Right now? What I hear so much about is grain-free diets. That's the biggest one because they think their dogs have allergies and they're going to put them on grain-free and everybody's going to live happily ever after. And let me just say that if your dog is allergic to grain, then yeah, you might live happily ever after. But that's the only reason. If they're not allergic to that, why do it?

If I'm allergic to strawberries, I'm not going to quit eating steak or anything like that. It just doesn't make sense. Not to mention one of the things I will say about grain-free diets and a lot of the public is still not aware of, and I won't go into great detail, but there has been plenty of studies that show that there is a correlation between dogs who eat grain-free diets that developed premature cardiovascular disease or heart disease if you will. You will find a plethora of information out there about the potential dangers of a grain-free diet. Unless a dog has been proven to be allergic to grains, I don't recommend grain-free diets. And that's one of the big misconceptions that I hear on a weekly basis.

No more than it'll make us overweight. Everything in moderation. I'm not a big fan of feeding table food, people food, human food, or whatever you want to call it. It's not balanced very well for dogs. Does that mean it can't be done? Of course not. If you are feeding a balanced diet that contains what they need, it is fine. But the question about being overweight or not because of that food, no, it's everything in moderation. If you feed a lot of it, yes they could very well be overweight.

Human food has a tendency to make your dog overweight. They're already getting their normal diet. We probably aren't taking into account the calories that the extra human food adds, let alone that our food is sometimes really fatty and can cause things like pancreatitis.

I'm going to answer that and say, "Only if your dog needs a prescription diet." Most of these prescription foods, and I underline the word most, not all, are formulated for dogs that have medical issues that require dietary changes to help treat medical issues such as kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease, and diabetes. So for those cases, yes, prescription diets are superior. But if you have a young, healthy dog that has no underlying medical issues, the only thing that I would say is that a prescription diet might benefit the teeth.

This is my favorite point. So grain-free diets right now have been going around as the big fad—that's really important in people's opinions. And maybe at one point, it was for certain things, but I think it's getting overused. Unless your dog has been diagnosed with a food allergy by a dermatologist or they're having skin issues or they’ve seen an internist for GI upsets, we should not be giving dogs these grain-free diets. It's actually correlated to a horrible heart condition called DCM, and that's oftentimes fatal. So let's prevent that by not starting a grain-free diet unless it's been prescribed.

Prescription diets may be better for your dog if your dog has certain conditions that require that prescription. So as a whole, happy, healthy dogs don't necessarily need prescription diets, but it’s not going to hurt your dog. But unless certain things come up, whether they have osteoarthritis and we want to make sure that they get lubrication of their joints, you probably want to avoid a prescription diet due to cost.

I'm definitely going to say “no” to that question, and the simple reason why is dogs are carnivores. I'm not even talking about domestic though. Let's talk about dogs, canines. They are carnivorous animals. So to completely remove all animal protein from their diet is not how God created them. Can they live for a period of time? Heck yeah, they can. Would I recommend that you put a dog on a vegan diet long-term? My answer would be, "No."

There are some vegetarian options, for example, hydrolyzed protein. Because a lot of times, it's the protein source that animals can be allergic to if they have food allergies. The bottom line is protein sources need to be there somehow. So in dealing with a strictly vegan diet, even vegans necessarily need their protein. We just have to be sure it's there.

During your average preventative care appointment, it's going to be a lot of the routines, so we're going to test the dog for heartworms. We're going to do a stool sample to look for intestinal worms. We do a great head-to-toe physical exam. We're going to administer vaccinations to prevent all the diseases. Also, it gives us an opportunity to do what we call wellness blood work. That is typically where we run a CBC and maybe a chemistry panel. On some of our older patients, we might also include a thyroid panel. But it's before there's a problem, so we're looking to see if we can see the beginnings of perhaps inadequate kidney function, or the beginnings of something that's affecting the liver, or electrolytes or blood sugar...those kinds of things. That's why we call it wellness blood work. There's no problem there at that time, but it's allowing us to look behind the curtain and see if there's anything more brewing under the surface.

A full physical exam is our basis there. Even just seeing them walk into the clinic is a really good way to assess how they're ambulating, how their motility is at home, but otherwise, we’ll do some simple blood work like a heartworm test, et cetera, to get them on these products here.