Transform Pet Nutrition! Dr. Delaney Explains.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker (00:00):
Are you a passionate pet parent always on the lookout
for the best way to care foryour furry friends?
Then you're in the right place.
Welcome back to Vetsplanation,where we delve deep into the
world of veterinary science andpet care, illuminating the path
to a healthier, happy pet.
Today we're incredibly excitedto have a special guest, Dr.
Sean Delaney, the mastermindbehind the revolutionary

(00:23):
website, Balance It.
A site that has become a go-toresource for pet parents wanting
or needing to feed their petshuman food safely.
Stick around as we uncover thestory behind Balance It, dive
into the fascinating world ofveterinarian nutrition, and
explore how Dr.
Delaney's expertise can help usall provide the best care for

(00:44):
our dogs and cats.
Don't miss this enlighteningconversation about blending
love, science, and nutrition forthe ultimate well-being of our
pets.
Let's get started.

Dr. Tyler Sugerman (00:56):
Hi, welcome back to Vetsplanation everybody.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I have Dr.
Sean Delaney here with us today.
I'm really excited to talk toyou because I have so many pet
parents that I actually tellthem to go to your website.
So thank you so much for beingon here.

Dr. Sean Delaney (01:10):
Yeah, it's my pleasure.
I'm glad to be invited andlooking forward to chatting.

Yeah, so you made this amazing website called
Balance It.
So can you tell me a little bitabout it?

Sure.
So we help people that eitherchoose to or have to feed human
food to their dog or cat andhelp them do it safely.

Yeah, and you are a nutritionist, correct?

Yeah, so as I'm sure probably your listeners
are aware of, if you've beenlistening to you, there are
veterinary specialists.
So I'm specialized in veterinarynutrition, which means I'm a
board certified veterinarynutritionist.
That's a U.S.
patent office trademarked term,like realtor and other things.
But specifically amongstcolleagues, we would consider
myself a diplomat of theAmerican College of Veterinary

(01:51):
Internal Medicine, specificallythe nutrition specialty.

Nice.
And I'm sure you get a lot ofclients.
How did you decide to go fromseeing clients to making this
website?

Yeah, I think the old adage you're saying is
necessity is the mother of allinvention, is really the origin
story.
For many years I was a facultymember at UC Davis.
And so trying to use the, forthose who are old enough, MS-DOS
based software solution, whichwas very iterative, meaning you

(02:25):
had to basically, Oh, I need alittle more of this, a little
less of this.
Over time, it was very, veryinefficient, and made it
challenging to address all thepatients that needed homemade
diet formulations for multiplemedical conditions.
And so I was fortunate enoughthat my brother in law was a
software developer and said,Hey, maybe we can.

(02:46):
Yeah, it's very nice.
And I said maybe we could comeup with something to be a little
bit easier.
And I spent some time thinkingabout equations and did some
math and ultimately came up witha nice solution that would make
things a little bit easier andalso be able to prevent the need
to hand enter every ingredientand every nutrient we wanted to
use.
So we had a small database, butthe USDA has a very large

(03:09):
database and we're able toautomate and transfer that data
to make it usable for my ownpurposes.
And then over time, I realizedthat It could be something that
would be helpful to my otherboard certified veterinary
nutritionist colleagues and overfurther time, other veterinary
specialists, and thenveterinarians, and then just the
lay public.
And it was not the intent to bewhat it is now but it has become

(03:33):
that.
And I'm very, very grateful andfeel privileged to help as many
dogs and cats that I do.
In about a week's time, I makeabout the amount of formulations
through our site that I wouldhave probably been able to make
in my entire career based on theold technology that we
ultimately replaced.
So I'm helping a lot morepatients than I thought I ever

(03:56):
would in my career.

Yeah, that's amazing.
I'm sure there are so many petparents who are so grateful for
this because even, even us asveterinarians who I'd been using
it, I don't even know for howlong now, but, it was really
difficult for me in thebeginning, even in vet school,
when they'd ask us to do those,those spreadsheets, trying to
figure out every single nutrientand how to balance that for

(04:17):
every life stage.
And so this is amazing that theyhave this technology now that
you and your brother were ableto come up with.

Yes, my brother in law, just to be
correct, correct.
But yes, that's okay.
We've been I've known him sincehe was 16 years old.
So it's probably brother isprobably about right.
But we're very fortunate that wewere able to take the technology
that exists now and the amountof mathematics and refine that
over the last 20 some odd years.
It's gotten better.
We re released the software backin April of 2023.

(04:49):
Some of the things that I hadnot been able to solve, the
pandemic, the silver lining wasthat I could spend a lot of
time.
And so there were some things Iwanted to solve for 17 years.
And I sat down and I did what Ilearned when I was taking
calculus from my math professor,he said this is a prison
problem.
And what he meant by that is theonly reason you would hand
calculate and spend all the timecalculating this is if you had

(05:09):
all the time in the world.
And so the pandemic was my, my,window into that.
Redoing some math, solving somenew problems making things more
efficient and really pleasedthat I've been able to do that.
And, computers have advanced,even in the 20 years that we've
been doing this.
What we can do in seconds wouldhave taken minutes.
When we first started working onthe supplements that complement

(05:31):
the software.
I remember the first check, hadno income.
It was just a, a dream or maybea labor of love and realized on
the PCs of the time we wanted torun some iterations where we
could look and say, Oh, whatwould be an optimal supplement
if we were combining certaincommon food steps for just
health and it would takebasically about two weeks to run

(05:55):
on the computer.
So we're like, this is not goingto be efficient enough for us to
refine what we're doing.
And so I remember writing thecheck and buying the first Xeon
servers, and I was so excitedthat I could run my hundred
thousand iterations in a 24 hourperiod, and we bought two.
And so I could run one day, getthe results, start refining with

(06:17):
my brother in law.
And that was our first expense,except for an IKEA desk that I
still have next to me.
Maybe good luck more thananything else, but was able to
work through that Xeon.
And now, that was about 100,000recipes we were running through.
Now we have some, withrefinement, we can run that in a
matter of minutes.
Both with the improvement of themathematics, the logic, and then

(06:40):
also the data centers thatexist.
And we run many, many what arecalled instances rather than
servers to support all of ourusers.
And it's just, I think we're allaware of technology and how it's
advanced and how efficientmicrochips have become, and both
energy wise and calculationwise.
But my real world experience ofseeing something that, It went
from, hey, let's take this intwo weeks, to 24 hours, to

(07:02):
minutes in my career.
It's really, a good way ofillustrating it and why it is
possible to do what we're doing.

Yeah.
That's amazing.
Now that we've had all theseadvancements, you said pretty
much anybody can use thiscalculator at this point,
correct?

Yeah, what I learned is, initially it was
what we would call an expertrule based system, not to be too
technical with folks, but that'swhat it was.
And it was for a very, verysophisticated board certified
veterinary nutritionist who hadspent years.
Both getting a graduate degreein nutrition and doing a
residency to refine skills that,really are very, very, very high

(07:43):
level.
How do you take those skills andmake it so that the layperson
who loves their animal, lovestheir dog or their cat, wants to
do best for them, whether inhealth or in sickness, but
doesn't really have necessarilythose skill sets.
Certainly we have people thatmight have a STEM major, they
might have, certain degree ofunderstanding of nutrition, but

(08:03):
how do you enable them to dothat in a safe way?
That's not easy.
Actually, it's really hard, youput up enough guardrails, that
they have some freedom to pickwhat they want to do, to
customize what they want to do,and be told when, when what they
want to do isn't appropriate.
That's really key as well.
As I've learned, making thingseasy is hard.

