just marketing terms.

1:06:45 There's studies in human medicine that show if they call something natural,

1:06:48 that they can sell it for like 30% more.

1:06:50 Yeah, and it doesn't mean anything.

1:06:51 [Dr.

1:06:51 Hammond] It doesn't mean anything.

1:06:53 And even the current FDA commissioner was sitting in that chair,

1:06:56 started telling me that organic foods don't use pesticides.

1:07:00 And to kindly remind him that you use organic pesticides.

1:07:03 which sometimes can be more problematic.

1:07:05 Yeah.

1:07:05 Actually, going back to my background in agriculture,

1:07:07 that's something we learned about in 4-H and FFA.

1:07:09 And I've had this conversation with pet parents because like,

1:07:11 no, there's no pesticides in organic food.

1:07:12 I'm like, no, there's actually organic pesticides, which don't work as well.

1:07:16 So, there's actually more pesticides-- Side added.

1:07:18 On organic food.

1:07:21 I'm not a human medicine,- I'm

1:07:22 not tracked interestingly enough by some-- Really?

1:07:24 Yeah.

1:07:25 Yeah.

1:07:25 We had an expert on talk about this where

1:07:27 they say that certain ones are not tracked,

1:07:29 because of the organizations that are tracking these things.

1:07:32 Okay.

1:07:32 So it's very messy.

1:07:33 Yeah, scary.

1:07:34 From that standpoint, yeah.

1:07:38 Again, this goes back to how do you wanna feed your pet.

1:07:40 If it is important to your moral compass,

1:07:43 for whatever reason to feed your pet organic,

1:07:46 I will do my best to help you find an organic

1:07:47 food that is gonna be good for your dog or your cat,

1:07:50 or your rabbit or whatever, well, rabbit eats hay.

1:07:53 It's all organic.

1:07:54 Yeah, it's all organic.

1:07:55 Well, I mean, there's inorganic hay too.

1:07:57 Really?

1:07:58 Yeah.

1:07:58 Synthetic hay?

1:07:59 The harvesting.

1:07:59 No, but you know what I mean?

1:08:01 The process.

1:08:02 In order to be organic, it has to meet certain,

1:08:06 you have to go through some certain hoops that not everyone wants to pay for.

1:08:09 Even though it might exactly the same hay,

1:08:10 one just has a label and one doesn't, you know?

1:08:12 Got it, sure.

1:08:13 But I don't think, I don't know if

1:08:14 they have "organic hay," but either way, yeah.

1:08:17 All the comments are gonna-- It's just buzzword.

1:08:19 Farmer in the back.

1:08:22 With love, I come from you, I don't mean to hurt you.

1:08:25 You're like, "I'm a 5HHA CC24 certified."- I'm a future farmer of America.

1:08:30 No, it's not that, it's a national FFA.

1:08:31 Actually I got the national FFA degree.

1:08:35 What does it stand for?

1:08:36 Can you tell me so?

1:08:37 It was originally the Future Farmers of America.

1:08:38 [Doctor Mike] Oh, it was.

1:08:39 But now it's the national FFA organization, yeah.

1:08:41 Got rebranded or it would be more inclusive.

1:08:43 But you said other acronyms, it wasn't just FFA.

1:08:45 4-H.

1:08:45 [Doctor Mike] Oh, what is that?

1:08:47 The 4-H is it's like hands, heart, health, and I don't remember.

1:08:52 Happiness.

1:08:52 Yeah, there's a cute little pledge that we all

1:08:53 have to know when we're kids and we stand up,

1:08:55 it's like the pledge of allegiance.

1:08:56 4-H FFA, okay, got it.

1:08:57 You're like, "I pledge my head to greater learning or something,

1:09:00 my heart to greater," I don't remember it.

1:09:02 Wow.

1:09:03 I love it so much.

1:09:04 I really hope my boys when they're older might wanna do something like that.

1:09:08 [Doctor Mike] That's cool.

1:09:09 I want them to be passionate about something.

1:09:10 Right.

1:09:11 I think it's so important.

1:09:12 Okay, so those are ignore the all natural organic.

1:09:15 [Dr.

1:09:15 Hammond] Ignore those buzzwords.

1:09:17 What should be present?

1:09:18 Yeah.

1:09:19 I also tell people to not get caught up on the ingredients.

1:09:21 I think that's a huge thing.

1:09:23 You'll see the people who are in the pet food store

1:09:25 and they'll flip over the back of the bag and they're like,

1:09:26 "We're gonna read the ingredient label together." And I'm like,

1:09:29 the ingredients don't tell you anything about

1:09:31 bioavailability of the nutrients or the nutrient quality,

1:09:35 and that's an important nuance, right?

1:09:37 So, the nutrients can be there,

1:09:39 but if they're not there in the right sense or the right structure,

1:09:43 your pet can't use them.

1:09:45 They'll just pass for it.

1:09:46 So, if they say something like,

1:09:48 "whole chicken versus chicken meal," does that-- Yeah.

1:09:51 Chicken meal-- Make an impact for you?

1:09:53 It's been ground down and cooked, right?

1:09:55 So, no.

1:09:56 To me, I wouldn't listen-- [Doctor Mike] You see the same thing, got it, okay.

1:09:59 And I don't think that people should either.

1:10:00 But again, these are buzzwords.

1:10:04 And they themselves don't understand them, so they demonize them, right?

1:10:06 Got it.

1:10:07 Anything that's easy to misconstrue can be used to create fear.

1:10:12 So recently, I had a puppy that came in to see me for an acute

1:10:18 orthopedic injury limping in its back left leg

1:10:21 and put the puppy just on, I mean,

1:10:23 we did X-rays to make sure there wasn't a break or something,

1:10:26 because the puppy got hurt at the dog park, and did X-rays.

1:10:29 The X-ray was totally fine.

