E319- How a Veterinary Cancer Specialist and Petco’s Ex-CEO Are Rewriting Dog Healthcare - Dr. Nicole Leibman, DVM, MS, DACVIM-Oncology & Ron Coughlin

[SPEAKER_00]: So welcome to the podcast, Nicole Ron, I appreciate you guys having me on and like I was saying before we started is when I got the email to have you guys on, I was like okay this is a unique dynamic and so I'm excited to dive in.
[SPEAKER_00]: We always like to have on the podcast people who do all sorts of fun stuff and with dogs obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so why don't you guys, instead of me introducing you, why don't you guys introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: McCall, you want to start?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll tell you a little bit about how Ron and I are connected and then I'll let him introduce himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have been best friends since eighth grade.
[SPEAKER_01]: We both born and bred in New York City.
[SPEAKER_01]: We went from eighth grade all the way through high school together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did all of our homework.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm definitely the smarter one.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no there's no question there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He may look a little better on paper to some people you know depends what you're I I'm a veterinarian I'm a veterinarian collegeist I have spent the greater part of my career at the animal medical center in New York City It's the largest non-profit teaching hospital in the world
[SPEAKER_01]: I run the Cancer Institute, which is medical, surgical, and radiation oncology.
[SPEAKER_01]: I teach, I see patients, I do translational research, and we just started this amazing new company pad, which we really want to talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say you teach, what kind of teachings do you do right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I teach interns, residents, vet students, anywhere from just general veterinary medicine, but mostly veterinary oncology, which is my passion and my specialty.
[SPEAKER_01]: So mostly cancer is what I teach them about cancer and dogs and cats.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we throw some other species in there, horses, exotics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool, Ron, you're up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was CEO of Petko for six years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, while I was there, we did a few interesting things.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is we took our vet network from, you know, three or four to over two hundred, which is why I went and Dr. Lee even talking about launching pad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a lot of passion for the veterinary space.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing is, you know, you're, you're no bad dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was there, we got rid of shock callers, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were the first major player in the world that made a statement that were all about positive training.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the head trainer at Petco Darius is, you know, one of my favorite people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I learned a lot from him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I also got passionate about training, which is why this conversation was, you know, something that I was super interested in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then since I left Petco,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm chairman of a Darfur company named Bill Jack that I got involved in about nine months ago and Dr. Leaveman called and said we got to go do this idea and I just love the idea there is a gap in the market from a care standpoint and I thought we could help close that gap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like you got a good, good background in business, marketing, road mapping big companies and to becoming bigger and more successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, that's, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you, well, prior to Peca, I was at PepsiCo, Chief Manager PepsiCo, and then President at HP.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, a few big companies in my background.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's awesome so what so what's what's pat what's pat and how how did you guys create pat and and what is it what is it going to do to benefit dog dog owners who are you know listening to this watching this podcast and and are interested in helping their dogs or cats all your vision uh so you know for years and especially during covid i
[SPEAKER_01]: recognized and was really saddened by this gap that exists between the veterinary clinic and home care.
[SPEAKER_01]: Standard of care in the human arena is like a visiting nurse service, if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: So elderly people with disabilities, people who've had surgical procedures, there's always help.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, home help that that we can subscribe to that we need especially hospice care and of life care which is a big passion of of mine being a cancer specialist and so I started to take care of some patients that who people who couldn't really leave the homes their homes during COVID because they had underlying health issues and put them at at very high risk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I started to take care of these animals at home and just, you know, to be a good person and make sure that these animals got the care that they needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were cancer patients because that's what I mostly see.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started to recognize that it was making a really large difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's because these were, these were subtleties.
[SPEAKER_01]: These were
[SPEAKER_01]: procedures or treatments that maybe people wouldn't really come into the clinic for like cleaning the tumor, flushing it out, making sure the animal was ambulating, moving around appropriately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really just sort of TLC along with some medical care and I, you know, one patient in particular who
[SPEAKER_01]: I really feel other than my own dog really helped spearhead this.
[SPEAKER_01]: She ended up living three and a half years with a tumor of her job upper jaw.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized what having home care either once a week or a few times a week really did for this patient.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I get requests all the time for people who need help at home, even just medicating their pets, especially cats.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we're talking about dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: We love cats too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Taking care of them, you know, it's very hard to be a mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: a dad a pet parent and be the nurse and the doctor at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to hold all of those hats and so sort of the goal and our vision here is to help bridge that and let pet parents be pet parents and let pad.
[SPEAKER_01]: home pet services come in and do the rest for you for the pet parents and for the pets.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of like it's kind of like the end of end of life care or the hospice care or even I think there's a franchise for for humans call the guardian angels or something like that where it's so you're essentially helping dog owners
[SPEAKER_00]: do end of life care or even senior care with all the things that dogs and cats may need differently towards their life because obviously just like with people, you know, as we mature and age, everything changes, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our bodies start to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that what you're doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a big part of it, but it's not the only part.
[SPEAKER_01]: So lots of young dogs tear their cruciate ligament, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're active, big laboratories, golden retrievers running around, playing Frisbee, swimming.
[SPEAKER_01]: They tear their cruciate ligament.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very common procedures called a TPLO.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big surgery, an expensive surgery.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that goes home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's this gap, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, so now what?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, how do we do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we know that this amount of limping is still normal?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we know how much we can move it?
[SPEAKER_01]: How can can someone help us sort of do the massage and the passive range of motion?
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are young dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're there with post-op care.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're there for animals that have
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, God forbid, been hit by cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had some trauma that need, you know, bandage changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: They need support.
[SPEAKER_01]: They need their wounds flushed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what we'll do anything from, you know, a very scared dog who it's too complicated to take them to the vet or even the groomer to clip their nails.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll go there and do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have a broad range from very simple to very complicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my wheelhouse there because I have a lot of people who listen to this podcast or would I think I just had a dog who went through TPLO she's at the time she was eight years old she's a Dutch Shepherd extremely active all the things you said the swimming the
[SPEAKER_00]: the prisbee that jumping the all of the activities and and and and actually one of my friends who who is my videographer at the time also went through TPLO surgery with her German Shepherd and we both and that they both ended up getting infected to some degree rather the wound site or
[SPEAKER_00]: whatever and in the veterinarians told us, the percentage of the percentage of coming back and getting the screws out, the percentage of coming back and getting the tube or the percentage of coming back and having to get an infection or whatever, we're very, very, very small and it was interesting because we both went in two separate hospitals, two different doctors, two different surgeons did this surgery and both of them happened and we were like, I don't know how true
[SPEAKER_00]: the the percentage of that is, you know, because they all said, oh, it was it was really small, you know, it was it was probably not going to happen, but if it does, here's what we do, and so we just went through that and it was this because she's very she's still very active and she wants to be active and we
[SPEAKER_00]: we really didn't know what is when we could like with humans you go and for you go back into the doctor for a checkup and we went for a couple checkups but I think it was only one after this their surgery and we didn't really know
[SPEAKER_00]: where that gray area was where okay she's she wants to play she's active she's no longer limping can we play frisbee can she be awfully she can she run uh... and it and it was this gray area and i know a lot of dog owners specifically go through the tplo surgery especially the bigger english labs the heavier dogs who are put a lot of weight on those ligaments and
[SPEAKER_00]: tearing those things uh... the active dogs and it's this it's always this question of if like when can they go back to being who they were and and what's the risk of of of re-taring it or or and a lot of times i'm sure you can relate to this to because you've seen this is when the other one goes what you know is it the same process what if they go at the same time because that's what i've had with a couple dogs as they both went
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them is doing a scar tissue recovery on their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one is torn completely and and it's like you said so anyway, so that's so so you're basically
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's the difference between the, so is it basically in-home care with the spectrum of, I'm gonna come in and do rehab with your young dog who tore their, they had to have TPLO surgery and tore the crusiot versus versus like, yeah, so you're doing a full spectrum vet care in-home, is that right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The thing way I would think about it is a registered nurse, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of, you know, the nurse practitioner in terms of how we're bringing that text into the home.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're not doing diagnostic.