(08:25):
And I think that, that's true ofmany things in veterinary
medicine, right?
And in any, in any field,sometimes when someone is an
expert, it's just becausethey've failed so many times
that they've gotten better atit.
And so it makes it look easy,but it's not easy in the route
getting there.
So a lot of trial and error andimprove the software so that
people can just go on and say,Hey, I'm interested in feeding

(08:47):
my dog and put in some minimalinformation about their weight,
minimal information about theirsexual status, and their age,
and their species, of course, tothen figure out what are their
energy needs.
That's a first and foremost, andthen put in some conditions.
Maybe they're a healthy adult,maybe they're a puppy, maybe
they're a kitten, maybe theyhave some medical conditions,
and come up with a set ofrequirements.

(09:07):
And do that all behind thescenes, to then say, okay, what
do you want to feed?
And give them options, Ireferenced that USDA database,
we have about 8,000 differentfoods that people can pick from.
And say, is there a way tocombine those foods in a way
that could be fed long term andbe done safely.

(09:28):
Certainly in the short term, wereally focus on macro nutrients.
So things like protein and fatand carbohydrate and then
calories, as I said, and makingsure we're not under or
overfeeding.
But longer term, we startworrying about other nutrients,
other essential nutrients,minerals and vitamins and making
sure that amino acid and fattyacid requirements are met.
And so how do you combine allthat and make sure that it's

(09:49):
appropriate for long termfeeding and we have I think a
good solution for that with ourrecipe builder as we call it.
It's used by thousands of peopleevery day and we make millions
of recipes for dogs and catsevery year and many of them
never buy anything from us.
It's a free service and I'mreally pleased that we're able
to do that.

(10:10):
We've realized how importantthat's become in our field.
The version we provide to laypeople.
There's a more advanced version.
My colleagues still use inAcademia and specialty practice
and we offer that for free andsupport it.
I work with a team of softwaredevelopers every day refining
what we do and supporting whatwe do.
And we've realize that it's soimportant that we've actually

(10:30):
made a change.
We are now what's called abenefit corporation.
So certain States, Californiaincluded, you can have a benefit
corporation, which means you'renot nonprofit, but you're not
only profit driven, you'resomewhere in between.
And so you do a certain amountof good work for some
stakeholder.
For us, obviously it's for theveterinary profession and
clients and veterinarians.

(10:52):
And so we offer that tool forfree to people and we hope that
they'll use some of oursupplements because that's how
we keep the lights on and paythe bills.
But when they choose not to orit doesn't work, we do allow
people to even make recipes witha combination of supplements
that are designed for humans.
So we give people the bestoption because really for me as
a nutritionist and as aveterinarian, my goal has always

(11:14):
been to help people to notinappropriately feed, right?
People are taking the time tocook for their animal,
especially when they're sick.
They're doing it because theycare and they want to do the
best for them and without theknowledge to know that maybe
what they're feeding isn'toptimal or it's deficient or has
an excess.
You know, you put them in adifficult position.

(11:36):
And so I feel very, again,grateful and lucky that we can
support that and I think givepeople a lot better guidance
than they would otherwise havewithout what we do.
Because there is unfortunately alot of math.
Nutrition, I think it wassometimes seen as a softer
science.
But It's chemistry and it'smathematics.
And there's a lot of importantthings that need to be

(11:57):
considered to make sure thatit's going to work for whatever
the particular dog or cat needs.

Yeah, absolutely.
Especially, that's why theseformulas that, that have so much
science back behind them, peoplealways talk about they're so
much more expensive.
I'm like, there's so much morethat had to go into them.

Yeah, and I think that, we think about all
the commercially prepared foodsout there, whether it be Hills,
or Nestle Purina, or RoyalCanin, or Blue Buffalo, and some
that have the therapeuticoptions.
I don't think people realize howmuch work has been put into
those, and how important thatwork has been to advance my

(12:33):
specialty.
I don't think that some of thecompanies that have supported
that research and published itfor peer review, really get
enough credit at times for howmuch they've advanced our
knowledge.
People said we should just knowthat.
That, that's true.
It would be ideal, but the doghas stopped being the model for
human nutrition decades ago.

(12:53):
And why I say that is that someof our earliest knowledge about
dog nutrition actually came fromusing the dog as a model for
humans.
And so some of the earlyknowledge about vitamins, like
the discovery of vitamin K andthe need for it and came from
dog studies being used to studythe human and understand human.
We talk about these termsAtwater factors.

(13:15):
So some people are familiar withit.
It's the amount of calories pergram.
So four calories per gram ofprotein or for carbohydrate or
nine calories for fat per gramthat Atwater factor in pet foods
is referred to as the modifiedAtwater factor, which is funny.
It addresses the fact thatcommercially prepared foods use

(13:35):
ingredients that may not bequite as digestible as human
foods.
But what's missed in that wholehistory is that the Atwater
factors were actually originallyderived from feeding human foods
to dogs.
And the dog as a model is great.
We could learn some things, butthen there was a limit, probably
around the 40s or 50s.
We stopped using them androdents and other species became

(13:56):
model and human studies becameavailable.
We're actually using humans.
And so if we had stopped in theforties and fifties, there'd be
so much knowledge we would nothave now to address the unique
needs of dogs and cats and toprovide them with the best
nutrition we possibly can toallow them to live as long as
possible.
I think one of the challengesthat we always face, I think, in

(14:18):
veterinary medicine as a wholeand as people who love their
animals is they don't live longenough.
Maybe if you have a turtle or..

A parrot.
Yeah.

Yeah, maybe it'll outlive you.
But generally the great sadnessI think of having dogs or cats
is you outlive them.
And for people who, you use theterm pet parent, but people who
consider those a member of thefamily, you're not supposed to
outlive your children ideally.
And we do that over and overagain with our dogs and our
cats.
And so anytime we can get moretime with them, I think it's so

(14:46):
helpful and so powerful.
And nutrition plays a big rolein that.
And we know that deficiencieslead to shorter lifespan.
Excesses do too.
One of the clear ways to shortenthe lifespan is to have an
overweight animal, and we knowthat that shortens their
lifespan.
And so providing the appropriateoptimal nutrition is expanding
their lifespan.
And sometimes people sayevolutionarily we don't feed

(15:08):
them the way they should be fed.
And I always counter that by aninteresting conversation and
lesson I had with thereintroduction of the wolves
into Yellowstone.
And if you look at that, whenthey did that, a couple decades
ago, and the wildliferesearchers follow them and
track their impact, which is afascinating story in and of
itself about how beneficial itwas to the ecology of

(15:31):
Yellowstone to have wolves back,what was fascinating though, is
that the oldest wolves were likesix years old.
And, they had a high parasiteload.
Some of it was because ofdentition issues from hunting
and they couldn't hunt anymore.
But the point of that is that,if we use the wolf as our model
sometimes for how to feed dogs.
And I was the head of R and Dfor the first grain free low