1:10:30 So I was like, he might have just strained it,

1:10:32 pulled it, whatever, puppies are loose and wiggly like kids, right?

1:10:35 Nothing's kind of cemented down yet.

1:10:38 And I said, "Come in and we'll check it again in a week." So,

1:10:40 puppy was doing great on carprofen, which is like dog safe ibuprofen.

1:10:44 But I could still feel some clicking, or crunching in that knee.

1:10:47 And I was talking to the owner and she had actually come in before

1:10:52 and had seen the associate veterinarian that I

1:10:54 work with, and she was feeding a puppy, she wasn't feeding a puppy food,

1:10:59 she was feeding a food that was marketed towards all life stages,

1:11:02 but it was all organic and it was free

1:11:06 of synthetic vitamins and minerals and it was free

1:11:09 of byproducts and it was "whole foods only." And I

1:11:12 was kindly brought up to her too, I said,

1:11:16 "I know that the other doctor has spoken to you about

1:11:18 this, but have you switched your puppy to a puppy food?" And she said,

1:11:22 "No, I'm still feeding this brand." And again, I don't wanna name drop them.

1:11:25 I don't wanna create any bad press,

1:11:28 but I looked it up in the exam room with her.

1:11:30 I have computers and said, "Let's pull it up together,

1:11:32 let's look at it." 'Cause I asked her if it's a puppy food and she said, no.

1:11:35 Is this like a calcium phosphorus ratio issue?

1:11:37 Yes.

1:11:38 Okay.

1:11:38 And EPA and DHA, think about kids, right?

1:11:42 Especially young infants who are growing rapidly, they need a very structured,

1:11:49 specific diet and it's kind of the same with puppies,

1:11:53 and they need to get nutrients that are very,

1:11:57 very different from adult dogs and dogs

1:11:58 on maintenance and dogs who are not growing.

1:12:00 And so whenever I tell people to never feed

1:12:02 an all life stages diet if you can avoid it,

1:12:05 because it's a jack of all trades and a master of none.

1:12:09 Maybe in a situation where you have a huge farm and you've got 15 dogs, right?

1:12:13 And you've got some dogs that are old and some dogs that are young or whatever,

1:12:16 and you wanna do all life stages and your dogs are doing great.

1:12:19 I get that, but the majority of us have maybe two to three dogs max,

1:12:23 maybe one, then don't feed all life stages, feed a diet specific to your pet.

1:12:29 So, whether it's an adult maintenance, or maybe it's a weight management,

1:12:32 or it's a puppy food or a large breed puppy food,

1:12:35 'cause if your dog's gonna be big, I'm sure you fed Bear large breed puppy food.

1:12:38 It's important because yeah,

1:12:40 and people often give their large breed puppies calcium.

1:12:43 They're like, "Oh, their bones are growing.

1:12:45 They need more calcium." I'm like, "Actually, no,

1:12:47 I want them to have less calcium than

1:12:49 the small dog who's growing because they're growing faster,

1:12:52 they're gonna need it quicker than your dog.

1:12:54 And I want your dog to have less so

1:12:56 that their bones grow more slowly and more controlled,

1:12:58 and they're less likely to have hip dysplasia or elbow dysplasia,

1:13:02 things like that." So yeah,

1:13:04 sometimes it's counterintuitive, but just because these brands,

1:13:08 they'll say stuff like that, they'll say like, "Oh, it's free of byproducts,

1:13:12 or it's free of synthetic vitamins and minerals." And I'm like,

1:13:14 "Well, that doesn't, again,

1:13:15 mean that it's healthy." Marketers make a lot of money

1:13:18 to convince you that you need to buy something.

1:13:20 That's their job.

1:13:21 I'm gonna try and summarize your point and you

1:13:22 tell me if I've absorbed your information well.

1:13:27 Feed your dog whatever you can that keeps a dog comfortable and happy,

1:13:33 and the difference between a C-tier dog food and an S-tier

1:13:38 dog food is minimal and potentially can be even risky.

1:13:42 Yeah, yeah, like some of these premium pet foods can be risky,

1:13:46 again, the hard times.

1:13:47 Well, because the (indistinct) thing and also the boutiqueness of them

1:13:50 means that maybe the quality control can't be as good,

1:13:52 because they're not feeding enough dogs or for long enough time.

1:13:56 Exactly.

1:13:57 The sample size is smaller.

1:13:58 Yeah.

1:13:58 You have to include that in the summary of all the things that I'm saying.

1:14:01 Well, that's why when people say like, "Oh,

1:14:03 I don't use the Johnson& Johnson deodorant." I don't know

1:14:07 if they even have a deodorant, but they say like,

1:14:09 "I won't use that, because it definitely poisons us." I'm like, in fact,

1:14:12 that's the one I would use because so many people use it,

1:14:16 the sample size is so small, we would've detected the smallest-- Yes.

1:14:20 Difference in those people.

1:14:21 Yes.

1:14:21 I know people say that about the recalls on pet foods.

1:14:23 They're like, "I would never feed Purina because

1:14:25 they have a bunch of recalls." And I go,

1:14:27 "I love that they have a bunch of recalls

1:14:29 because that means their quality assurance is super,

1:14:31 super high, and they are catching things and acting on them

1:14:35 before it can be problematic to the pets that eat the food.

1:14:38 Yeah, there's a balance there.

1:14:39 You don't want us to have recalls all the time, yeah.

1:14:40 Well, yeah, exactly, yeah.

1:14:41 I mean, there would definitely be a red flag if

1:14:43 it was like every batch of pet food was getting recalled.

1:14:46 But it's not that common,

1:14:47 it's not nearly as common as people would make it seem.

1:14:50 Who does the recalls?

1:14:51 Voluntarily or is there an agency that-- No,

1:14:54 most of the time it's voluntary, but not all the time.