[SPEAKER_02]: We partner with veterinarians to take care of the pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whether it's the post-op surgery that Nicole mentioned, whether it's medical bath, whether it's diabetic pets, whether it's pillaging,
[SPEAKER_02]: on cats, then the back end hospice type care.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anything that a vet tech can do, think about it as a nurse into the home to help take care of pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that really hit me early in early days when we were planning the business was a coal share to note within the hospital of a pet that had a feeding tube, and the pet parent had to go away for two weeks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the thirteen-year-old neighbor girl can't take care of that pet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, that need professional or think about a, you know, an older person with a bigger pet and that pet has to be stood up, you know, every couple hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: How are they going to do that or an older person trying to track down.
[SPEAKER_02]: a cat or you know so a lot of these these or even one of the things we're getting requests for is take my pet to the hospital you know the incidents of veterinary visits is actually lower than it should be and we facilitate that for people who either don't have the time or you know a lot of the elderly you know don't have the mobility to do those types of things
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's unique.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a dog also that lived until she was about eighteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I didn't do what I do for work, meaning work from home and be able to move my schedule around, it was
[SPEAKER_00]: it was tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I extended her life because I was able to take care of her as a senior dog because she was she had a hard time getting up, but when she got up, she would hobble around and and she'd go pee, but sometimes her legs gave out and so you'd have to lift her up and a lot of that stuff was
[SPEAKER_00]: was also like the conversation of when when is it time like you know when is it when is you the nasa on the table when you can ask a professional to come over to kind of audit
[SPEAKER_00]: and really look out like the quality of life of the dog because his dog owners no matter if your professional or not like we we sometimes have this false reality of what is real right where it's like this is oh she's fine or she's she you know quality of life is good and it's like sometimes you need an outside perspective to come in and go actually she's you know and I've had a lot of clients and you know being a dog person in my entire life before I was a professional
[SPEAKER_00]: they tell you things you don't know right or she's like oh she's actually you know extremely pain right here and and or or there's this this mass that's actually cancerous that's now taking over the liver and there's all these things that you just don't know as you're going through senior care and I know senior care is so hard for pet owners because
[SPEAKER_00]: the average person by default has to go to work, like they don't work from home.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have, and you could call it a luxury or whatever, but I mean, and it can be sometimes, and other people are like, I want to go in.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is very difficult for people who work a traditional nine to five job that
[SPEAKER_00]: or more that have to take care of a senior pet because they need, like you said, medication, they need help getting up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they have to, or even as early on as, you know, urinating more frequently because they're, you know, they're getting older and drinking more.
[SPEAKER_02]: When the cold deals with this all day long, I let her elaborate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me just give you a personal experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: I lost my father and my dog yummy at the exact, roughly the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We extended my father's life for as long as we possibly could with home hospice care for the final two, two and a half months of his life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was lucky in between myself and my fiance Jen that we were able to be home with yummy, but what a conversation a colon I had is for most people.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have to out of necessity
[SPEAKER_02]: Trunkate that pet's life and their time with the pet's life because there is no hospice care for pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: It does not exist, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It just doesn't exist and it's something that Nicole and I are passionate about for those who want to and those who can we want to help them have more time with their pets and but and inversely to the pet have more time with the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: While they're still physically able to have a decent life, too many pet lives get cut short because of physical limitations, but they're still a quality of life, but the pet parent who has to go to work can facilitate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll let Nicole live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's absolutely true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just see so many people that are conflicted and guilt-ridden and they really just don't have a real answer to all their concerns.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am a veterinarian, so I understand the lack of a better word burden of what people need from me, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I get maybe four hundred emails a day, literally four hundred emails a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of those are from pet parents just needing to check in and needing help or you know, they have a simple question or maybe it's a complicated question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm very fortunate and privileged to have this amazing team that helps me with all of that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have brilliant residents and interns
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have people who support me and nurses that I work with that are able to help provide that information.
[SPEAKER_01]: But most veterinarians do not have that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I work in an academic institution.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most veterinarians work in a
[SPEAKER_01]: you know I'm regular general practice and they don't have all of that support and people need that support I mean we all know what it's like to try to get the surgeon on the phone surgeons are generally in surgery you know they can't pick up the phone to say oh you know
[SPEAKER_01]: he seems okay but he went down the stairs and shouldn't and I know he wasn't supposed to and do you think I thought do you think he's gonna be okay like this is real worry and reasonable worry and concern and people need support and so really that the true nuts and bolts of this business is to bridge the veterinarian and the pet parent right so you're not calling
[SPEAKER_01]: the surgeon at nine thirty and understandably not hearing back from them until six o'clock at night because they are busy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're working.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't stop and give people the time that they need.
[SPEAKER_01]: So pad will come a licensed vet tech.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of our tech's run ran an entire surgery department at a big referral practice out on Long Island.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's amazingly gifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: She'll go there.
[SPEAKER_01]: She'll evaluate the pet.
[SPEAKER_01]: She'll sit with the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: She'll answer the questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she'll also report back to the veterinarian, always.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then there's a dialogue amongst the professionals, but also with the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just, it's really the, it's an advocate, if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: We always say this, the reason why many people don't get
[SPEAKER_01]: adequate health care, you know, even for themselves is that they don't have a great medical advocate, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have someone who can speak the language and and advocate for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what
[SPEAKER_01]: The vision for pad is it's to advocate for not only the pad, but also the pet parent and the veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, this wonderful woman who does a lot of rescue work, she rescues Boston Terriers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this lovely dog was mirroring the end of his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was in kidney failure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she lives all the way across town from where her vet clinic is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she called me, actually, and she said, how can pad help?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, he needs blood work.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's expensive for me to get him in an Uber and go all the way downtown and it's fifty dollars there, fifty dollars back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I have to wait.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very busy hospital.
[SPEAKER_01]: What can you guys do for me?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, how about I send someone there?
[SPEAKER_01]: they'll draw the blood.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have all the supplies.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll drop the blood off at the vet clinic.
[SPEAKER_01]: The vet clinic will run the blood work and then they can call you and you can discuss the results without Tony having needing to be transported in a state where it's really very uncomfortable for him and you can just sit and relax and be with Tony right now because that's what you need and that's what he needs and you know
[SPEAKER_01]: Our texts went right away, they drew the blood in a fear-free environment, in a comfortable environment without a bunch of chaos.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the veterinarian was able to run the samples and call the pet parent and say, you know what, there's not much more we can do here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, we're at the end of the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, for Tony's last day, he didn't need to travel across town and go to a busy, vet clinic
[SPEAKER_01]: where there was no additional help that could have been afforded to him at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that point, someone came and performed, you know, Humane, Newthanasia.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that parent, the foster, was so grateful to just have those last hours at home in a really peaceful, supportive environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the term euthanasias, I think it's Latin for a peaceful death or a comfortable death or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've gone through two euthanasias the last
[SPEAKER_00]: three years with my older dogs obviously and one of them was extremely stressful and one of them was extremely not stressful and so what you're talking really hits home with me immensely because I had to go through both experiences and it was it was unfortunate because there's this
[SPEAKER_00]: almost fighter flight feeling that you have as a dog owner to say can I make this better is it possible to do this a different way can do we have other options and and you know having a company like that and and you know for the people who are listening a lot of people listen and we we talked to
[SPEAKER_00]: different PhDs and different dog trainers and Hollywood trainers and but just but and we talked to business owners as well and this kind of sounds you know like we're promoting pad and of course organically we are but it's it's really something that
[SPEAKER_00]: can be beneficial, might my Saint Bernard ended up having, he had Laryngeal paralysis.