(15:54):
carb kind of evolutionary diet.
So it's not that I'm anti thatapproach, but if we look at that
and only say that that's the wayto feed, it misses the point
that our evolutionary drive forsuccess, nutritionally even, is
to make sure that we reproduceand have our genes pass on.
And it isn't to be a 12 yearold, a 14 year old, a 16 year

(16:17):
old, an 18 year old dog or cat,right?
It's, hey, we produce thesethree litters, help raise them,
teach them what, how to hunt,right?
Because they both were, youknow, pretty much hunting and
when we are done with that, thenit's okay if maybe some
deficiencies catch up with us ormaybe some excesses catch up
with us.
And so when you say it in thatregard, that is not optimal for

(16:39):
what we want out of the lives ofour dogs and cats.
We want to get more time out ofthem and not just necessarily
reproductive success andcarrying on those genes.
And so nutritional science hashad to advance and think about,
okay, beyond just reproductionand beyond how do we think about
how to give long term health.
And I think we have a long waysto go.
I think that we've learned some.

(17:01):
But I do know one thing.
And the one thing is, feeding adeficient diet, or feeding a
diet that has toxicities in it,is not optimal health and is not
going to lead to longevity.
And when people are choosing tofeed human food, and what I saw
in my career when I was at theuniversity and I've seen my
career for the last 20 plusyears as a specialist is they

(17:21):
just need some help to make surethat all those things are
accounted for when they want tofeed it long term.
And, And it's sometimes it'spreference, sometimes it's
necessity that they're doing it.
But I feel like we are here tohelp them do that well, and to
help them do the math that noone wants to really want to do.
I'm not sure I want to do themath all the time, but I feel
it's important, right?
It's really important.

(17:42):
And I think progress thescience.
The one thing that I alluded toearlier is that we do make a
more advanced version of thesoftware for my colleagues.
It's widely used.
And that version is used totrain the new nutritionists.
And I'm always very, proud ofthat because I feel like it's
having a multiple effect thatthey learn some of their basic

(18:04):
nutrition.
It helped them get there.
And now they're carrying thaton, even if they're not ever
doing homemade diets again,they're doing commercial diet
formulation.
And so it's a multiplication ofmy efforts of having impact on
the health of many dogs andcats.
And I think I'm sure you feelthrough your podcast or your
video cast, if we're going tocall it that.
I think that one of the thingsthat all of us veterinarians

(18:26):
want to do and why we're calledto our profession is to help as
many dogs and cats as we can.
That's why we do what we do, andthe opportunity to do that as a
nutritionist is very unique,whether it be me or any other
colleagues.
We don't get limited by our oneon one abilities.
If you're a surgeon, you canonly cut one case or do surgery

(18:47):
as we cut as a kind of aninternal, but we only cut one
case at a time.
Maybe you can write a textbook,which is obviously helpful, or
maybe you can train someresidents and multiply your
efforts.
But ultimately, a lot of whatyou do is you can help one
animal at a time, and youexchange that time with that one
animal.
For nutritionists, we could makea formulation, and especially my
colleagues that do commercialformulations.

(19:08):
It could be beneficial tothousands, tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands ofdifferent dogs and cats.
And so going back to your pointabout all the research and work
that's been done and it's putinto commercially prepared
foods, it's really, really sovaluable.
And I bring that up and I'm gladyou brought it up because I'm
not trying to force people tocook homemade food.

(19:30):
I'm not anti commercial.
I think that's really helpful tounderstand because I think
sometimes people are doing homecooking, because they don't
trust the commercial pet foodcompanies.
And I understand thatperspective and I realize the
freedom that controlling all thefood has, maybe you have
particular desires where youwant to feed locally and have an
impact on the environment, andlower on the food chain.

(19:53):
Maybe there's ingredients youwant to source because of
religious reasons or prepare acertain way whether, Halal or
Kosher.
There's a lot of considerationsfor why people home cook.
But I think if it's becausethey're fearful of commercial
pet food.
I really am not an advocate orsupporter of that because I
think so many animals do so wellon commercially prepared pet
food.
And there's so many good onesout there.

(20:15):
But I think that's always thefirst line of defense that they
should consider.

Yeah, absolutely.
When it comes to those, I reallyalso like the fact that they
have a lot of therapeutic dietsso we can really tailor it to
those pets who have problems ormetabolic problems, arthritis,
all sorts of things.
Which I think that Balance Itdoes a really good job of doing
those things too, right?
Helping to, to deal with some ofthose morbidities that we have

(20:40):
in pets.

Yeah, unfortunately not all animals
stay healthy.
But yeah, that's the, I guessit's it's good to be a
veterinarian in that regard, butI think that veterinarians
fundamentally would be happy tojust see healthy animals for
vaccinations and some otherpreventative things and not have
to see sick animals.
But when they are sick,nutrition can play a role.
Not all conditions, not alldiseases, but many of them.

(21:03):
And in some cases, it's aprimary line of therapy.
Sometimes it's an additionaltherapy that can be worth
refinement.
But ultimately, nutrition isreally important and every
animal needs to eat.
And having those therapeuticoptions is really helpful, I
think, to manage cases.
And we help with that.
Initially, as I talked about theorigin, what we were doing with

(21:24):
homemade diets, and we'll spendall our time with, with multiple
diseases, even though they werecommercially prepared
therapeutic diets, There wasn'tnecessarily one that treated the
dog that had pancreatitis andrenal failure and was allergic
to chicken, right?
It's just too many differentcombined conditions and so where
are you left if you want tocontinue to feed appropriately

(21:46):
is you have to prepare food andhelp make it custom.
That hasn't changed.
That need still exists.
I think people are willing to doeven more than maybe they were
before and our diagnostics havegotten better.
Our other therapies have gottenbetter.
Patients with multiplecomorbidities is increasing.
The cases are challenging, and Ithink that people are choosing

(22:06):
to care for their animals andprovide that therapy longer than
maybe they were historically.
And so nutrition has, has comealong to help support that when
that's needed.
But sometimes it's just simplecases that need a nice
therapeutic diet.
And for whatever reason, peopleneed to be able to find
something, and we provide thatresource to them.
Both when there's complex cases,when there's simple cases and

(22:30):
modifications from just what wewould normally feed to a healthy
dog or cat is needed.
And the math becomes moreimportant in those situations,
right?
And so you're, modifying thingsin a way that maybe if you get
it wrong, could cause some harmmore rapidly or it could be more
concerning or you're having tothread a needle.
You have to get a very preciseconcentration of a particular

(22:53):
nutrient or combination ofnutrients.
And sometimes those can be inconflict with each other too.
And so it's really, it gets verynarrowing and what seems like,
hey, it must be okay, they'reenjoying eating it.
May not be in their bestinterest.
And that's always the challengeis that, when we think about
preparing food for ourselves ashumans, we aren't usually
thinking, boy, I'm a little lowon calcium today.

(23:15):
Let me put some eggshells intomy omelet instead of throwing
the eggshells out, right?
We don't think that way.
The way we modify and we thinkabout recipes, what do we have
available?
Maybe time considerations, maybepreferences for seasonality,
what's delicious and we modifyand we refine and we aren't
always as precise with certainthings as we might.