1:14:56 I'm not entirely sure, I can't actually answer that.

1:14:59 [Doctor Mike] Okay.

1:14:59 But we've actually seen a ton of these raw pets food.

1:15:01 Sure, sure.

1:15:02 These raw meat-based diets getting recalled in the last-- And humans

1:15:04 get sick off of feeding their pets the raw foods,

1:15:07 because don't wash their hands or animals.

1:15:09 So there's a public health risk, that's a huge part of it.

1:15:11 There's also belief that it is

1:15:12 gonna contribute to the antimicrobial resistance problem,

1:15:15 because these dogs are gonna be shedding bacteria in the environment,

1:15:18 but also there's no-- They're gonna get antibiotics more often.

1:15:22 Yes.

1:15:23 So, in food animal producing species, like especially chickens,

1:15:27 there's an organization called FARAD, which is like the food and drug.

1:15:30 Oh, gosh, I should know what it is, it's FARAD, F-A-R-A-D, okay?

1:15:33 It's an important acronym for veterinarians.

1:15:35 When I'm prescribing antibiotics or medications for them,

1:15:38 I actually have to every single time

1:15:40 submit paperwork to FARAD for a withdrawal time, which means if it's a chicken,

1:15:46 you cannot eat this chicken or it's eggs

1:15:48 for X amount of days after they've finished this medication,

1:15:51 so that the residue's not in the food.

1:15:53 But with chicken specifically, they're really dirty,

1:15:57 and they're like pooping everywhere.

1:15:58 So there's a lot of antibiotics I actually can't give them

1:16:00 because then if I give them those antibiotics the way it's believed

1:16:07 to work like in vivo of the chicken is that the chicken's

1:16:10 microbiome will become more resistant

1:16:12 to the antimicrobials they've been exposed to.

1:16:16 And then they're shedding those hardier bacteria

1:16:19 into the environment that we are becoming in contact with.

1:16:21 So, same thing now we need to look at with dogs eating

1:16:24 raw meat-based diets or even consuming raw milk and stuff is like,

1:16:28 how can that contribute to the antimicrobial

1:16:30 resistance problem that we are facing,

1:16:32 which I think is pretty scary 'cause it goes back to, what are we

1:16:35 gonna do when the penicillin isn't working anymore for the UTIs and-- For sure.

1:16:39 The sepsis.

1:16:40 Well, it already doesn't work great for the UTIs.

1:16:42 I know.

1:16:43 And what is it?

1:16:44 It's only like '50, not older now,

1:16:45 or it's like from the 1950s or something like that.

1:16:47 I can't remember.

1:16:48 I don't know, I keep thinking 2000 is like what year it is.

1:16:51 So, I'm like, oh, it's 50 years ago, 1950.

1:16:53 And I'm like, actually that's like 76 years ago.

1:16:56 But it's scary, and it's something that pet parents need to be aware of.

1:17:01 Follow up question that I asked before in a similar way,

1:17:04 as a scientist and someone who was a 4H FFA member,

1:17:10 very passionate about milk, worked on cattle.

1:17:13 Yeah.

1:17:14 Treated cattle.

1:17:15 Yeah.

1:17:15 Loves cows.

1:17:16 Yeah, I love cows.

1:17:17 What milk do you drink?

1:17:19 Oh, yeah, the pasteurized stuff, you know?

1:17:20 No, no.

1:17:23 RBST, not RBST.

1:17:25 Oh, oh.

1:17:26 Do you look for hormone, are you looking for any labels?

1:17:29 I'm not worried about it.

1:17:30 No, okay.

1:17:31 I'm truly not worried about it.

1:17:32 My motto is evidence-based everything.

1:17:34 So, I'm actually an extremely indecisive person,

1:17:36 which makes it sometimes hard to be a doctor.

1:17:39 You have to make the decision, right?

1:17:41 I have to come to you, I'm sick,

1:17:42 I need help now, and you need to pick an option.

1:17:47 And it wasn't a problem.

1:17:49 I didn't even anticipate it being a problem when I was in veterinary school,

1:17:51 but it became a problem when I graduated.

1:17:53 I was like, "Oh, my gosh, I need to get better at making decisions," 'cause

1:17:55 I was so afraid of making the wrong choice.

1:17:57 Right.

1:17:58 And that's when I started leaning into, okay, well, what does the evidence say?

1:18:00 What does the data say?

1:18:02 One question I always ask myself is, could I be wrong?

1:18:06 So, when I graduated veterinary school, I actually did ask myself,

1:18:11 what is my own bias around raw foods?

1:18:13 People are asking me about it in the exam room.

1:18:15 And I knew what I learned in school that was not great,

1:18:19 that there were no proven benefits to feeding raw

1:18:21 meat-based diets to dogs versus creating a home cooked meal.

1:18:26 And so I said, "Okay, well, I wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing

1:18:29 for my patients and my clients who trust me,

1:18:32 and I wanna make sure I'm not misleading them." So,

1:18:33 because so many people were adamant that it's great,

1:18:36 I'm gonna sit down, I'm gonna look at the data and the research.

1:18:37 And I did.

1:18:39 And when I do these things, I always check my own bias.

1:18:43 I think that's super important.

1:18:44 So, I knew I was gonna be biased against raw food.

1:18:47 So, I checked that and I thought, okay, I know that, so now I can go in mindful

1:18:52 of that and try to leave that at the door.

1:18:54 And 'cause why am I biased, right?

1:18:56 Well, that's what a good scientist does.

1:18:58 [Dr.

1:18:58 Hammond] Yeah.

1:18:58 They try and present their biases,

1:18:59 or have people call out their biases and then work off of that.

1:19:02 Or you have to call off your own, right?

1:19:04 At the end of every single research paper,

1:19:05 here's the problems with my research, because I'm biased, right?

1:19:08 Or I did it at this institution and they're paying me.