[SPEAKER_00]: He passed away at twelve, which is, which is good, is hundred and fifty pound, is a big saint.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had Laryngeal paralysis, Larpar, which we opted out of the surgery because it was very, it was very environmental.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if he got super stressed, it would come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the traditional, like, clinical Larpar where it would
[SPEAKER_00]: it would be there all the time like hacking and it was only when it was you know he was super stressed and worked up and so we dealt with that we got him home a beautiful staff took great care of him and then he ended up getting pneumonia
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he ended up like having no appetite, but but structurally he was the hard thing was is structurally he was extremely healthy like orthopedically like his bones his hips like everything the normal things that would take out a large breed dog
[SPEAKER_00]: right where we're intact and so he ended up one night just kind of doing this stretch and this stretch and I was kind of looking at him and I'm like, yeah, something's not right and you know and having a large breed dog you always worry about bloat because that's what everyone kind of scares you with which is real it's a real thing bigger dogs can get it and they do get it and so I brought him down to the vet long story short and she said look he's he's bloated
[SPEAKER_00]: He just came off pneumonia, you know, I think we could do surgery, but we'd have to rush him down to the emergency vet and they'd have to do immediate surgery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The amount of stress that that's going to induce in him and there's a there's a there's a fifty-fifty chance he could pass away during surgery.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a good chance the surgery might not be successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of things and it was this enormous amount of Strat and this is your best friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as you guys know, these are your best friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are these are the and this was this was
[SPEAKER_00]: hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what makes you go, well, in your brain, just go, you know, all over and you're desperately trying to say, well, how can I, so then you're dealing with, you brought your dog in because they were acting funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: You bring him in, they're p.n.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they're like, yeah, whatever, and they're just fine outside of, you know, a little something off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
[SPEAKER_00]: and then you're not bringing them home and the dog gives you twelve years of happiness joy and you know there's a lot of love there obviously and so you're going through this process of okay not only is my dog passing away tonight without you know there's nothing I can do about that but now they basically said
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you could come and say goodbye to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll end me in my wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was post kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're, you know, if you guys have kids, I'm not sure, but you're love for kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you, when you have dogs, you're like, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't love anything more.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you have kids, you're like, okay, I can love, I can love something a little bit of dog doesn't talk back to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we had to go down to the to the vet office.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they basically because his vis size.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was, you know, they had them all drugged up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and they, you know, they said, this is the option for you should really utilize the dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we made that decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to the front room.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they basically had like, they just, they just ended up locking like their front door and having patients use the side door.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we had to basically utilize them in the front office.
[SPEAKER_00]: and people were banging on the door trying to get in and we're saying goodbye to our dog of twelve years and it's it's such a hard thing for everybody because I'm like his last moments are this
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm stressed, he's probably stressed, although it was awful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really tough thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my other dog, Lola, who had outlived him, miraculously, eighteen years.
[SPEAKER_00]: we had somebody come to the house and do it at the home and it was surrounded by family and it was peaceful and there was this beautiful sun coming it was beautiful and I was like okay so to your point guys the in-home care I mean I something I relate to I looked at what pad was but I didn't get the feeling of the hospice care as much I got the feeling of in-home services but what you guys are doing
[SPEAKER_00]: from my own experiences is huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, so where are you guys at now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think one thing that I would ask the next question and dog owners I'm sure are thinking like, because the price, right, does insurance cover something like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have like, how does this work with their pre-existing veterinarians and
[SPEAKER_00]: What availability is it to like, are you guys nationwide yet?
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's the availability?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it sounds amazing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It really does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are you guys at with that?
[SPEAKER_02]: So our plans are to be national.
[SPEAKER_02]: We launched in March in New York City, just to refine the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also where, you know, Dr. Leven practices.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, we're in the New York and Nassau County.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also do some little bit work in New Jersey.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's where we're refining the model.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where we launched so far.
[SPEAKER_02]: And our plans are to expand from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so far, it's currently well.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're growing about fifteen to twenty percent month on month.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the demand is definitely there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to your question on the vet, one of the things that, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: The coal has been adamant about and since I, you know, managed, but I think to earn forty hospitals I understand as well is we work hand in hand with the veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_02]: The veterinarian is the primary diagnosis or intruder of the pet in terms of whatever the ailment is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then we do the follow-up.
[SPEAKER_02]: We do the ongoing treatment where the support mechanism for the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that Nicole talks about is pilling cats.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know this is about dogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cats lose trust if you do something that they don't want to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then your relationship with your cat is all screwed up, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We can come and help in that situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So plant is national and we work hand in glove with a vet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like I said, in some instances, we're bringing the pet to the vet for the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and how do you guys operate with because because again, something like this, I'm thinking, well, this is great, which means this is probably expensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and it is, it's kind of a luxury service, but do you guys work with insurance companies right now or how does, how does the billing work with with with your program right now in your structure?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that would be up to the parent to submit.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, for example, I have insurance and I generally submit my those two and get reimbursed and we will be no different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you say New York, all of New York, all of New York City, New York, New York, New York, five boroughs, plus and not so county.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And right now, so let's walk me through the process.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I had a senior dog, walk me through the road map of me working with Pat, how would I say, hey, I need somebody to come over and I'm traveling and my dog walker can't administer X. What's the process to get to you guys?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's actually quite streamlined actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a really great website that is very user friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have people answering the phones within seconds or minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so all one needs to do is go on the website, sort of, prove it a bit and put in an inquiry and they'll be contacted, you know, within, you know, usually a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at that point, we
[SPEAKER_01]: We've made sure that we can serve people quickly and efficiently and we intend to continue that model.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, we're constantly reworking, you know, how much work do we have?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many people do we need?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're really staying on top of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we can almost serve, you know, that day or the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they, the person will have a conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: with a real person from the company who is very knowledgeable about animals and the pet parent will make the request for whatever they need, whether it's someone comes once a day to give Johnny, you know, his a moxicillin because he had a UTI or something and making this up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, if it's in Manhattan, you know, sometimes people leave the key with the door man or
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll meet first face to face, a lot of people want to meet, whoever is going to be treating their pet and coming into their home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we certainly support that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our technicians will come first, meet the pet parent, make sure everyone feels comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they'll show up on a daily basis to do whatever needs to be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will communicate with the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a system called House
[SPEAKER_01]: house call pro.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the technician can communicate immediately with the pet parent, you know, things went well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, by the way, you know, he didn't poop today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just want to let you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're very communicative.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to make sure that people feel comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't feel, you know, I don't even me and I'm a professional.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always like, am I buggy?
[SPEAKER_01]: the dog sitter like I hate that feeling of like can you just send a few more pictures just because like you know make me have a better day like it can just make sure that you know they pee when they went outside because they usually pee twice you know like I'm trying to treat people the way that I would like to be treated I hate that barrier right I want it to be a partnership I I don't want this you know
[SPEAKER_01]: The way medical care has historically been is people have elevated doctors where there's this hierarchy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's good data to show that that model doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to have great communication to be successful when treating an animal, a human, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so our whole premise and model here is let's partner together.
[SPEAKER_01]: to take care of your loved one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's my cats, sorry about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We really want, we're here to do whatever anyone needs to feel comfortable while they're gone, whether they're at work, whether they're on vacation, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have an open line of communication that's a dynamic process.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can talk and
[SPEAKER_01]: and give you the information as little or as often as you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can communicate with the veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am also, you know, the veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the chief medical officer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there's anything immediately wrong, I'm contacted right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we had a kitten the other day that one of our texts went out to see the people called and said, you know, she's limping.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's really anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you just come see her?
[SPEAKER_01]: So our technician went out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: She saw the kitten and she called me right away because they actually didn't have a veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do see a lot of people who don't even have a veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, oh, and she's like, can you see the kitten?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm a cancer specialist, but you know, I love kittens and I love, I love everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, you know, bring it in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll deal with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll find the orthopedic surgeon.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the kitten came in to see me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that worth the pedic surgeon that day.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did X-rays right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had a fracture through the growth plate, which is very, very serious.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can hold growth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that kitten was in surgery the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I personally make sure that either the veterinarian on record is contacted, communicated with, and I make sure that
[SPEAKER_01]: that the partnership continues over to that relationship or if that's not possible for any number of reasons, then I personally make certain that that pet has the appropriate health care.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not always me because my specialty is not worth a pedic surgery, but I make sure in orthopedic surgeon is employed immediately to help that pet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there is, there is some sort of diagnosis that you guys can do, because I don't know where I was saying earlier that usually the veterinarians are the ones that say, hey, here's what we're doing, here's how to do it, and then pad is kind of a liaison in between.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in that case, it was like, hey, I don't have a vet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something's going on in my kitten and pad came right over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a special thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is that
[SPEAKER_01]: We're evolving.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're also learning to fully like we really want to partner with veterinarians.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very important to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: We really started this business for three reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first reason is obvious.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the pet.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want pets to have great health care.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want them to have the best health care that people can get.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not all people have access sadly to great health care.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the people that do, we want to mimic that and have pets be able to have that health care.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in order to do that, there needs to be a liaison.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we did this for the pets.
