Theory of Pets Podcast

This week our family has been dealing with a canine issue. Our furry nephew, my brother’s dog, has injured his back. The veterinarian says that surgery is the only way to fix the problem. My brother immediately called me to see if I had any knowledge on the subject of back injuries in dogs, and sadly I didn’t have much to tell him.

However, I knew someone that could help! Lisa Luckenback is the creator of the Wiggleless Back Brace for Dogs. When my brother called, I quickly realized that back issues in dogs are something that we don’t typically educate ourselves about until we’re faced with the problem. Sadly, they are more common than most pet owners realize, and we should really know the signs and symptoms in advance.

This week Lisa agreed to speak with me about back issues in dogs and tell us a little bit about why she created the Wiggleless back brace. She also explains why this brace is so unique. In this week’s podcast, Lisa shares her knowledge of common back injuries and which breeds are most susceptible to back problems.

Hey Everyone! Welcome to the Theory of Pets Podcast.

I am your co-host, Connor Knight, and the President of Top Dog Tips.

Today we are going to brush up on some controversial topics and questions.

Commercial Dog Food Recently, commercial dog food has been intensely scrutinized for its process of providing cheap and affordable dog food at scale.

To do this at their level, many believe the dog food companies cut corners and lack quality control.

We will go through some tough questions, and you'll hear direct answers from a veterinarian, so stay tuned!

Here are some of the questions we tackle:

How did homemade dog food come about?

What is the difference between raw dog food and homemade dog and cat food?

What is considered healthier between the two?

What are your thoughts on carbohydrates being included in their diet?

What are the important vitamins and minerals that need to be included in those diets that commercial dog foods claim to have?

What is the issue with commercial dog foods?

Is the controversy valid that commercial dog foods lack qc and cut corners on protein sources?

What are your thoughts on the past decade of controversy that commercial dog food has come under?

What exactly do dogs and cats need nutrition on a general rule of thumb?

What are extreme home recipes?

What are middle-of-the-road home recipes?

Does a dog need carbohydrates?

How much more expensive is it for owners to switch to homemade dog food or raw food compared to kibble?

What are your thoughts on some of the higher-end kibble dog food?

Do they hit all the nutrients that a dog needs?

What are your thoughts on the synthetic vitamins and amino acids added to commercial dog foods?

Me: I am not a vet but I took a course that was designed by a veterinarian that taught me how to read dog food labels and talked about how these synthetic vitamins and minerals work and how they act differently than the real vitamins and minerals dogs and cats get in food.

What are the health benefits of homemade dog and cat food?

The best advice, work with a nutritionist. https://acvn.org/

What are the potential health downsides of homemade dog and cat food?

I learned that salmonella already exists in the gut of some healthy dogs, so would you say outside of that is there really any risk to the dog?

Hi there! Welcome to the Theory of Pets Podcasts! We started this podcast to uncover truths in the pet industry.

Today I am joined by Robin Bennett. Robin Bennett has been a dog behavioralist trainer for over 30 years.

After successfully running her own behavior training business, she started a business that teaches doggy daycares how to understand dog behavior and body language. Enter the Dog Gurus.

After that she decided again to evolve her business into a recent venture called Ruffly Speaking!

This is a platform where you get access to years of experience from dog behavior trainers and they also help educate dog owners like you and I make the best buying decisions for our pets.

In today's podcast we talk about dog behavior and she drops some golden nuggets in certain scenarios that I felt would be valuable to touch on for you all. Give it a listen!

Here are the questions I ask her today:

1. Tell everyone a bit about you and your story and what you did before ruffly speaking
2. How would your sessions go with clients, walk me through the individual clients and the questions you would ask them when you would work with individuals
3. You also trained owners and employees how to run doggy daycares
   1. Why did you start doing that?
4. Now let’s start digging into ruffly speaking
   1. Why did you create it?
      1. What did you see that was missing that you could fulfill for people with your background
      2. With ruffly speaking what will people get that they don’t normally have access to?
         1. What is the difference between ruffly speaking and a typical facebook group or a local dog trainer?
      3. What problem do you see in the pet ownership world it solving?
5. What is the biggest thing you see that people miss when they get a dog and the dog does a behavior their owner does not like or approve of
6. Tell us about the behavior of dogs from your experience and perspective
   1. What about them that makes it easy to understand them
   2. What about dog’s behavior that you understand and teach people can how their dogs are going to behave
7. What is your philosophy in dog training?
   1. Why do you have that approach?
   2. We’ve talked off camera about the “balanced training” approach (rewarding dogs when they do something right, and correcting them when they do something wrong), why do you think it isn’t as effective as positive reinforcement
      1. What is wrong with “balanced training”?
8. How should people seek out dog training
   1. Quick little checklist so they get it right
9. How can people sign up for ruffly speaking?
10. Where else can people find you on social media?

I personally started using Ruffly Speaking's platform and it has a wealth of knowledge, I HIGHLY recommend if you are a dog owner that you sign up. It'll be the best investment in building your relationship with your pup.

It's $19.99/mo. if you are interested, make sure to sign up using this link: https://tz203.isrefer.com/go/rufflyspeaking/topdogtips

Hey everyone!

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Today I will have Dr. Lyndsey Kingsley back on for a three-peat or four-peat?

We are going to be talking about Mobile Veterinary Care, and she goes on a deep dive on Veterinary House Calls.

Here are the questions and topics I cover today:

1. So there’s this recent trend in the pet industry for house calls and mobile vet care. How did that come about?
   1. Was this how veterinary care used to be?
   2. When did BetterVet start?
      1. Who came up with the idea
2. Why has mobile vet care become so popular?
3. So I might not be happy with my current veterinarian, how would I find and choose a mobile veterinary care
   1. Is there anything different in standard costs?
      1. Outside of the care being done in your home, what is the difference in the quality of service?
   2. Is it more expensive?
   3. Can a mobile vet service prescribe the same treatments and prescriptions as a normal vet office?
4. What if my dog needs something more serious like emergency attention or service?
   1. How quick is it to get them to the location they need vs bringing a dog into a vet’s office surgery
5. How difficult is it for people that live in gated communities to have a mobile vet service come to their house?
   1. If there is an emergency, does a vet need to come through the gate to the house or does the pet owner and vet meet at a designated location for the emergency service?
6. Tell me about telemedicine side of BetterVet
   1. Are you able to diagnose anything over zoom, or does the vet need to physically be handling the dog before any action steps are taken for treating and solving any problems with their dog
7. So give me the run down of all the services BetterVet can provide for people
8. Where do you see the trend going as far as mobile veterinary service as an industry
9. How does BetterVet set itself apart from it’s competitors, since the trend is going more mobile
   1. What obstacles do you see your competitors having to overcome to outperform BetterVet?
10. I heard through the grapevine that BetterVet is coming out with a veterinary nutrition department. Does BetterVet provide veterinary nutritionists as well?