(23:38):
Maybe with some spices, maybewith seasoning because, oh, it's
going to be too salty, toosweet, over flavored.
But overall, I think thechallenge in your home cooking
for dogs and cats is realizingthat it's more scientific in
some ways because of the need tohit specific nutrient and
concentrations.
And we're feeding to provide allthe nutrients they need in that

(23:58):
one meal.
We don't just rely on variety tomeet those needs.
You're gonna feed the same mealevery day and day out and we
don't do that.
And sometimes people say I thinkthat's ridiculous.
We don't need to have that levelof precision because I'll just
feed variety of foods, but leftto your own.
A lot of times people just don'tever get enough of those
nutrients or they overshoot thembecause they don't feed the

(24:21):
things that would be eaten innature.
And we do things with our foodsupply that is not natural.
And if you think about meat asan example, when we butcher,
what does really butcheringmean?
It's deboning.
So we're removing, you know,macrominerals, things like
calcium and phosphorus.
We exsanguinate, which is just afancy word.
We drain blood, we talk abouthalal and kosher and other

(24:44):
things.
And so there's, there's some,techniques, but a lot of that,
some of that is related to howyou handle the blood.
But if you think about blood andas veterinarians, we always
think about fluid replacementand electrolytes.
Blood is a rich source of keyelectrolytes.
What are really electrolytes?
There are other minerals that weneed, things like potassium,
things like magnesium, thingslike calcium, things like

(25:04):
sodium, things like chloride.
And so if we're draining theblood out of the meat we're
eating and we're deboning it,we're losing a lot of minerals
that we need to think aboutadding back in.
And then if we think also aboutwhat we choose, we prefer to, at
least in Western societies, I'llsay, North America, to feed
muscle meat mostly.
We don't feed a lot of organmeat anymore.

(25:24):
And if we go back to our, maybe,I'll say my grandparents, I
don't know your age with me,your great grandparents, I'm a
little older than you, but um,they used to eat their liver,
right?
And they used to eat these organmeats, and we've gotten away
from that.
And when we don't feed,especially organ meat, we lose a
lot of trace minerals, we lose alot of vitamins that would
otherwise be in the diet.
And when people feed normalrecipes that aren't really

(25:47):
thought about and formulated,it's very likely that they will
not put back in those nutrientsthat would have been a prey
species if they had been outthere, a dog taking down, or a
wolf taking down some prey isgoing to take in blood.
They're going to eat some of thebone marrow, which has some
calcium in there.
They're going to break somebones open.
They're going to eat the liverpreferentially.
I talked about the wolves inYellowstone reintroduction.

(26:10):
That's one of the first thingsthey're going to eat.
And that's smart because theyneed all those vitamins and
trace minerals to produce thatnext litter and to allow them to
produce high quality milk fortheir offspring and to enable
them to form normally duringgestation or pregnancy.
But I think one of the thingsthat comes to mind is that when
we go, okay, if we're going toleave it to our own devices and

(26:33):
we're going to feed all thesewonderful rich foods.
Sometimes people say, that'sgreat and fine, but we don't do
that for humans.
We don't..
We're fine, we live even longer,that's one of the things we were
just talking about,unfortunately we don't live
long.
What's probably missed is we dofortify our foods.
And back in the 10s and the 20s,I guess I have to think about
last century, not this century,

Yeah,

but, in other words, but, there were common
nutritional diseases you wouldsee in parts of the world, in
the country even, in the U.S.
and you'd see people havegoiters because of iodine
deficiencies.
And so if you look at salt mostof the time, it's iodized salt.
That's not the natural state ofsalt, right?
Maybe if you get sea salt,there's a little bit of iodine.
But they iodize that, so it's afortification to help the

(27:14):
population from not developing anutritional deficiency.
We think about a lot of ourgrains.
When you buy flour, when you buypasta, when you buy things,
it'll say enriched.
What does that really mean?
What is that enrichment?
Well it's a fortification.
And that fortification is themost common B vitamins that we
would be deficient in if itwasn't.
And iron, so you're not anemicand you don't have these, you

(27:38):
can look up wonderful diseaseswith B vitamin deficiencies that
used to happen in humans withthese horrible skin lesions that
would happen and develop.
And then you go okay.
What about other things?
Think about milk.
Milk is fortified with vitamin Dand often vitamin A as well.
And sometimes we forget that.
And that was because ofretinopathies and things that

(27:59):
would happen with people andvitamin D and rickets.
And, I talked about dogs andbeing used as a model for
humans.
A lot of the early ricketsprevention to figure out how do
we figure out the source ofvitamin D.
It was to prevent rickets inchildren and using the dog as a
model and figuring out what kindof massive doses we could give

(28:21):
one time, like line up all theschool kids or line up all the
little kids and give one,because unlike water soluble
vitamins that are urinated out,fat soluble stay with you.
So can we give a big dose ofvitamin D?
And does it have to be vitaminD3, which is cholecalciferol
from animal sources?
Or could it be vitamin D2 orergocalciferol from like
mushrooms and plant basedsources?

(28:42):
It turns out both work and whichare safer and how much and
stuff.
But the point being is that wedo, as humans, fortify foods for
the common deficiencies and thenon top of that you can go and
look at what the humannutritionists are about.
A lot of us do run arounddeficient and we do have
deficiencies even with thatfortification of some nutrients
and especially if our diet's notthat great.

(29:03):
It can be a problem.
So I think that when we want tomake a homemade diet.
We can't solely rely on the dogand we can't think of the cat
and go, well, they really aren'teating the way they should
because I'm feeding them somechicken because they're a
carnivore.
When you're feeding them chickenflesh, you're not eating the
whole chick, right?

(29:24):
You're not the whole avium andstuff.
And so we have to be verycognizant about fortification.
And I alluded to the fact thatwe, short term, get calories,
get protein, get fat, getcarbohydrate, right?
But we really need to thinkabout all the trace minerals and
add those back in.
And that's where, obviously, wespend a lot of our time here.

(29:44):
I'm sitting in a, basically afactory, making vitamins and
minerals to fortify food, ormaking software that says, here,
here's a combination ofsupplements you go out and buy
to add those things that aren'tpresent in the food back in.

With your supplements that you guys make,
is it just kind of a, ageneralized supplement, like
kind of one for all dogs?
Do you have them very specificfor diseases?

A combination.
So we have eight differentsupplements.
We have a few for differentconditions.
For example, we have a lowcopper supplement.
I have to be careful because theFDA has restrictions about how I
say to the general public howproducts are used.

Oh, interesting.
Okay.

Yeah, so the FDA has very strict, strict
rules.
So if you ever see like a Hillsor a Royal Canin or a Purina,
you'll see that they'll use likelettering or some kind of non
obvious name.
It doesn't say kidney diet,right?
It'll have a letter that alludesto it.
And the idea is that

KD.
Yeah.

It's this alphabet soup.
And the reason for that is thatthe FDA has very specific
guidance about how you can giveinformation to the general
public, because really you'remaking a drug claim, right?
Cause it's a treatment claim.
But it hasn't gone through thenormal course of what the FDA
says to make drug claims, butthey recognize that no food is
going to go through that drugclaim process.