[SPEAKER_01]: Secondly, we did it for my fellow veterinarians that are extraordinarily stressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you know this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of a damper on things, but the suicide rate is extremely high for veterinarians.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason for that is that we get compassion fatigue.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't serve everyone in the way that we need and want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people who get into this field are deep empaths.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's important for us to give and to make sure we've crossed every tea and dotted every eye.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is no way that that is possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we started pad so we can help support the veterinarian.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't feel like, you know, they have to take every call from every pet parent, you know, that day within an hour or thirty minutes, pad is there to help bridge it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And lastly, which we haven't talked about at all, but I'll throw it in is the veterinary technician.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how much you know about this, but the veterinary technician is sort of a dying industry for a multitude of reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it is just what they get paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a veterinarian is nothing without their vet tech.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could not survive without my brilliant vet techs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we really wanted to elevate them and give them independence and celebrate them.
[SPEAKER_01]: for the real talents that they are and the texts that we've hired.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was worried.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were worried, full disclosure, I'm like, what if they hate it?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if they don't feel like it's like compelling enough?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if they're not, if they're not challenged and they love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They really feel like they've created their own space, they have their own clients, their empowered.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's our way of, we want to be industry changers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's one way that's really important to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I could tell too that you're passionate about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not just reading a script and, you know, you know, there's some grocery list on the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could tell I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I do, my cousin is a specialty vet.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's an exotic vet and she teaches at NC State.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, we have these conversations all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even in the dog training space, it's very similar, too, because exactly to your point, we're very, very, very empath, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We love dogs, we love animals, we want to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: we want to help people but the business side of any industry that people get into because of their empathy and love and compassion and passion for animals or anything can be overwhelming and that's why you know for me over the years I've had to really kind of butterfly into
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not working day-to-day telling dog owners that there are no bad dogs in that your dog who made a mistake actually doesn't need to be euthanized because that really weighs on somebody who cares a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you guys have uniquely innovated a way to kind of take that stress out of that clinical box.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really, that's really, I think, truthfully, I think that that's pretty special.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing that comes to mind, guys, that I think a lot of people have a hard time with, and I don't know if you have thought about this, or even it's part of your business model, is like, I live in upstate New York, so Serotoga area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: We love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is it's great people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I people when I tell people out from New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think I'm I live in Times Square.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know there's black bears and moose and so the emergent right
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I live right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go buy it every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: The emergency rooms or the emergency clinics has become
[SPEAKER_00]: A big thing up here because there's not enough of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have an emergency with your animal right now, there's a good chance you're not going to be able to find a place that's operating because they operate at very odd hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they'll just not operate because they don't have the staff.
[SPEAKER_00]: or their further away and it's becoming a real thing my mom just had an incident last week with her cat or cat was extremely lethargic eyes glazing back was outside for a day not normal really out of character and so she she ended up finding a place that was open but now it's becoming such a problem in our area that people can't really find find find find things right so i've always thought like man if you had like an ambulance
[SPEAKER_00]: for dogs where you, you know, you zipped over to somebody's house obviously you wouldn't be able to do the surgeries and all the things so that's like the limits right where a lot of these dogs who are HBCs are hit by cars or have his bloat or you know things like that you would have limitations to what you can do but is is have you guys thought about doing like on call twenty four seven type of support or is that is that something that you guys wouldn't venture into because of
[SPEAKER_02]: We might get there right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a very focused remit on this need in the marketplace.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we also are very careful, quite frankly, not to displace veterinary veterinarians and not to be a threat to veterinarians.
[SPEAKER_02]: That said, this can be a wrap-hole, but the corporate takeover of the veterinary business has in general not been a positive for pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, Nicole's hospital that she's talked about is obviously an outlier to that because it's a teaching hospital that's a not-for-profit.
[SPEAKER_02]: But because of, you know, some of the profit pressures that veterinarians face in these, you know, big chain, chain hostels, they get reduced hours, they get closed down if they're not sufficiently profitable, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, the old veterinarian working, you know, a business out of passion is unfortunately getting to be more of the exception.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in our instance, it's just Nicole and I, we fund the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we don't have any outside pressures.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, you know, I'm adamant that I don't want any outside pressures for how we, you know, treat and how we, how we take care of pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's put some pressure on the care.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, my dog had several issues over the last few years of his life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here I am the CEO of the second biggest pet company in the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had trouble getting in and getting an appointment, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay, we'll take care of Yogi's knee in three months.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you mean three months?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so there is insufficiency of care.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are, and there are cases where we can close that gap.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's other cases.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not surgeons, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're not going to close that gap.
[SPEAKER_02]: But where we can, we want to close that gap.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, most likely, because we're doing with the bed tech, do it in a more affordable way so you can get that ongoing care.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a woman that was taking her pet for diabetes shots every single day to hospital.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, imagine what that dough looks like, let alone the dislocation in her life, where we could come to the house for more cost effectively and take care of that for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the peasant would be more comfortable in their own home.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of kind of use cases where that's going to be there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, you talked about, you talked about exotics.
[SPEAKER_02]: We do do exotics and actually just today, our dispatcher sent the schedule.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get this wrong and call.
[SPEAKER_02]: But trimming a bird's beak at what time is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: At one o'clock today, where our lovely Ivana is trimming a bird's beak, is it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of our texts is an exotic specialist.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is amazing because as you must know regarding your sister that is a very specialized area of medicine and you really need to know what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a lot of margin for error when it comes to exotics and very few people know how to manage these pets and it is really stressful to bring them to a vet clinic and the vast majority of veterinarians and me included do not know how to manage exotics.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ivana is home.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always like to face time her.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like literally birds and lizards everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, I can't believe you live like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, to each her own, but she's a master.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I mean, we're so excited to care, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had to choose, yes, dogs are my favorite.
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up with dogs always, but it's hard to choose.
[SPEAKER_01]: My cat, he's an emotional support cat for my son.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a horse.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was at auction for slaughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm obsessed with her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: They all hold a different place in our heart, just like your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: My kids are, I love them the same, but I love them differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know we want to make sure that you know every lizard out there gets the care that it needs you know I saw a fish with a tumor a couple months ago like if that fish is super important to that person we're going to do what we need to do like you know when gets to judge love you know love love comes in all shapes and forms so whatever people want will be there to help I mean we obviously you know that the the
[SPEAKER_01]: The health, the well-being of the pet is always the most important.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to tell you if we feel like there's nothing else that can be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we don't have what this pet parent needs, we will find it for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's truly incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just the other day, my dog found a rabbit nest, I guess is what you call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And per her prey drive and instinct, she got into all the rabbits and it was devastating for me and she's looking at me like,
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone else was like, dude, it's just rabbits.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, yeah, but they're cute and they could have just went off and lived their life and now they're not because my dog was curious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hated that, but I love that because I believe that too, put the spider on a piece of paper and put it outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you guys do about like a lot of my people who are listening to this podcast, you know, the hundreds of thousands that get into my podcast per year?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have behavioral problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I started off as working with behavioral dogs, dogs who don't fall under, you know, Ram is talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: shot collars earlier and training protocols and stuff and you know there's there's dogs who don't fall under the regimen and the structure of the normal sea of teaching dogs behaviors these dogs know the behaviors they want to kill you they want to they want to hurt you they're cool with their people but you coming into my house that's a problem that's an issue and so
[SPEAKER_00]: Using punitive measures in a verse of is not only necessary, a lot of times it's the most humane thing to do when you have a dog that innately wants to hurt somebody because somebody beat them when they were a puppy and now they live with stress and anxiety and trauma and now a man with the hat that comes in is recognized as that trauma and now he wants to hurt that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now you have a hundred and fifty pound wrought while that wants to kill the person that's trying to take care of the tumor on you or your
[SPEAKER_00]: your broken back or whatever and then yeah you talk about medication and you talk about all these things and it's like what what so that's one thing that I know I'm I'm in my head and and I have a giant bore bull who's really friendly but he can be scary have you guys gone have you have you have you gone through the behavioral and training protocols for for the your vet text that are going into homes with dogs who or cat cats I guess seem like they're always going to have a problem but what's that look like
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the big, the big scary dogs are always easier than cats, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That the bigger I think he's always.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took me a long time to get comfortable with cats.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I put me in the room with a scary pitbull any day over, you know, a cat, but the cats are special.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you figure it out, you know, you can be a cat whisperer too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our our texts are fear free-trained, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and they
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't send anyone into a situation unless we feel that they're going to be safe and the animal is going to be safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of communication beforehand.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a long discussion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it better to meet outside?