1:19:11 [Doctor Mike] Right.

1:19:12 So I did, I sat down, I looked at it,

1:19:14 and I came to the same conclusion that the American Veterinary

1:19:17 Medical Association and the American Animal

1:19:19 Hospital Association has come to, again,

1:19:21 there are no proven benefits to feeding raw,

1:19:23 and that the risks do not out, or the benefits do not outweigh the risks.

1:19:27 And so I'm like, great, cool.

1:19:28 Now I know, and I can sit there

1:19:30 with certainty and I'm not just regurgitating something.

1:19:33 [Doctor Mike] Right.

1:19:34 Because I do genuinely care about every single patient that comes to see

1:19:38 me and I respect every single client that is giving me their money.

1:19:41 So, if you're paying me to give you my advice,

1:19:44 it had better be good because that's what I would expect from my doctor.

1:19:47 Yeah.

1:19:48 Right?

1:19:49 And it stinks.

1:19:51 I feel like right now, I'm almost at a disadvantage,

1:19:54 especially on social media because of my credentials, right?

1:19:58 That's a wild statement, huh?

1:20:00 For some reason, our credentials have made us not credible.

1:20:05 Like, the people are gonna say,

1:20:07 "I don't trust you because you're a veterinarian.

1:20:09 So I don't trust you with my pet's health because you're in it for the money,

1:20:14 because you're a veterinarian." Or there's

1:20:15 the other conspiracy theories that I'm just brainwashed,

1:20:18 I got brainwashed when I went to veterinary school,

1:20:21 or veterinary school, this is a fun one.

1:20:24 Veterinary schools are actually funded by big pet food.

1:20:27 I'm like, "You really think that they're gonna teach me how

1:20:29 to do surgery to sell pet food?" You really think that?

1:20:33 I actually had to take a nutrition class

1:20:35 in undergrad to even get into veterinary school.

1:20:36 So, my question for the conspiracy theorist is,

1:20:39 did they fund that nutrition class as well?

1:20:43 Some of these conspiracies are so outlandish, but what it comes down to is,

1:20:47 when people say veterinarians are in it for the money,

1:20:50 I can sit down with them and I can go over the number with them.

1:20:52 And this is why data is so powerful.

1:20:54 So, do you know how many veterinary schools there are in the United States?

1:20:57 [Doctor Mike] Mm-mm.

1:20:58 There's 30.

1:20:59 There's only 30.

1:21:00 There are 30 accredited veterinary schools in the United States.

1:21:02 Do you know how many medical schools there are?

1:21:05 375.

1:21:06 In the United States?

1:21:07 Yeah.

1:21:07 There's 375?

1:21:08 Yeah, I don't-- Isn't that crazy?

1:21:09 No, there's not, there's less.

1:21:11 Oh, there are?

1:21:11 It's like 180.

1:21:12 [Doctor Mike] Oh, okay.

1:21:13 It's like 180.

1:21:13 I just guess, so I have no idea.

1:21:15 Yeah, it's 180.

1:21:15 Okay.

1:21:16 30 to 180.

1:21:17 What is that?

1:21:18 Six, there's six times as many medical schools.

1:21:21 Do you know how many applicants get into veterinary school?

1:21:25 Mm-mm.

1:21:26 15, less than 15%.

1:21:27 Wow.

1:21:28 Do you know the average cost of veterinary school?

1:21:32 No idea.

1:21:33 It's like 260K.

1:21:35 Mm-mm.

1:21:35 Do you know the average cost of medical school?

1:21:38 Similar?

1:21:38 Yeah, it's like 290K.

1:21:40 Yeah.

1:21:41 How long is vet-- Four years.

1:21:43 Four years also.

1:21:43 Four years, yeah.

1:21:43 And then you can go on to do internships and everything.

1:21:45 And numerous species.

1:21:47 Yeah.

1:21:47 So, you have to do four years of undergrad,

1:21:48 and then your four years of veteran school.

1:21:50 That's a good question.

1:21:52 When you're in veterinary school, are you covering every animal?

1:21:56 Or they're like you have to know these four?

1:22:00 Is there a track?

1:22:01 Like, oh, I'm an orthopedic surgeon.

1:22:02 So, we all start out on the same track.

1:22:04 The first two years are the same,

1:22:05 and then you can kind of diversify-- Oh, okay, got it.

1:22:07 Or like differentiate, I should say.

1:22:09 But then are your boards always on four animals?

1:22:11 The boards are on everything.

1:22:12 Everything.

1:22:13 Oh, my gosh, the chicken questions on the board.

1:22:14 They're like, "Here's a picture of a chicken about to die

1:22:17 and here's a picture of a healthy chicken." And it's the same chicken.

1:22:19 And you're like, "Oh, no." (both laughing) Like they look exactly the same,

1:22:22 but one of them-- How valuable is that for a New York City vet?

1:22:27 Well, here's the thing is that some of us jump tracks.

1:22:30 [Doctor Mike] Oh.

1:22:31 I'm of the opinion, and this is the fun thing about opinions,

1:22:34 is that they can never be right or wrong, they just are.

1:22:36 Okay.

1:22:36 I think it is valuable that veterinarians learn about every species,

1:22:39 because I went to veterinary school, I tracked large.

1:22:41 I was adamant that I was gonna be the cattle veterinarian.

1:22:43 But here's the thing, right?

1:22:45 I'm graduating with-- You realize that cows aren't as lovely as you thought.

1:22:48 They're amazing, but farmers don't pay well.

1:22:51 Oh.

1:22:52 Right?

1:22:52 Because here's the thing, the cost of that cow,

1:22:55 that cow has a commercial value, right?

1:22:57 As much as the farmer loves that cow, the cow is not his pet.

1:23:01 So, he can only afford to pay you up

1:23:04 to as much as that cow can produce throughout its lifespan, right?