(31:00):
And so they've carved out a veryspecific therapeutic guidelines.
And one of those is you can'tsay to lay people what that
product is for.
So I can say that it's for a lowcopper diet, but I can't say as
to treat a specific disease.
Similarly we have supplementsthat are for a low phosphorus
diet, but I can't say whatdisease that would be as the

(31:21):
manufacturer.
Now, if you're the veterinarian,or you're not involved with the
company, you can say that that'sappropriate for this.
And if we're talking justveterinary and not veterinary,
and I'm not being recorded, andthere's nothing secretive about
this, this is to meet the FDA'srules, I can say, of course,
this is for this disease, ifit's controlled.
And they have very specificguidelines and compliance
policies.
But we do have products thathelp people with specific needs

(31:43):
for specific conditions that canbe made into a food.
We have also some products forcats when they need a low
phosphorus diet.
And then interestingly, you can,I talked about those Xeon
servers, you can use it one sizefits all supplement in certain
circumstances and not run intoissues.

(32:04):
If you get the formulation justright.
So we actually have some patentsbecause they are so unique and
we figured that out many yearsago about how to optimize it,
but it doesn't work all thetime.
So I talked about those hundredthousand different runs.
We could get it to about 80, 85percent optimized.
So 80, 85 percent of the time itwould work.
And then the other 15, 20percent of the time it won't

(32:25):
work.
And that's why we know we havehuman supplements and where
that's helpful is to think aboutit.
If you have a powder, so ourproduct is a powder, that's all
the nutrients that you need toadd in together.
You can't separate those out.
For some reason, in a particularcombination of foods, you want a
little bit more, let's say,vitamin D.
Let's say you're making avegetarian diet for a dog.

(32:48):
There's going to be no vitamin Din that unless you're using some
mushrooms.
But let's say you're just usingtofu or something and rice and
for some medical reason you needto feed, because there are times
when you may feed a vegetarianor plant based diet, you need a
lot of vitamin D.
What if the other case, you haveanother patient or another
situation where you're feeding asalmon based diet and very rich

(33:10):
in salmon.
Well, salmon is very rich invitamin D.
And so there's this sweet spotwhere you don't want to have too
much vitamin D because you don'twant to make it toxic because
dogs are very sensitive, muchmore than humans, to vitamin D.
But you also want to have enoughand you have to think about in
relation to maybe calcium.
Maybe in both cases you needabout the same amount of
calcium.
So you don't want, when you needa lot of vitamin D, get way too

(33:32):
much calcium, and tofu sometimeshas calcium in it and so you
have to be careful about notgoing too high on that and get
your ratios wrong and stuff.
And maybe on the salmon side,you actually want the same
amount of calcium, but you wantvery little vitamin D.
So all-in-one supplements workwell for a lot of cases, but you
have to do the mathematics to doit.
It's also why the software ishelpful because dosing is

(33:56):
dependent, not on a body weightlike we think of medications.
It's based on what's being fedbecause it's going to look at
all those nutrients and makesure that it's not feeding too
little of them, but not too muchof it.
And that's really where thechallenge sometimes comes in.
And you'll see people say whycan't you just tell me per 10
pounds or per pound?
It's.
You could get a rough estimateof what it might be, but I don't

(34:19):
know what you're feeding.
And unless I know what the basefoods are providing
nutritionally, I won't knowwhere the gaps are, or where
things are really close to themaximum amount that's tolerable.
Dosing a supplement is aninteresting calculation and how
you think about it and makingsure and realizing that
sometimes the supplement isn'tgoing to work, but a lot of
times it does.
It's good for us because that'show we, as I say, keep the

(34:40):
lights on and have a businessand, and afford the support we
provide to the community andstuff.
But at the same time, I thinkit's important to recognize that
it doesn't always work.
And sometimes the combinationsdon't work.
And one of the things that I'mvery happy that we do, and
sometimes it's not seen as thisway, I'm fine when our software

(35:01):
doesn't work and says no wecan't make something work,
because without that knowledgesome might think, oh it's
perfectly fine to do and so it'sreally, really good.
It looks for every option now.
In fact, it didn't used to, butnow it literally looks at every
option and says, is this evenfeasible or possible?
And it can tell you yes or nowith absolute certainty of this
combination of ingredients willwork or not.

(35:22):
And when it doesn't work, itwill give you some information
as to why it doesn't work.
And I, I think that's helpfulbecause without it, the only
feedback you might have is, Ilike to buy this.
I feel good preparing it for mydog or my cat.
They enjoy eating it.
They seem to eat it, but theydon't necessarily know that it's
not optimal.
And you don't know it's notoptimal.

(35:43):
And looking at it, I have aguess.
But even veterinarians might notfully have an understanding if
it's not optimal because theyneed the mathematics.
And the only reason I have alittle bit is just experience.
I've seen enough but I can't doall the math in my head, even if
I'm the one that originated allthe mathematics, because there's
just too many variables.
If you think about 40 some oddessential nutrients, and even if

(36:04):
you have three ingredients,you're now talking 120
variables, basically, and whocan add that?
Maybe someone.

I'm sure some genius can, but..

Yeah, I'm sure, but it's very unlikely
that they can keep that all intheir mind, and it would be
very, very challenging.
And you really need the math tobe done, and you need software
to help you.

Yeah.
And I know you have the TLCservice.
And that's where if I remembercorrectly, the registered
technicians will jump in andhelp with some of these cases.
Does that help with some ofthese more complicated cases?

Yeah, so the TLC service, or the Technician
Limited Consultation servicewill play on the word how we got
the initialism to match with thetender loving care is really
born out of the fact that wehave a challenge in my
specialty.
I mentioned how we're diplomatsof the American College of
Veterinary Internal Medicine.
My colleagues in that collegeinclude internal medicine in

(36:54):
small and large animal.
There's cardiologists,neurologists, oncologists, but
we're the smallest specialty byfar.
There's only about 90 of us anda subset of those are the ones
that do small animal clinicalnutrition, probably 30 or so.
I haven't exactly counted, butthat's a rough number.
So about a third, the otherthird are working at pet food
companies, as I mentioned andworking in industry.

(37:16):
Or working in research and don'tdo any clinical work or
administrative roles at vetschools and things like that.
And you have about 30 folks thatdo this work and that's not a
whole lot.
And the challenge is thatbecause of that, there's a huge
demand.
Recently the ACVIM preparedtheir annual report.
And our recent addition to theirspecialty.
And so they showed the number ofrequests in their directory for

(37:39):
the different specialties.
And then another one, how manyspecialties?
Internal medicine, I will getthis wrong, small animal
internist.
It's at least 1,500, roughlyinternists that are reported
versus the 30 or so.
And I think most of them areclinically practicing and
probably that's about accurate.
And they had half as manyrequests, like 30 some odd
thousand requests to thenutritionist were like 70,000.