[SPEAKER_01]: Should we meet outside first?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that pet doesn't feel like this tech is invading their area that there are some sort of perpetrator.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we go through a long list of questions if there's a situation
[SPEAKER_01]: where you know potentially the animal.
[SPEAKER_01]: or the vet tech is going to be in danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we may, and sometimes it's simply just a brief meeting outside with a little treat.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, just, here's our first meeting, we'll be back tomorrow to try again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we, you know, certain things need to be dealt with immediately and other things can wait, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if it's a nail trimming and a big dog who sort of wigs out at the vet clinic, you know, we have time that nail trim is not an emergency.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we would have our tech build a relationship
[SPEAKER_01]: slowly but certainly with that pet and then we would create a plan that best fit that pet and you know are we have two of our technicians are really behavior specialists and so you know often I defer to them but I make sure that I look at every plan and we make sure that we're going through the process most importantly to keep the pet safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so is the fear free training, I'm not familiar, is that like, is that, what is that, what can you define that through the, because that's what, you know, loosely it's, it's really a course where, you know, less is more, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we all know like when you were strained, you know, with, with a lot of force,
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the animal just fights back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they can't fight back, it's even worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it creates this really negative spiral for everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, for the vet tech, they don't feel good for the animal, then it's another traumatizing experience and certainly for the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't do anyone any good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are certain instances where an animal needs to be muscled.
[SPEAKER_01]: or an animal needs to be tacoed, because it is the only way we can get life-saving treatment done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of the day, we're here to save lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: But ninety percent of the time, there are gentle and less is more
[SPEAKER_01]: You know sort of methods by which to handle it and it's not one size fits all either, but it has to do with how you use your voice it has to do with how you approach an animal has to do where you put your hands right we all know.
[SPEAKER_01]: those of us in the animal world like you can approach an animal from above you can approach a horse you know from you have to they have to see you they have to be able to feel like they're in control so you know you go from the bottom up so there's a whole host of of practices that you probably know more about that than even I do and and so
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we make sure that we take the time that we need.
[SPEAKER_01]: And are we a hundred percent successful?
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's a hundred percent successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we put, you know, all of our best efforts forward to build a trusting relationship with that animal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, animals, I believe there are no bad dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that if you take the time to do it, you can do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't, again, it doesn't mean you're never going to put a muzzle on a dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes that's the safest thing for the dog, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes that muzzle actually makes them big focus on the muzzle and not on what's happening to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we less is more, we try not to do those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's no other choice, we will, but we take our time to build trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that because even them, you know, from again behavioral cases, I typically work with dogs with bite histories, kill histories.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've killed multiple dogs, multiple cats.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have severe bite histories.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I even get involved with the legality and the court systems of, you know, dangerous dog or not, especially in New York State.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a big thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so sometimes even the muzzle is
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, man, I don't care if you like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're putting this miles along because you're going to try to bite me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you bite me, it's going to make your case a lot worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're going to fight me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to hate me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to be pissed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to try to bite me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at least you're not going to get me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's, and it's again, it's let me help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like, and so that's a big part of it, too, is it's safer for the dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times, and it's always tell people, it's life-saving for the dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't muzzle the dog or put the dog in a situation where they're going to be successful or correct the dog for trying to kill somebody or bite a kid, it's better to handle it when it happens so the dog doesn't make that mistake in the future because it's deadly once that happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of content parents actually don't want to acknowledge that their pet has that tendency.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's much better to acknowledge it and deal with it than act like, oh, that's the first time that ever happened, which is what a lot of content parents do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and yeah, and that happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: That happens often like in our field.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Ron, you probably get a kick out of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I recently have a board bullet, no, if you're familiar with the breed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically a South African mastiv.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a giant super protective dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I literally got the dog because it was the most difficult dog I've ever worked with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to, I guess, spice my life up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a nice dog, big blockhead, and anyway, he's friendly, he's very suspicious.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he does exact heat.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he doesn't know you, he lets you know that he doesn't know you, but he doesn't have anything behind it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just stands there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to have a couple different veterinarians for what you guys were talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I call my main vet, we can't get you until next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I call Pat Co over at Banfield and I say, oh yeah, we have an opening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you go in, Ron.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this six by six room with this, you know, a little desk and a little thing to sit on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I have this, hundred and fifty pound gorilla in this room with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the vet text come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he just, he had, he had some dermatology issues, some allergy issues, some seasonal stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he had some spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: They they come in and in the vet says hey, we're just gonna scrape them to get a skin sample to check for ringworm because it looked like ring or wasn't but
[SPEAKER_00]: So the vet text says, OK, and he's my dog and they don't know this and they don't need to know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although I am a professional practicing for thirteen years with behavioral cases and so the vet text says, I'm just going to I'm going to handle them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now there's two vet texts in and then the vet in the vet's like, just hold them for me and I'm
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sitting back with popcorn like, okay, so I sit back and it's interesting that they didn't want and I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the safety of their their vet text need to keep the vet safe as they do their job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get that that makes sense, but not once did they say, do you want to help?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you help?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would it be better if you helped us?
[SPEAKER_00]: So this funny story of there's these two vet texts holding my dog and he's looking at him and he's if you didn't know dog behavior not a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is where I know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know him so he's whale eye in these these VAT texts like I if you didn't know him You would think this dog is about to seriously hurt these these guys like he's sitting there whale eye on him his ears are his ears are pinned back and he's looking at him like what is and I'm like I knew him so I knew he wasn't gonna do anything because I've seen him in situations like this before but he was terrified
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's this giant dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then he starts bucking, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he starts pushing these guys off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, literally pushing and backing up and he's he's got tree trunks for legs and thighs and he's got hammocks the size of like elk.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all this is going on and I'm sitting there watching like
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost filmed it for social media but I didn't want to get any but it wasn't it was not malicious it was just ignorance right and I'm sitting there and they're trying and he's scraping and he's and he's now he's just pulled everywhere and it's like it's like a movie like you you hear this going on behind a door you're like oh my god what is happening
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just said and I just say hey guys, I said can I just try something really quick?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have my treat pouch with me and I just grab his flat collar and I gave him a big beef liver and he's sitting there licking it and I said just now you can do your thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she goes down to scrape one of the patches off and he's looking at her and I come on focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's lick and boom she did it and I didn't say anything after but it was
[SPEAKER_00]: In my head, I was shocked.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, if this dog was aggressive,
[SPEAKER_00]: or even to a point where you push you you really pushed him into a corner physically and mentally emotionally even he was so stressed in his eyes were like I'm gonna kill you and they didn't even like ask for help or ask the best way to do it just blew my mind that that happened that I was like thank god he has a good temperament he's a friendly dog and it but I was like that could have been a disaster and
[SPEAKER_00]: from a dog owner standpoint, it would have been their fault because they didn't ask does he have a bite history?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is he aggressive?