1:23:07 So, that there's like a-- A curf.

1:23:10 The curf, right, exactly.

1:23:11 But Fifi the Chihuahua, whose owner has had her for 15 years,

1:23:15 and maybe that's the only child that that person has ever had,

1:23:19 they will spend as much as 30K on cancer treatment, right?

1:23:24 So, small animal veterinarians actually make

1:23:26 a lot more money than large animal vets.

1:23:28 [Doctor Mike] Mm.

1:23:29 So when I was graduating veterinary school, I had $186,000 in student debt.

1:23:34 My very first large animal job, I was a mixed animal practice.

1:23:39 They offered to pay me $65,000 a year, which for a veterinarian,

1:23:42 unfortunately entry level, like large animal, that was pretty good.

1:23:46 Large animal is cattle and horses?

1:23:48 Like livestock.

1:23:49 Okay.

1:23:50 Yeah, yeah.

1:23:50 Equine veterinarians typically specialize just horses.

1:23:53 They get paid the least amount of money, unfortunately.

1:23:55 Wow.

1:23:56 I feel like they need to hold out and strong arm and get paid more.

1:24:00 I think starting salary,

1:24:01 like an equine vet was like 50 or something, which is crazy.

1:24:04 What?

1:24:05 Yeah.

1:24:05 That is crazy.

1:24:05 Like you're a whole doctor.

1:24:06 Now I might be wrong on that value now.

1:24:08 It might have changed, but this was like back in 2018.

1:24:10 So I got offered 65K, whereas the small animal job that I applied

1:24:14 for offered me 80 and no on-call weekends, and like no after hours.

1:24:18 And I was like, I'm gonna go do that for a little

1:24:20 while and then once my loans are paid down, I can go back to large animal.

1:24:24 Right.

1:24:25 But I didn't.

1:24:25 I go back to large animal but I ended

1:24:28 up-- Because you fell in love with little animals?

1:24:31 I liked it, I was having a lot of fun.

1:24:33 I always still thought I would do large animal and maybe some dogs and cats,

1:24:38 but then I ended up actually, I found myself at a practice in Charleston where

1:24:42 the doctor would see everything and I loved it.

1:24:45 Okay.

1:24:45 I loved it.

1:24:46 And it actually reminded me-- So you're the family medicine of both.

1:24:50 Your vet for every pet.

1:24:52 Okay.

1:24:52 And it took a little minute to get into, 'cause there's

1:24:54 obviously a lot of stuff I had to go back and relearn,

1:24:56 like the physiology of species can be very different.

1:24:59 Some medications that you can give a cat will kill a bunny,

1:25:02 and vice versa, like crazy.

1:25:04 Sure.

1:25:05 You have to know, cats are not small dogs, dogs are not small people,

1:25:09 and then same with all these other creatures,

1:25:11 and birds and reptiles are so completely unique.

1:25:14 I never ever in a million years thought I would be a bird and reptile vet.

1:25:18 I actually used to be super squeamish around snakes.

1:25:21 Hmm.

1:25:22 [Dr.

1:25:22 Hammond] But now that's what I'm doing.

1:25:23 Wow.

1:25:23 And it's fun because people even bring me

1:25:25 like pygmy goats and like little pot belly, like micro pigs and stuff.

1:25:29 So, if I hadn't learned about all of these things in veterinary school,

1:25:33 I wouldn't have because I would have thought I'm never gonna do that.

1:25:36 Wow, okay.

1:25:37 I'm never gonna need that.

1:25:38 But here I am now, jokes on me, I do need to know about those reptiles.

1:25:43 And I do need to know about this chicken

1:25:44 that looks like it's about to die in the healthy chicken.

1:25:46 Because the chickens are hard, yeah.

1:25:49 There's no facial expression.

1:25:50 When they're really sick, they kind of close their eyes,

1:25:52 and they like put their head down.

1:25:57 It's good that they make us learn all the things.

1:25:59 But back to that point.

1:26:00 Yeah, yeah, so.

1:26:01 So, 30 veterinary schools in the United States.

1:26:03 15%.

1:26:03 15% get in.

1:26:04 260K.

1:26:06 260,000.

1:26:07 Average starting, or average salary,

1:26:08 not even starting salary, average salary veterinarian is $140,000.

1:26:12 What's the average salary for doctor?

1:26:15 So, specialty driven, so I don't know.

1:26:17 It is, it is, it's hard.

1:26:18 It's such a wide.

1:26:19 If you Google it, it says-- Primary care is 200 something thousand.

1:26:22 Okay, yeah.

1:26:22 So, if you Google it, it says it's between three and 400,

1:26:25 but it says, again, that that's skewed because-- Yeah, I mean.

1:26:28 Some like you're saying.

1:26:28 If you're an orthopedic surgeon or ophthalmology, yeah.

1:26:31 100%, 100%.

1:26:33 But the point I'm trying to make is that it is much harder

1:26:36 to get into veterinary school than it is to get into medical school.

1:26:39 I'm not trying to say that there's age old, like, who's better, vets or doctors.

1:26:44 I think it's amazing.

1:26:45 I think you're caring for people, you're saving lives,

1:26:48 I think it's a very selfless career either way.

1:26:51 But if I were in it for the money, I would've gone to medical school.

1:26:55 I just wanna scream that like.

1:26:56 Well, you cared about the money, you'd go into business world or something.

1:27:00 I don't know, yeah, business, business, right?

1:27:03 Finance.

1:27:04 Yes.

1:27:05 Yeah.

1:27:06 Not to hang out with the chicken.

1:27:07 Hedge fund manager.

1:27:08 Yeah.

1:27:08 I don't know what that means, but they make way more money than I'll ever make.

1:27:11 And they don't have to like live with life and death decisions.

1:27:17 They don't have to go home and cry,

1:27:19 because they lost a patient today, because there was a bad medical outcome.