(38:02):
So you can see the absolutedisproportionate number of
requests and need and interestin help with nutrition to the
number of specialists that canprovide that service.
And so although our recipebuilder is available and used by
veterinarians such as yourself,by lay people, by other
specialists in other areas.
There are those specialists thatare doing those consultations

(38:24):
and there just isn't enough ofthem.
So some of them have four weeklead times or longer.
Some just say I've got to focuson those comorbidity cases
because it's not worth it for meto do simple cases.
It's not worth me to do healthyanimal recipes.
And so there's this disconnect.
And so what we decided is wecould provide something in
between.
Maybe you don't want to use thesoftware yourself, but you'd

(38:46):
like some hand holding how touse it.
We had a team, we have aboutfour registered veterinary
nurses, I'll use that term.
Some of them are actuallytechnically Certified Veterinary
Technicians, some of them areLicensed Veterinary Technicians,
some are Registered VeterinaryTechnicians because of where
their jurisdictions are, right?
But I will use the term that Ithink are still preferring of
Veterinary Nurses.
And so we thought we couldleverage that and provide that

(39:08):
opportunity to go, Hey, they'reeveryday helping people use our
software.
You want more hand holding?
Provide us with a small fee sowe can support that and help you
use it.
And go, Yep.
Maybe you were doing this onyour own and you didn't get any
results that work and we couldgo, you're right.
Or, Or, here's what we can do,would that work for you?

(39:28):
Or, you know what, you really doneed to go to another board
certified veterinarynutritionist that offers that
consultation service because thecase is so complex.
Or, maybe things that we wouldwant to do optimally for the
multiple conditions, can't beand we have to prioritize.
So maybe we have common one thatcomes up sometimes is if you're,
have a patient that has heartfailure and they're having

(39:51):
accumulation of, or thirdspacing of, some type of fluid
in their abdomen or their chestcavity, you might be tapping
that and pulling protein out andthey need a higher protein to
support that loss.
They can maybe have because along term use of diuretics, or
maybe some other reason, havesome renal disease or kidney

(40:12):
disease.
And because protein is the mainsource of dietary phosphorus, we
have to reduce protein in thediet to enable that phosphorus
restriction, which is key tokidney disease management.
If we have those two competingneeds, higher protein for the
heart failure patient, and lowerprotein enable phosphorus

(40:32):
restriction.
How do you resolve that?
How do you prioritize that?
The software we have isn't goingto make that decision.
And so a boarded nutritionistsometimes just needs to be
involved and say, we're going tomake the best choice we can.
They'll review the medicalrecords.
They'll review the diet history.
They'll discuss it with theveterinarian has a very
important, valid, a veterinarianclient patient relationship, the

(40:54):
VCPR, the one that the FDA wantsto see as well for what we were
talking about earlier.
And then go and talk to theclient or communicate to the
client.
Here's how we're going toprioritize and then how we're
going to monitor what we'redoing.
Because maybe we think this isthe best option.
Maybe we decided to go with alittle more protein.
It's too low.
And now we're gettingmalnourishment and it's not
supporting and that patients nowgetting third spacing because

(41:16):
they're hypoalbuminemic.
They have low blood proteinbecause they just didn't get
enough dietary protein.
And my colleagues have a huge,huge respect for them.
I'm very happy.
I've trained quite a fewspecialists.
My last one recently gotboarded, Yuki Okada, in the Bay
Area.
Probably my last resident I'mgoing to train.
But they do really importantwork that's very unique, but
they're just so limited in whatthey can do because it takes a

(41:39):
lot of time to do that type ofwork.
Very important, and people arestruggling.
I talked to a veterinarian todaythat referred and said, I gotta
find something else because Icannot find a solution that's
fast enough because of the leadtime.
Sometimes it's an economicchoice.
I think that veterinarynutritionists, given their
training and how much time theyspend on the case are under
charging, frankly.

(42:00):
May not seem that time whensomeone says, Oh my gosh, it's
$600 to do a consultation withsome places.
But if you realize that they'regoing to spend an hour or two
evaluating the diet and medicalrecord and an hour talking to
the veterinarian and anothercouple hours formulating,
writing up all that six or sevenhours.
If you were to go to a boardedsurgeon who has equal amounts of
training and sometimes less,because it takes sometimes

(42:21):
depending on what route you goand it takes longer to get board
certified, not always, buthistorically it could be for
some, because some of PhDs andmasters.
$600 for seven hour surgerywould never happen, right?
You would be charged$6,000 ormore, right?
And so I think that, and it canbe just as impactful, right?
Depending on the case.

(42:42):
And I'm not saying anythingagainst my surgery colleagues.
I value them greatly.
Don't get me wrong.
But I think that there's achallenge in our profession at
times where services that havetangible, hands on aspects to it
are valued more than what's upin our brain and our knowledge

(43:03):
and information we can share.
And I'm not judging that but Ithink they should be equal or at
times more value for what weknow than what we can do with
our hands.

There's only so few, so few nutritionists.
Yeah.

That is..
That's very true and and I don'tknow the solution to that,
frankly.
I wish I did, but I think thatwhat I can do is to provide some
good initial solutions with oursoftware, provide solutions to
those colleagues to make theirlife more efficient so that they
can do some of the work thatthey're doing for others well.

(43:39):
And then hopefully we can growour specialty.
I trained, I said my lastresident, but I trained more
than my share.
Given the size of our college,I've trained over 10 folks.
Given that we have 90 I've, I'vedone my, done my part but, but I
do think that we really do needto have more nutritionists
because.
As I said, every animal eats andit can be very impactful on the
outcomes of their, of theirmanagement.

(44:01):
And it's a nice specialty thatwe have.
We just need more of us.

Right.
Absolutely.
You know, you were talking aboutlike the finances of it.
I actually wanted to ask youabout this paper that you had
written.
So you wrote a paper called HomeCooked Diets Cost More Than
Commercially Prepared Dry KibbleDiets For Dogs With Chronic
Enteropathies.
So it's where you actually foundthat it was cheaper to buy dry
dog food than it was to make thedog food.

(44:26):
But canned dog food was roughlyabout the same.
Is that correct?

Yeah, and that's a study that came in
JAVMA.
Val Parker was the leadinitiator on that.
It had come out of some otherabstracts that I was participant
with Megan Shepherd out ofVirginia Tech.
So Val Parker is a facultymember at Ohio State.
Megan Shepherd at the time wasat Virginia Tech, or Virginia
and Maryland RegionalOccupational.
They have this, but it'sphysically on the campus of
Virginia Tech, so we just sayVirginia Tech.

(44:50):
It's easier than the, thecrazy..

Big name they have, yeah.

Bit long, yeah.
That I'm probably not gettingright anyway.
But the point being is that Ithink sometimes when we talk
about reasons people choose tohome cook is they think it'll be
less expensive for them.
So we really wanted to explorein a variety of studies, is that
true or not?
The hypothesis and myexpectation, I think our
expectations Megan and Val areboth board certified veterinary

(45:15):
nutritionist was that it is not,right?
That is not a reason for you toprepare home cooked food.
Dry food is going to be yourmost economical, even
therapeutic dry food, whichpeople say to your point
earlier, it's more expensivebecause all the research and
support that has to go in theprecision, et cetera.
Even then it's not.
And so we did a more expansivestudy looking at chronic

(45:36):
enteropathies because usuallythe number one reason people
will home cook when they areforced to versus choose to is
for food allergy or some type ofthat.
And so looking at that andlooking and comparing it, we
found that it was not, it waswhat our expectation, but we
proved it very scientificallyand I think it was helpful I was
one of the authors because Idon't make any money from
commercial therapeutic foods,right?