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you help us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this going to be okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a muzzle?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just blown away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking to my cousin about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, yeah, it's like, it's just they have the big a lot of it is is like they have, they don't have time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have to get in and they don't have the time to get to know the dog and
[SPEAKER_02]: do all the things and and be get the dog comfortable enough to start examining and they just get in and they're just kind of on this like this goes back to the corporate thing right there there is very very much an output per hour number one and there are inflexible protocols
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think if you contrast, if we were going to go get that skin sample, which is part of what we do is we go get blood samples, we take heart rates.
[SPEAKER_02]: If we were going to go get that skin sample, Nicole can elaborate, but we would collaborate with you on what's the best way to work with your pet, and we would actually enlist you to help us go do that if our vet text show up, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We all can have, you know, we, we carve out time, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's really important to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems really inappropriate in sincere and disingenuine to show up at someone's house.
[SPEAKER_01]: for ten minutes, you know, in and out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not saying like we have, we have cats who we go to their homes every day and give them their meds every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So no one's spending an hour every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, for a new sort of visit, we're there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're going into your home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to make sure that you feel comfortable, that the pet feels comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we create, you know, a
[SPEAKER_01]: at dynamic, if you will.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we certainly take the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, we're new.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to be successful, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we don't want you to feel like we don't care or it was artificial or, you know, were the McDonald's of home pet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that is not, it's just Ron and myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we have no one to answer to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we take all of this very, very seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, when there's a few weeks ago,
[SPEAKER_01]: someone was sick and we were super busy and we had, I went myself, I went myself and I saw, I saw a bunch of patients.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of liked it actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like, you know, maybe I'll get a new job here.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, you know, it just sitting down and chatting with people in their home and the pet, like we talk about your dog, that's exactly the kind of patient we want to serve.
[SPEAKER_01]: One that would feel more comfortable at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't do everything that a veterinarian can do at home, but if the veterinarian says, they sent me a photo, there's some skin lesions.
[SPEAKER_01]: He needs a skin scrape, do me a favor.
[SPEAKER_01]: This dog gets super stressed at the clinic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The pet parent knows how to manage him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go there, get the skin scraping, drop it off with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll look at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll prescribe whatever needs to be prescribed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we, we'll even bring it the medication to the home if the person doesn't want to go get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, we're just here to again bridge the gap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's that's part of like again like the whole no bad dog thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I created the brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trademarked it because I like if my dog did bite one of these guys they big all he bit me him you didn't even you're you're writing him like a bull
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't even ask me for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't get to know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't take him out to dinner first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what did you expect to happen here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, why wouldn't you say, hey, you think he's gonna be okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, here, I mean, he is the size of a Volkswagen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you didn't even ask if this, if this, like, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, it was so surprising to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one thing I wanted to disclose to you guys, and I know Ron, you're, you're short for time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to just talk about this one last thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: One last thing that I, well, we'll continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one thing I wanted to ask you guys is up here in New York, and I don't know if this is globally or internationally, or I'm sorry, domestically here in the States, Mars bought every single vet around us it seemed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mars, so for the listeners, Mars, the company, like, yes, I think they do chocolate, and they own so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a huge, huge, huge corporation.
[SPEAKER_00]: They bought like every single that company around like every GP around here, not all of them, but a lot of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the deal with that and has that, I think Ron, you mentioned it like the corporations of like time as money
[SPEAKER_00]: has now impacted the vets the vets and of course the patients and so it's kind of like we get into this because we love animals and we want to help but then you got the big guy upstairs saying well you only got a half an hour with this dog who needs to be utilized and it's like so can you touch can you touch on that that a little bit because I don't think dog owners even have realized that the small town GP that you go to
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still branded the same in everything, but now a big company has come in, bought the practice, and now has put on new guidelines and even restrictions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, and it's not all bad, and you know, I will have to caveat, we work with everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's been a huge consolidation in the veterinary space.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the primary movers in that are Mars and another financial company called JB.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're buying networks and whether that's BCA, whether that's band-field.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a host of veterinary networks that have been consolidated owned by primarily private equity firms.
[SPEAKER_02]: The good part of that is, let's say there's a rising water in terms of, you know, uniform standards,
[SPEAKER_02]: of a little more capacity to invest in technology, like for example, PEPCO we had handheld ultrasound and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are some positives that come out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The negatives are, there's more pressure on the bets and the bettex in terms of throughput, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's two sides to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: One side is these companies deploy a technology that makes it easier to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The downside is the vet's spend less time with the pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: The vet's spend less time with the pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there has been a consolidation, you know, twenty years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: The industry was primarily, you know, single unit operators who just had a passion of being vets.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now the industry is rapidly consolidated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so in general, it probably has not been in the best interests of pets for this consolidation to have happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why we all need to be advocates for our own pets and make sure that we're getting the best.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are those that do it better than others, and some networks have super-high standards, and some are clearly getting pinched
[SPEAKER_02]: The other piece that you see is you see, you know, you look at, I'm gonna get this slightly wrong, but you look at over the last five years, veterinary prices, and they're up almost a hundred percent, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the pricing pressure, because what happened was there were bidding wars for these veterinary hospitals.
[SPEAKER_02]: and quite frankly, bidding wars for veterinarians out of schools and the pay for veterinarians, which had been too low escalated rapidly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the only way to make the financials work to offset those costs and offset how much these companies paid for the vets was to raise prices and increase throughput.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that has not been a good guy for parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was just curious that I that's what I had in mind is there was probably some pros and some cons, but I just noticed that that that there was a shift in in the the the network of veterinarians locally, is that something that they did nationally, Ron did they
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely nationally.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely nationally.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have thousand unit that never in networks now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think you have like four of them that have over five hundred units now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, I hate to say in some ways they're run like a McDonald's, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Uniform, uniformity across, and you know, at the end of the day, they're there for profit.
[SPEAKER_02]: That said, you know, the one you cited in even J.E.B.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know people there, I know the fundamentals.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to buy, you know, origin dog food when I was at Petco from Mars.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are companies with high values who want to do the right thing for pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are not folks that don't have values.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are not folks that don't care for pets.
[SPEAKER_02]: They very much do.
[SPEAKER_02]: But concurrent with that, they have a profit mandate.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so those things are, you know, they need to balance it every single day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really tough because you got to keep the lights on.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to pay the bills.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same thing for us in our dog training space, like our prices are high.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to keep our staff who are all younger in their twenties, it's like
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to wake the cost of like the economy and the cost of living and everything and it's like luckily we have a very low turnover at our facility in New York.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our managers hit a decade.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of our other trainers have been with us six years, seven years, five years, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to keep raising all of our prices and it sucks to because they're more compared to like a box right and obviously no offense, but it's like a pet co or a pet smart where they're offering the basic package you know for what I don't even a couple hundred bucks for a six week thing and it's like they're you know working it's like they're two different things and it's hard to keep that like that like that I think Nicole said like the passion fatigue and
[SPEAKER_00]: And on all that starts to happen, and it's hard to balance out this love and compassion and empathy for dogs mixed with businesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's where veterinarians go to school to be a vet and do the surgeries and understand blood panels and understand all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I talked to a lot of veterinarians who we discuss and we emphasize on the lack of education on behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: where most veterinarian camps, they go through schooling and even go into their expertise, right, in the exotics and stuff and they do very little to almost no behavioral stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's something that I've had conversations with bigger organizations like VCA and even Amazon for their drivers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about contracts and relationships because
[SPEAKER_00]: they're just isn't this base level to Nicole's point of like when you go in and you have a you know a mountain wall on the corner looking at you like I am I don't know what to do with this and they're getting on the floor and they're trying to touch the dog immediately or whatever they just don't have a base of what to do and and even in
[SPEAKER_00]: something I've been passionate about is the veterinarian clinics aren't really set up super successful either and you guys can maybe touch base on this with the like the waiting rooms pet cone pet smart have an advantage this pet co have a veterinarian hospital what what's that called in there
[SPEAKER_00]: Vecto.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know the name of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Vecto and in a band field and these they have a advantage because you can walk around the store.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you go into like a traditional vet office, it's like usually this little box that everybody just sits there and looks at each other and it's it's like, you know, it's tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's tough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you look at, you know, your training example or about an example.