1:27:25 It's crazy.

1:27:26 And so when every time I hear people say veterinarians are in it for the money,

1:27:29 I'm like, you don't know what you're talking about.

1:27:33 If I just were to give you those numbers, you're like,

1:27:35 "Oh, okay, that makes sense." And nobody listens to that.

1:27:37 Is this why vets are burning out at such high rates?

1:27:41 Yeah, burnout amongst veterinarians is-- [Doctor Mike]

1:27:44 Like mental health issues are pretty high.

1:27:45 Yeah, so veterinarians have the highest (silence) right now,

1:27:47 we pass dentists like, whoo-hoo.

1:27:49 (chuckles)- Yeah, what's driving that?

1:27:51 Well, I think a big part of it is

1:27:54 that we're blamed a lot for things that go wrong,

1:27:57 even though, we offer diagnostics, and people should decline them,

1:28:01 and then the pet dies and it's our fault,

1:28:03 or people don't take our advice because they don't trust us,

1:28:08 or we're overworked and understaffed.

1:28:13 It's hard to have a good team in veterinary medicine that sticks around.

1:28:19 At my current clinic, I have an awesome team.

1:28:21 Like, I love that's all girls because vet med is mostly girls,

1:28:24 but I love these girls.

1:28:25 Well, now, 'cause that wasn't the case-- Yeah.

1:28:27 In the 1960s, 98% male.

1:28:29 Yeah.

1:28:29 It's like 85% I think of veterinary technicians and assistants are female,

1:28:35 and I think 80 to 90% of veterinary students are female.

1:28:39 And right now, veterinarians are the majority of, excuse me,

1:28:42 females are the majority of veterinarians, but I don't know the number.

1:28:46 It's probably like 60%, but in the future, I mean,

1:28:48 it's just gonna be more and more female, I think.

1:28:49 And yeah, but I love the girls that I have now, but the issue is,

1:28:55 we are asking our veterinary nurses to do

1:28:58 very hard things that require a lot of training,

1:29:01 and they're getting $25 an hour.

1:29:03 They're doing everything like an RN is doing, and again,

1:29:08 I do not want people to think that I am, there was a huge argument online,

1:29:11 I think about a year ago about our veterinary nurse is nurses and I said,

1:29:16 "Heck yes, they are.

1:29:17 Like they're phlebotomists, they're radiation detects.

1:29:20 they're doing the X-rays, they're inducing anesthesia,

1:29:23 they're monitoring anesthesia, they're drawing the blood,

1:29:25 they're giving the fluids, they're monitoring vitals,

1:29:29 they're doing all of these incredible things for me,

1:29:31 and then they're making like peanuts."

1:29:33 And my husband has a saying where he says,

1:29:35 "Pay peanuts, get monkeys." And a lot of them get burnt out and leave.

1:29:42 'Cause, of course they're like, "Well,

1:29:43 I can make more money being a nanny and I'm tired of getting

1:29:47 scratched by cats and bitten by dogs and yelled at by owners,

1:29:50 so I'm gonna take a break from this and I'm gonna go make more

1:29:52 money doing something else." So that happens

1:29:53 with a lot of our really great techs.

1:29:57 And I'm not trying to blame the techs for the burnout,

1:29:58 but I'm saying that's one thing is,

1:30:00 it's hard to have a good team or you're short

1:30:02 staffed because your team is turning over all the time.

1:30:05 And people are like, "We'll just pay the vet techs more." And I'm like,

1:30:08 "Yeah, but then we have to raise the prices of veterinary medicine.

1:30:10 And every time we raise prices,

1:30:11 there's so much pushback from the general public."

1:30:13 Because they think every time we raise prices,

1:30:16 we're just increasing our profit margin, but we're not, right?

1:30:19 It's like maintaining the same profit margin,

1:30:21 but prices are going up from inflation,

1:30:23 or we wanna pay our team more because they deserve it.

1:30:27 It's so nuanced and there's so much that goes into it--

1:30:29 Is private equity coming in and ruining the practice yet?

1:30:34 'Cause it's happening in healthcare, I'm curious.

1:30:36 So again, I have opinions and my opinions are just that.

1:30:40 They're my opinions, they are not right or wrong.

1:30:42 Well, it's hard to have an evidence-based take on this.

1:30:44 This is not a widely studied topic.

1:30:47 So, I do have so much of a heart for a private practice.

1:30:52 And I do think there is so much value and benefit to the patient

1:30:56 care side of having the person who owns the clinic on the floor with you,

1:31:00 because they don't wanna be short-staffed,

1:31:02 so they're probably gonna pay their staff a little bit better.

1:31:04 If there's more staff in the clinic to help care for your pet,

1:31:06 you're probably gonna have a better experience there,

1:31:08 right, if that doctor is willing to pay.

1:31:12 I do see there being issues with private equity.

1:31:16 The clinic that I work from is owned by a private equity group.

1:31:21 So the man I started practicing with retired

1:31:24 and moved to New York and then like unretired.

1:31:26 So he's actually here in the city,

1:31:27 somewhere practicing, he's a great doctor, Dr.

1:31:29 Doug Berger.

1:31:29 If you live New York, you should goes see him with your pets.

1:31:32 His name is Duck Berger?

1:31:34 Doug.

1:31:34 Oh.

1:31:34 (Dr.

1:31:35 Hammond chuckles) I was like, wow.

1:31:36 Doug Berger.

1:31:37 But he founded the practice, but yeah, I mean,

1:31:39 just as most practice owners do, he was tired, he was done with it,

1:31:42 he wanted to move on to other things

1:31:43 and he sold his practice to a private equity group.

1:31:46 And they've been really great.

1:31:47 They've been pretty hands off in terms of, like,

1:31:51 they don't tell us how we can practice.