(45:57):
Prepared foods I don't haveinvolvement.
I have a vested interest in someways in saying, yeah, homemade
food, let's go homemade foodbecause of the supplements,
right?
And so I think it was importantfor me to be involved with that
and have obviously the academicinvolvement as well.
But we were very thorough andit's clear that dry food is the
most economical way to feed.
There's probably one exceptionto that with renal dry foods.

(46:19):
There's since some very specificscenarios that we saw in the
abstract that maybe it's costcomparable, but what's missing
in that when you make that costcomparable is your time, right?
We can't calculate someone'stime and so if you put in your
time and think about how muchtime is it going to take for you
to prepare that food, then itwill not be economical or cost
comparable.

(46:40):
And so dry therapeutic food isalways your best option if
you're trying to control yourcosts.
Exclusive wet food feeding isgoing to be more expensive than
home cooking again.
And then not included, but justas a little side, we had a
comment in the discussion.
Fresh frozen, which are reallymostly just frozen.
It's not really fresh.
It's freshly frozen, but stillfrozen is going to be more
expensive than all of thembecause there's a lot of costs

(47:01):
involved with logistics, keepingthings frozen.

Shipping things.

Shipping things and stuff.
So it's not really surprisingthat that's the case.
And so I think that if cost isdriving someone to home cook,
really, in most scenarios, youshouldn't be considering,
consider dry food.
And I think, people feel attimes like, oh, I don't like
something that's in thecommercial dry food.

(47:27):
I hear that all the time.
And it's usually because theydon't understand what they're
looking at.
And so we talk about a dislikeof the word byproduct.
It has a bad term.
People, byproduct, byproduct.
But I want to talk about thatfor a moment.
Is, we talked about the wolf andwe talked about being
reintroduced.
What's the first thing you eat?
What's going to have the mostvitamins and most trace
minerals?
Liver.

(47:47):
What is liver if you're puttingit in a pet food?
It's byproduct.

Right.

And so some companies have gotten clever of
saying, gizzard, heart, theybreak out all the different
byproducts, liver.
Now, maybe some say, I don'twant any chicken feet, but
that's cultural.
I have, Chinese friends who,that's a delicacy.

They have that all the time.
Exactly.

Right?
And, and so I think that when wethink about the nutritional
aspects of this, some of thethings that we think of as
byproducts are the mostnutritious, that we want to use.
And in therapeutic foods, it maybe really important, and I want
to get to that.
I have formulated therapeuticcommercially prepared foods,
both when I was at Natura.

(48:28):
We never launched it, but theneven with balance it, we had
some therapeutic foods and whatyou find is that if you need to
hit something very, veryprecisely like we were talking
about before, you need to knowexactly what those ingredients
are.
How do you get really preciseabout ingredients?
The more you refine or process,bad words, but the more
precision and consistency again.

(48:49):
And what I mean by that is if wewere looking to make a let's say
kidney diet.
We talked about the need torestrict and control phosphorus.
Brown rice is very wholesome,right?
It sounds like a greatingredient, but brown rice
hasn't been milled, hasn't beenprocessed.
And so it has some of the husk.
It has some endosperm.
That inner portion is supernutritious.

(49:12):
Why we like brown rice, whatmakes it brown and isn't just
the starchy center that we thinkof with white rice that's been
polished and been milled.
That's super phosphorous rich,and it makes it really hard to
make a phosphorus restricteddiet because you are also
introducing it.
And someone says why are we evenusing grains?
The point being is that we needto dilute out protein.
We talked about the protein ismore rich in phosphorus.

(49:35):
So we have to do that.
Well, you say why don't we justfeed all fat?
A lot of dogs and a lot catscan't tolerate just a whole
bunch of fat.
It's not optimal.
They may have issues withtolerating that.
Or it's really really costprohibitive because we know that
certain fatty acids in too highor in the wrong ratio have
inflammatory effects that causefaster progression of kidney

(49:57):
disease.
So we want what's called a lowerN6 to N3 fatty acid ratio.
Those fatty acids that we wouldwant to get from using a whole
bunch of animal fat may not below enough in that ratio, may
throw that ratio off.
So we can't just throw in morefat.
So we use carbs to get theratio.
To get the protein down faster.
So we're using it, but what doesit look like to, Oh, the first

(50:19):
ingredient is a grain.
Okay let's talk about grainfree.
I won't even get into any of theissues that have been raised by
that.
But what I will say is that wecan't use legumes because
legumes are very protein richand phosphorus rich.
We'll go, okay what if we coulduse tubers?
Sweet potato, potato.
They're very potassium rich.

(50:39):
Potassium is something else youwant to control in renal
disease.
So you can see how you fall intograins, and then you go, okay,
grains have to be listed firstbecause we have to use the most
to dilute all these other thingsand control these other
components.
And then you go, we want to bepolished, so we don't bring in
other nutrients we need tocontrol because of the mineral
controls we need to do.
And then you go, geez, I reallywant to have a nice calcium to

(50:59):
phosphorus ratio and not havetoo much phosphorus.
A lot of the sources of proteinsthat we can get it for pet
foods, if we're making a petfood has to come from what isn't
being used for the human foodsupply.
We talked about the human foodsupply, right?
We butcher, right?
We remove the flesh becomessomewhat cost prohibitive to do
that.
And there's another aspect thatI'll get to.

(51:20):
So we, what do we get?
We get what's calledmechanically de boned.
So let's say you have a chickencarcass and you've taken all the
nice pieces off where you mighthave the chicken back you'll
spin it, or you'll do somethingto get the little pieces of rib
meat out of the chicken.
You're still getting a littlebit of bone fragment.
Even though that's pretty highquality and it's still from a
human source.
Or you're going to use othermeans.

(51:40):
You're going to get calciumphosphorus component and bone
fragments in it.
So as you reach for a meal or abyproduct, it becomes hard.
So what do you go, hmm, I'd likesomething nutritious that can be
butchered and not bring in a lotof calcium with it.
Well, Liver.
But it's byproduct, right?
So you get into this reallyinteresting discussion at times.

(52:02):
About what is it you are fearfulof versus what is needed by the
patient.
And so I've had many, manyconsultations where people are
coming to me for a homemade dietand are adamant about a homemade
diet because they are fearful ofthe therapeutic foods and the
ingredients that are used inthem.
But if we talk through them,they realize why it's being
done, why it's beneficial, andthey still have their choice.

(52:26):
Happy to support them to make ahomemade diet, but maybe what
they perceived as being badisn't as bad and maybe there's a
reason for it in thatparticular.
And then you have to, kind of,you're at least more informed
about the decision you'remaking.
And maybe if there wasinherently, because I deal with
this a lot guilt, unfortunately,of, oh, I don't feel good about

(52:48):
feeding this food.
Because that's an important partof the human animal bond is how
do we feed?
And there's guilt.
Maybe the guilt can be removedto go in this particular case.
In this particular condition.
This is actually optimal, andit's okay to say I can't afford
to feed a human grade homemadefood.
It's okay to say I don't havethe time to do it.