[SPEAKER_02]: The, you know, pet goes the pet smart.
[SPEAKER_02]: They benefit because if, you know, somebody comes in to, you know, I live in San Diego.
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone comes into tomorrow and gets a training session.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're there ten times.
[SPEAKER_02]: Guess what?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're probably going to spend a couple hundred bucks on toys, treats, etc.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a benefit to the box that doesn't happen with no bad dogs because you don't have that pride assortment of the other products.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you need to make the business work for the training alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very different model.
[SPEAKER_02]: The same thing on the veterinary side of the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: if someone comes in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the difference in pet smart is pet smart did not own bandfield.
[SPEAKER_02]: So bandfield did not benefit from the sales within the box.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pet goes in since it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and and also not for nothing when the dog comes in for training and especially for puppies and younger dogs or learning all these fun things and we're using a hundred percent positive reinforcement and and all the fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can bring them to the vet and they're like, Oh, this is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where I get all the treats and so it kind of the hand washes the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nicole, I want to ask you something, being somebody who specializes in cancer or what is, what is the, do you have any information and insight on the biggest reasons why, because I've talked to a bunch of different people in the industry, but not specialists in ecology and cancers, what is, can you pinpoint
[SPEAKER_00]: particular reasons why dogs are getting cancer and is it because I've heard it's been related to food it's it's been related to genetics it's been related to environments like can you touch base on that what do you what are you seeing and is there anything that dog owners can do to potentially prevent their dog from getting cancer?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wish I could answer that question but we know it's a combination of genetics
[SPEAKER_01]: of environmental factors and aging, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is generally what, you know, when we talk about what causes cancer, it's a combination of all three.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are some very small exceptions to that rule, childhood cancers, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: God forbid pediatric cancers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wrote a book chapter with my brilliant resident Margaret Wong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to give her the credit.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just wrote a book chapter on pediatric cancer in dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank goodness it's rare, but it exists.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we see pediatric cancers, those are generally all, it's inherited.
[SPEAKER_01]: It happens right away and it doesn't have this sort of conglomerate of a constellation of things that lead to this disease.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, it's
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, again, it's a constellation of factors.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are breeds that are overrepresented.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that golden retrievers get lymphoma.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that boxers get a whole host of cancers, you know, all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that, you know, West Highland White Terriers, you know, get, you know, some sort of long cancers.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that Scotty's get bladder tumors.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are breeds that get Bernie's mountain dogs, you know, less than they are the most beautiful things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I love big dogs too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, is there anything more beautiful than a big, huge, lovely burner?
[SPEAKER_01]: And they get terrible histiocytic sarcoma.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, many of those dogs don't even make it to six years of age.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so a lot of it is, you know, you have to, we need better breeding practices out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need breeders to be responsible.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not here to, I'm a big believer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love rescue dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love pure bread dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love dogs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't judge anyone for what they have dogs or on this earth for a lot of different reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if a golden retriever is making an elderly gentleman who lives alone, you know, happy and less lonely, he should have his golden retriever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not judging him for not having a rescue dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, that is a problem is, you know, there are breeds that are overrepresented
[SPEAKER_01]: readers are continuing to breed these dogs that clearly have this genetic predisposition to developing these cancers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the environmental factors which we can't do a whole lot about, herbicides, pesticides, things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a whole lot we can do about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that cats that live with smokers, they will lick their fur and the tobacco residue is on their fur.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they develop oral tumors, devastating oral squamous cell carcinomes from having lived with a smoker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, can you imagine, like, finding out that you are the perpetrator of your cat's devastating oral cancer, like, can you think of anything worse?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and then aging, all of us, as we age, our DNA repair mechanisms, they get lazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So every day, in our bodies, dogs, cats, horses, people, we have mutations that go on, except we have these repair mechanisms, things like P-V-V-V or that come in and fix those mutations.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we get older, those repair mechanisms get lazy, and they don't work as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all older beings are at higher risk for cancer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, can we do anything about this?
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, it's not a simple or easy answer to that question and there's not a lot of answers to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is preventative care is always the best care, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like prevention is always best.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so pets need to see their veterinarian on a regular basis.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they certainly need to see their veterinarian once a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no question about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they need to see their veterinarian if something is wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if something is wrong and they see the veterinarian and it doesn't get better, they need to go back and if they don't feel like they're getting the answer that they need, they need to go someplace else.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't take no for an answer in this world, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If something is wrong, we need to investigate and that goes for us too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the biggest thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are some new tests out there that
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a, and I know very little about it and the company has revealed very little about it, but there's a new screening test for lymphoma out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, whether or not that's going to hold its own and prove to be pivotal in a game changer we'll see.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, I have some personal, you know, sort of thoughts on it as a cancer specialist.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel, you know, after age six or so, you know, animals are certainly get blood work every year.
[SPEAKER_01]: a complete blood count, a chemistry profile looking at, you know, organ function or urinalysis, and then imaging, just like I would have a mammogram or, you know, someone over the age of fifty would have a colonoscopy, you know, X-rays of the chest and an ultrasound of the abdomen that they're nice screening tools, just to find something before it's a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, you know, I'm privileged and I want to be very sensitive to
[SPEAKER_01]: The financial constraints here and understand that not everyone has the luxury of doing these tests, but they are out there and they are less expensive than dealing with the crisis when it occurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's something to think about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for your annuals, for your pets, you would suggest doing some sort of blood analysis to check for any type of certain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's even, I think the AVMA recommends that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't quote me on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there should be blood work done on a yearly basis for certain after about it depends that you know older dogs age sooner than than younger dogs so older dogs by age sit and bigger dogs by age six were already entering sort of you know the geriatric phase.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it depends where you live.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that tick-borne disease is everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And tick-borne disease, and I'm not an infectious disease specialist by any stretch, but we know that tick-borne disease is not only, is it also a problem for people and for people who live with dogs that carry ticks, it can be devastating.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, it's really important to be vigilant when it comes to fliantic prevention and testing for those diseases on a regular basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you, yeah, I mean, upstate is, I think it's like one and five ticks carries lime or something like that's something crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if you've heard anything about this, but I find it so fascinating and grateful that I don't eat meat, but there's, have you heard about the tick that you can be bitten by and then you develop this meat allergy?
[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole East end of Long Island, like they did some sort of meta analysis and they're just like why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we, you know, selling less beef out here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are people in restaurants ordering less burgers or less steak?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's because it's really prominent this tick out there and the vast majority of people that live out there have been bitten by this tick and now they have this this meat allergy and they can't eat meat.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really strange phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Only in New York can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's other places.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I don't eat meat, so I'm not worried about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you, do you find, have you found any information about the dog's diet, having anything to do with cancers?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, you know, Ron is definitely, you know, he has, he's the, the food guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the expert here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just say from a practical standpoint, you know, the food industry is the pet food industry is wild, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it is, it is really, um, everyone has dipped their their toes into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just going to put my doctor hat on and not subscribe to any dog food or anything like that, but it's really important to to feed your pet a balanced diet.
[SPEAKER_01]: and a diet that is high in quality control.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you find sort of doctor joes, you know, diet with some Instagram influencer telling you how great their chihuahua is doing on it, I would shy away from that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we know there's been some devastating, you know, errors in the pet food industry where there's been tainted dog food from China, tainted treats, animals have gone into kidney failure,
[SPEAKER_01]: So quality control is the biggest thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I look for.
[SPEAKER_01]: The larger the company, the better the quality control.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's all I can say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be careful, stay away from gimmicks, stay away from really small companies that haven't established themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ask questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always numbers on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does your quality control look like?
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: everyone always calls me a fat shamer when I'm in the clinic like there doesn't need to be any fat dogs right like we have full control of what are dogs eat and they're it's an epidemic in this country you know human obesity and dog obesity and it's it's absolutely absurd like we can control how much they eat and so um it's real that's why you need to go to the vet every year also it's it's astonishing how people don't know what's too much they don't even I see people and I'm like
[SPEAKER_01]: So your dog is obese and they're like, oh, you think so?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, yeah, and then when they tell me what they eat, I saw dog the other day that that gets their regular food plus chicken plus
[SPEAKER_01]: a popsicle in the afternoon because it's hot out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, mill away first before bed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, and he's a golden retriever.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like he's some like sensitive little colleague that doesn't like his food.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a golden retriever.