1:31:53 But there are some issues like they don't wanna pay,

1:31:59 we have trouble getting raises for staff when I think that they deserve it,

1:32:02 because, again, they're looking at those numbers--

1:32:06 They're doing it very formatically, probably.

1:32:07 Yeah, it is all very.

1:32:08 And there are times when I'm speaking with my regional

1:32:11 manager who's fantastic and she does a great job,

1:32:13 but she's never worked in a veterinary clinic, and it shows sometimes.

1:32:17 Like I'll bring something up to her and she goes,

1:32:18 "Well, what does that matter?" And I'm like,

1:32:21 "Okay." (both chuckle) And you know one time,

1:32:23 we were talking about seeing the small creatures, right?

1:32:25 Like, the guinea pigs and the hamsters.

1:32:26 And she was like, "Well,

1:32:27 you probably don't make really much money seeing those creatures, do you?

1:32:30 No one wants to pay for those things." And I'm like, "Well,

1:32:32 I just did an $800 surgery on a guinea pig last week.

1:32:34 And I did a $1,200 workup on a rabbit the day before that who

1:32:39 had some dental issues going on." But I also was kind of like,

1:32:44 "Don't look at it that way." Don't look at it as the value of the pet

1:32:47 that we're seeing because that's where it starts

1:32:49 to sound like veterinarians are in it for the money.

1:32:52 And I do think that creates problems though because again,

1:32:55 if you're not gonna pay staff or there's short staff,

1:32:58 there's burnout, veterinarians are tired, they leave.

1:33:02 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

1:33:03 Then there's less veterinarians, then there's more burnout,

1:33:06 it becomes like a snowball problem.

1:33:09 I don't know the solution to it.

1:33:11 I do think there are a lot of initiatives to improve it.

1:33:13 I feel like it's been improving just from a-- What initiatives?

1:33:18 Just like resources for mental health and wellness

1:33:20 and a better acceptance of understanding that.

1:33:24 I feel like, if you had gone to your medical

1:33:28 director like 10 years ago and you're like,

1:33:29 "I need a break, like I'm feeling burnt out," they'd be like,

1:33:31 "Suck it up and get over it.

1:33:33 We're running a business, you gotta work," right?

1:33:34 But I feel like now the conversation people can be like, "Oh,

1:33:36 my gosh, take the time you need." There's an acknowledgement that it's serious,

1:33:41 and that it's a problem and that people aren't

1:33:43 just trying to shirk out of work or something.

1:33:46 So, I think people are more open and understanding

1:33:50 and acknowledging that burnout is a real problem.

1:33:54 [Doctor Mike] Yeah.

1:33:54 Again, I don't have the solution, but I do think it's getting better.

1:33:57 Yeah, what's a general sentiment from your industry of people saying,

1:34:03 "Oh, every time I go to the vet,

1:34:05 it feels like they're just patting the bill with excess tests that I

1:34:07 don't need because it raises income." Is there any truth to that?

1:34:12 Is there ever been any truth to that?

1:34:14 Is that just totally a myth?

1:34:15 Yeah.

1:34:16 So, we'll never recommend anything unnecessary, right?

1:34:20 Even in a sick pet, I'll tell people like,

1:34:22 "I'm not gonna order this test for your pet unless I think

1:34:24 it's gonna make a difference in what we decide to do."- Mm-hmm.

1:34:27 Truly, like that's how I practice.

1:34:29 And I think the majority of veterinarians would agree.

1:34:32 People don't always see the value

1:34:33 in things maybe because it's not explained well.

1:34:35 And that's actually a big passion of mine.

1:34:38 Veterinarians are not always great communicators.

1:34:41 Many people become veterinarians because they don't

1:34:43 really necessarily wanna work with people, right?

1:34:45 But pets can't bring themselves to the vet.

1:34:47 Every pet comes attached to a person, and it's the person,

1:34:51 kinda like I went back to the pediatrician,

1:34:53 the parent, it's the person that we have to get on board with our plan.

1:34:57 And veterinarians aren't great at always communicating

1:35:02 the importance of these things because we understand them.

1:35:05 So we just say, "Okay, here's the things you should do

1:35:06 for your pet because they're five." And it's like,

1:35:09 maybe annual vaccines that need to be updated, the heartworm test,

1:35:14 the Lyme test, a fecal screening and annual lab work.

1:35:18 But if you're not explaining the importance

1:35:20 of that, of course you're gonna be like, "Well,

1:35:22 my pet doesn't need this, they're perfectly fine." But the amount

1:35:26 of times that we actually see flags or markers,

1:35:29 abnormal markers on lab work on perfectly healthy animals is a lot.

1:35:33 Like we can see early markers of kidney problems,

1:35:35 there's protein in the urine or something

1:35:37 like that, that we can actually work up

1:35:39 and intervene on before your dog presents

1:35:42 it two years later in full-blown kidney failure.

1:35:44 Right.

1:35:45 And then what can you do?

1:35:46 Not a lot.

1:35:47 So there is value in this, but I don't

1:35:50 think vets as a whole are great at communicating that.

1:35:53 I do think recently there's been a push

1:35:57 to improve the communication skills of veterinarians.

1:36:00 I tell other vets all the time

1:36:02 that communication is our number one procedure, right?

1:36:05 We do it all day long.

1:36:07 It's the most common procedure we perform, but we don't get trained on it.

1:36:11 There's no training in veterans school.

1:36:13 Really?

1:36:13 No.

1:36:14 Maybe there is now.

1:36:15 You don't have simulated pet parents or something?

1:36:17 Mm-mm, no.

1:36:18 Mm.

1:36:19 I feel like that's important.

1:36:20 It is so important.

1:36:21 'Cause it feels like it's your number one job.

1:36:22 [Dr.

1:36:23 Hammond] It is, right?

1:36:24 It's what you probably spend the most time doing.