(53:09):
It's okay to say I just don'thave the comfort level in the
kitchen.
I don't have the cooking skillsto do it, right?
And it's okay to reach for thecommercial food.
And that's going to be a much,much better choice than picking
a food that maybe otherwise fora healthy animal that has that
protein source that's in thefirst ingredient or that has,

(53:31):
you know, the ingredients youprefer or seem more wholesome,
and for a healthy animal,perfectly fine.
But now that we're in a casewhere there's a medical
condition, we have to reallytreat food as a medication, and
be much more precise, and maybemake some choices, and
prioritize some ingredientselections that otherwise you
may not want to, but are theright ones for this particular
condition, and to treat whatyou're trying to treat.

(53:53):
And, ultimately, make theanimal, the dog, the cat, feel
as good as it can for as long asit can, because that's
everyone's desire, right?
We're doing this to findsomething that isn't going to
make them feel bad.
It's going to not hurt thedisease that they're doing
because food should be enjoyed.
Food should be something that ifwe can, is looked at and seen as

(54:16):
pleasurable.
And I know we're probablywrapping up our time, but I'd
take a little story if I could.
So I talked about trainingpeople, and I'll call out Sally
Perea, who's one of thenutritionists at Royal Canin.
I worked with her for very long,she was one of my residents when
I was at UC Davis.
And I remember an internalmedicine resident having a case,

(54:36):
and she formulated up one ofthese special diets that we were
taught, homemade diets and lotsof comorbidities in this dog and
things were going well.
And she got a call from theresident internal medicine cause
she was doing her residency andsaid, yeah, things were going
really well, but the dog diedbecause of your diet.

(54:56):
But the client is really happy.
So none of this is making sense.
Like she's, oh my God, what haveI done?
Did I misformulate something?
What's happened?
What, why is the client happyabout that?
Why are What, what is going on?
She goes I got to tell you thestory.
You formulated this and the doghad not been eating well.
And it was the main reason, itwas the main reason some people

(55:17):
decided to unfortunately end thelives of their dogs and cats
because they aren't eating well.
So it's a really key decisioncriteria for them.
You formulated this appropriatediet, they started making it,
dog was eating really well,loved the food.
In fact, loved the food,whenever the food was put down,
would come running for the food,unlike before.

(55:38):
Really sick animal, had a lot ofmedical conditions, I said.
So what happened was, been goingon for two or three months,
being fed this food, beingmanaged as best could, but it
was a life threatening and lifeending type of disease and
disease processes.
Client makes the meal that myresident, Sally Perea, now works
at Royal Canin, high on R&D forthem.

(55:59):
Puts down the bowl, dog hearsthe bowl come down, starts
running across the kitchen,midway through, collapses and
dies.

Oh no, oh.

The client was so thrilled because she was
doing everything she knew shecould, and up until that moment,
dog was not eating well, hadbeen eating for a few months
well.
And she said, It died inhappiness.

Exactly, knew it was going to get food.
And yeah..

And, and that human animal bond makes me
almost tear up with thinkingabout that story, but it's the
core as nutritionists we'redoing the best we could creating
something that was appropriate,enjoyed, and extending the
lifespan as best we could withthe tools we have.
And I always think about thatcase.

That's amazing, I love that story.

Good one to end on.

Right.
Exactly.
Dr.
Delaney, do you have anythingelse you want to add for us?

I don't.
I just want to thank yourlisteners to listening me stream
of consciousness.
I hope it was somewhatinteresting at times and
moments.
I want to thank you for invitingme.
If whether checkout balance itor not, I do encourage you, if
you ever need a consultation thetwo places to go for my
colleagues.
VetNutritionist.com will takeyou to a directory where you can

(57:14):
find nutritionists.
It's on our site, but we don'thave a relationship with any of
those nutritionists, but it hasa nice, here's where you can
find them, phone numbers, here'swhat they will offer.
Some of them have what theircosts are, if you're trying to
price shop, et cetera, wherethey are regionally, if you want
to keep in the same time zone orVetSpecialists.com.
And that's the one that ACVIM Ireferenced that has all the

(57:34):
requests that come through.
And you can find not just mynutrition colleagues there, but
you can certainly find, as Isaid, neurologist, oncologist,
internal medicine specialists.
I think I said all the differentones that didn't leave any of
them out.
But I would remind yourlisteners as well.
I think you're a generalpractitioner..

Actually I'm an emergency vet, which is..

Oh, I did not know that.
Oh, really?
Yeah.

Which is funny'cause I use your, like I
said, I use your website all thetime.
I've talked to people constantlyabout it.

I apologize.
So as a criticalist, as we wouldcall you, I'll call you a
criticalist if that's the way,or an emergency vet.
I think that it's reallyimportant as fellow specialists
that the veterinary specialist,the veterinarian relationship,
the client relationship, thepatient relationship, we work
together well.
And I think it's important toremember that there are

(58:21):
different phases of when youmight need help, but the key is
to remember that whether it bethe veterinary nurse we talked
about.
The veterinarian, the veterinaryspecialist, whether it be in
emergency, critical care,nutrition, surgery we brought
up, all of us, our vestedinterest is to try to help the
patient we have before us.

(58:41):
We all recognize that we haveour limitations.
Sometimes it's not us that canhelp, but we can help you find
that resource.
We really, I think, I'm sograteful every day that I'm a
veterinarian.
I wanted to be a veterinarian mywhole life and I'm pleased I get
to be a veterinarian.
And I think we are a communityof such caring people that want
to help dogs and cats.

(59:03):
Whatever means we do it.
But, emergency veterinarian whodecides, I'm going to have a
podcast or a video cast, notyour normal thing.
Or whether it be a nutritionistdecides, I'm going to go work
with software developers tomake, do mathematics, right?
We don't know exactly what'sgoing to be our exact path.
We all know we have a calling tohelp animals.
And please reach out, if youhave a listener, to your local

(59:23):
veterinarian.
They will help you.
Veterinary nurse practice.
They are, at times, very busypeople.
Recognize that.
Be kind to them.
We have an issue amongst ourprofession, the challenges that
we face, because we all, notjust nutritionists being busy,
all of us being busy.
Be kind to us, but know we arehere to help you.

Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much, Dr.
Delaney.
I really appreciate you being onhere.
I learned, I actually learned somuch today, so I really, really
appreciate it.

I'm glad to hear that.
Thanks so much.

All right, thanks.
A huge thank you once again toDr.
Delaney for gracing our podcastwith his invaluable insights and
to his brother in law forcreating such a phenomenal
resource.
I find myself recommending theirwebsite to pet parents almost on
a daily basis and I'm thrilledto have the opportunity to share
this all with you guys as well.

(01:00:10):
A special shout out to ShawnHyberg for his superb editing
skills that bring this podcastto life.
And to Kelly Dwyer for herstellar work on the website.
Exciting things are definitelycoming on the horizon as next
week we'll be diving into theworld of feline behavior with
Dr.
Cerná, affectionately known asthe Crazy Cat Vet.
Her dedication to cats isnothing short of extraordinary,

(01:00:33):
and I can't wait for you all tohear our discussion.
A heartfelt thank you toeveryone in our listening
community.
We'll reconnect next week, butuntil then, never forget the
importance of keeping your petshappy, healthy, and safe.
See you next time.

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