[SPEAKER_01]: He'd eat the house if you let him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, like we need to get control over this like atrocity here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I put the dog on, you know, two cups of food a day, love the dog.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't love with food.
[SPEAKER_01]: We love with attention and exercise.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so again, so to simplify, quality control, no gimmicks, they need their dog food.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you really are intent upon feeding a home cooked diet,
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to connect with the nutritionist that will create.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't recommend it because I think it's a lot of work and I don't think you're going to do any better.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if there are people who really subscribe to that and if that's what they want, you know, there are there are companies.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to represent any of them that do sort of this home club diet if you will, but they are balanced diets or if the pet parent wants to do it, they need to connect with a nutritionist and there are companies out there to do it and it's very
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then amount is the biggest deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the dog food labels always tell you to feed more than the pet really needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to sell dog food.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's always too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, big dogs, dogs over, you know, dogs up, you know, sixty to ninety pounds rarely need more than two cups a day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't seem like a lot to people.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, people
[SPEAKER_01]: They feed themselves with food for love for self-love and they do it with their animals.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, less is more skinny dogs live longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's the same thing with people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the anthropomorphism, anthropomorphism thing where dog owners are like, vanilla wafer's because they look cute.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you're killing your dog or, you know, a dog that tries to bite somebody and they just go, shhh, I'm like, your dog's gonna die because you're not giving your dog enough structure and balance here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just add, I've walked probably ten different pet food facilities in my old life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you see such a broad rise.
[SPEAKER_02]: And before I were to Pekko, I'm embarrassed to say, you know, I was feeding a dog, a food that was not the best in terms of protein content, sourcing, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: I came to Pekko and I learned from, you know, the, their advisors, what, what is good?
[SPEAKER_02]: What I look for personally is protein content.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's part of the reason I work at Bill or Chairman of Bill of Jack is nine pounds of chicken in a ten pound pack.
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, number two, I think Nicole and I both believe that this meat-only diet is not in the best interest of pets, balanced diet is right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We both believe that raw is probably not the right approach for a variety of reasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like food that are backward and graded into the provisioner, so if I walk the origin plant, which is owned by Mars, and they know that the fishermen
[SPEAKER_02]: They know the folks who are raising the cattle, they know the farmers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that kitchen is a human grade kitchen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so people who go to that extent are honest kitchen, the same thing, human grading gradients.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, you look at some of the, I've seen too many plants with slurry in it, which is just random kind of meat.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's put into the odd food.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen too much kind of kibble.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cooking process of kibble is highly efficient from a profits standpoint, but it's not the best thing in terms of retention of nutrients.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think people need to do the research and talk to their vats.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the vats are the best source.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the vats tend to go to brands like the hills, like the King Royal Canes, the Kennedy's.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, things like dough jack historically has been recommended as well, a human grade.
[SPEAKER_02]: Recommended as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's the best source for that information.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always great when these dog food companies employ veterinarians, too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that always makes us feel better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess the only, you know, last thing I would say is, you know, we don't need to supplement.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you're, if you're feeding a fortified diet, we don't
[SPEAKER_01]: There are no supplements unless there's a health need and you've gotten medical advice on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the world is supplement crazy and there's just something I would think I was reading in the New York Times about how people have gone like tumor crazy and now they're developing liver failure because they've overdosed on tumor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what it said.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then just quickly, again, I just want to echo what Ron said is
[SPEAKER_01]: raw diets like, you know, there is good data to support that that is a wrong thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know there are people who strongly dispute that and all I would say is, you know, you wouldn't, you wouldn't feed raw chicken to your children and you shouldn't feed raw chicken to your pets and not only is it harmful to them, it's harmful to the people who live with them because and they shed things like E. coli and salmonella and very, very dangerous infectious diseases.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've done my research on, I've had a couple different nutritionists on, I've had a couple different vets on and we've talked about because some vets love raw diets, some vets don't like raw diets, I've done the research, a couple of my dogs are on raw now, couple of my dogs before we're on
[SPEAKER_00]: low low is on cable for a while and just trying to balance you know and then finding you know it's it's it's the same thing like you said like there's so much going it's polarizing for dog owners because it's like everyone's all in over here everyone's all in and I just tell people do what works for you do you research like the companies that I've worked with before like we feed raw for an example
[SPEAKER_00]: They do an HPP process because they have to go through the FDA because they nationally ship their big company.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they do an HPP which essentially takes all of, it's called pressing and neutralizing all the bacteria.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I have kids, I have young kids, and I've fed raw since they were born.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so those are things that I'm mindful of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I tell people, to your point, do your research, do what works.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me,
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, in defense of what you're saying, I have heard dozens of stories of animals with terrible skin disease and GI issues and
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't respond to anything but a raw diet.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, you know, I come from the doctor point, and I want to take the family, I'm a mom, and so, you know, it just scares me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but there are dozens of stories where you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, you balance it all, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have this dog that's suffering terribly, and the only thing that works is a raw diet, then, you know, you, it's a risk and homelessness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what happened actually is we, the St.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bernard, my St.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bernard that I was living with had terrible hotspots, terrible hotspots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, licking, licking, raw, raw, huge infections, scabs all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she went to a vet and she said, try raw diet.
[SPEAKER_00]: She tried raw diet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And within a month, they were gone and they never came back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that's when I was like, whoa, okay, so anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one thing I want to ask Ron before we check out here is, Ron, do you have any advice for dog?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you've done so much in marketing and you've scaled these gigantic businesses and you have such a background in business.
[SPEAKER_00]: What advice would you give?
[SPEAKER_00]: Small business owners, dog trainers, or anybody like, and I know that you've been very niche down from Pepsi to pet code to now pad.
[SPEAKER_00]: What advice, and it could be one sentence to a paragraph, what advice would you give business owners to help scale their business and become more successful with all the efficiencies that you've seen in these big companies?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's one rule and then there's secondary.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one rule is take care of your customers.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't, you can't have a successful business if your customers don't love what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first rule I wanted to pet go was it's about the pets first, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, if you are in the pet industry, make sure you're doing the right thing for the pet first and the pet parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to your point, you know, earlier, ninety percent ninety five percent of pet parents want to do the right thing for pets and only fifty percent of them know what that looks like.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a huge opportunity for all of us in the industry to help educate them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's that's number one and then second.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, for a successful business side of the house, make sure you're scaling your cost slower than your revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: So number one, take care of your customers and number two, make sure you're scaling your cost structure.
[SPEAKER_02]: more slowly than your revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something called leverage in your financial model.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you want to make sure that that's happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, if you cost your grown faster than your revenue, unless you're in a heavy investment standpoint, you're not going to have a sustainable business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for hopping on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been incredibly insightful and also super relatable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, from what we've talked about with PAD,
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gone through all of these things with very bad experiences, with having to make really last minute life altering potentially traumatic experiences to then having really nice in-home services.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so before we, before we clock out, do you guys want to give an information of how people can, can find pad, especially in the New York and Long Island area, area, website, social media?
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to introduce one person.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's padhomepad services.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the easiest way to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can call you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can talk to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's Yogi.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to say hi?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a talk lab, happens to be a rescue purview.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, cold you talked earlier, is if they were separate.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is from their boat.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's from a puppy's mouth.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, oops.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, pad home pet services were there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're waiting for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes it's just a question.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're happy to do that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know where to find us if you have any questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're here to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just going to leave this by telling you a little secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a short pay so you know, I always need help in that arena because we all know about Sharpay's and so he's still a work in progress at age six.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Sharpay's are fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Funny and sometimes not that funny and sometimes they they need some correcting which
[SPEAKER_01]: isn't really my specialty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys have my contact if you ever need anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate you guys hopping on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been great.
[SPEAKER_02]: For all you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for all you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.