1:36:26 Yeah, they give us surgery training.

1:36:27 Yeah.

1:36:28 Right?

1:36:28 So, that we can go out and surgerize, right?

1:36:31 They train us how to interpret the lab work,

1:36:33 they train us how to do the physical exams and everything,

1:36:35 but that's that's the missing link, I think,

1:36:38 and that's where a lot of these rumors have come from.

1:36:40 My friend actually asked me, so a few months ago, she's like, "Hey,

1:36:44 do you think our dog Shay is overweight?" And I was like,

1:36:48 "Yeah, he is." She asked me nicely.

1:36:49 I don't normally, out of the exam room,

1:36:52 I try not to ever comment on people's pets.

1:36:53 If they ask me, I will, but like unsolicited advice, right?

1:36:57 It's a great way not to make friends.

1:36:58 And I try not to tell people I'm a vet if they don't know.

1:37:00 I'll be at the dog park and I'll just hear people

1:37:02 talking and they're giving each other like the worst pet advice ever.

1:37:04 Oh, no.

1:37:05 I'm just sitting there.

1:37:06 What's the worst advice for you?

1:37:08 Oh, my God, I hear like, don't spay your dog,

1:37:11 because orthopedic issues and everything and I'm sitting there like,

1:37:14 "Pyometra, a mammary cancer." But I'm like, I'm not on the clock.

1:37:18 I'm not getting into the weeds of this, just don't say anything.

1:37:21 And I was getting my nails done the other day and there were

1:37:23 these two girls talking about nutrition for pets or something and I was like,

1:37:26 "Don't say anything,

1:37:27 don't say anything." But it's like clenching your jaw, you know?

1:37:32 You're like my TMJ.

1:37:33 Yeah, I don't remember what I was even saying now I got distracted.

1:37:36 What was I talking about?

1:37:37 (chuckles)- You were talking about, God,

1:37:40 I'm on the spaying and neutering 'cause my mind started going there.

1:37:43 Yeah, but we were saying, I was saying something about communication,

1:37:45 and, oh, my friend, sorry, my friend, she said-- Unsolicited advice.

1:37:48 "Do you think Shay's overeight?" Shay's her mom's dog, and I said,

1:37:51 "Yes, Shay probably needs to lose five pounds." And she goes,

1:37:55 "My mom told me that she went to the vet recently and they

1:37:59 charged her $500 and they didn't do anything." And I was like,

1:38:03 ah, 'cause that is what most people see,

1:38:06 because she probably went to the vet, they came in, they took the history,

1:38:11 they probably said, "We're gonna take Shay

1:38:13 to the back now and do everything in the back,

1:38:15 and then the doctor will come talk to you when we're done."

1:38:17 That's the way it's been done for a really, really long time.

1:38:20 And I think that if veterinarians wanna get ahead of this trust

1:38:24 issue because a study in 2024 in the Journal of American Veterinary Medicine,

1:38:29 it showed that only about 60% of pet parents trust their veterinarian.

1:38:34 Now you might be a glass half full kind

1:38:35 of person and you might say 60%, like that's great.

1:38:38 That's the majority.

1:38:39 (sighs) But that means that four out of 10

1:38:41 people don't trust us and how do we fix that?

1:38:43 So, we need to be as transparent as possible.

1:38:45 So, I think doing everything in front of the pet parent is

1:38:48 gonna be one of the best ways that we can fix that.

1:38:51 So, I'm sure that when they took Shay to the back,

1:38:53 he probably got a full physical exam from the veterinarian,

1:38:55 he probably got his annual vaccines, he probably got his annual blood work,

1:38:59 and probably went home with some parasite preventative.

1:39:01 And, of course, that probably all costs like five to $600.

1:39:04 That's probably pretty average for those things.

1:39:06 Yeah.

1:39:07 That's a pretty reasonable price for all those stuff that she got,

1:39:09 but she didn't see any of it, right?

1:39:11 So, she's leaving and she's like,

1:39:12 "They didn't do anything." I also think a lot of veterinarians

1:39:16 do have a hard time discussing the weight of pets.

1:39:20 I don't know what happened, maybe they did talk about it,

1:39:22 maybe it was a lot going on, and she didn't hear, I don't know, I wasn't there.

1:39:25 But Shay does need to lose some weight and I think that-- What are Shay getting?

1:39:31 (both chuckle) Catching Shay's on my podcast.

1:39:33 I know all of sudden-- What kind of dog is Shay?

1:39:35 He's a shelter dog.

1:39:36 Oh, okay.

1:39:37 He looks like he's got some lab, maybe some husky in him or something.

1:39:40 He's like 50 pounds, like 55, sweet dog, really good dog.

1:39:44 But yeah, I mean, his human is older,

1:39:48 so he probably doesn't get quite as much exercise,

1:39:51 and again, he probably gets too much food.

1:39:53 But not terrible, it's just easier to stay on top of it, right?

1:39:57 So, easier to modify when he's five pounds

1:40:00 overweight than when he's 10 pounds overweight, et cetera.

1:40:02 But the fact is, she still thought nothing happened.

1:40:04 She still was like, "I went to the vet, they showed me $500 and they didn't

1:40:08 do anything." And that makes me wanna scream.

1:40:10 So, there's a new push in the veterinary medical

1:40:14 world towards open concept veterinary clinics, and I love it.

1:40:19 I practice what's called fear-free veterinary medicine,

1:40:22 which is where we try to have

1:40:24 the most considerate and gentle approach to every pet.

1:40:28 Most of the time that means doing as much as we can

1:40:30 with the pet parent because they feel scared when suddenly their person is gone.

1:40:35 Now, some pets are actually worse with their people,

1:40:37 but I always-- Like defensive of them or something?

1:40:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:40:41 Or pets who like use them as like a security blanket.

1:40:45 So, I can't do anything for your dog