5 Things You Can Do Today to Help Your Pet Live Longer

Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet. So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.

If you're a fan of Starlight Pet Talk, you'll love our new line of merchandise. We have t-shirts, hoodies and more, all featuring your favorite podcast logos and designs. Plus, we're offering a limited number of Starlight Outreach and Rescue items where a portion of the proceeds go directly to Animal Rescue. Our merchandise is the perfect way to show your support for your favorite pet podcast and Animal Rescue at the same time. So what are you waiting for? Just visit our website at wwwstarlightpettalkcom to order your merchandise today. Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, amy Castro, and I have to say, in all the years that I've worked with people and pets, and in my own personal experience with my own pets, I've never heard anybody say that they wish their time with their pet was shorter. I think if most of us had our way, our beloved pets would live forever, or at least as long as we do. And although we know that's not possible, what we do have control over is doing everything we can as pet parents to make sure that they live the longest, healthiest lives that they can. So my guest today is Dr Gary Richter, and I'm really excited to have him here today. He is a holistic veterinarian, author of several books, including Longevity for Dogs, an individualized approach to helping your canine companion live longer and healthier. And he's the founder of Ultimate Pet Nutrition, which is a place where pet lovers can go for premium, veterinary approved solutions for their furry friends. So, dr Richter, thank you so much for being with us today.

Oh, thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.

Yeah, I'm really excited because the whole thing about pet nutrition obviously it's nothing new and obviously it's been something that's been important for a while. But for me, working in animal rescue, it's always been that juggling act of trying to do provide healthy food and the right things for pets but at the same time be able to do that in quantity. And I've kind of maybe lived that same way when it comes to my own pets and I know that I can definitely do better. And that's why I was hoping today that we could talk about some of the things that pet parents can do to improve. And that's why I love the title of the book Live Longer and Healthier because I think it is not just about the length of a pet's life but the quality of it. And you had said the other day when we were talking before the recording, you kind of laid out a couple of key areas that pet parents do have that control over, and the first one was nutrition. And it sounds like a dumb question. So why is nutrition so important? But I guess it's. Why is it so important for our pets and what kind of mistakes have pets parents been making when it comes to nutrition, or what kind of changes could they make to improve the quality of their pets nutrition?

Yeah, that's a great question and I think that to a certain extent, it's an intuitively obvious question why is nutrition important? But I also think that people don't they don't often give it as much sort of credit as it deserves. You know I think a good way for people to think about nutrition is think about your car for a second. So, like your car, my car, they're all designed to work on a certain type of gas, a certain type of oil, various other types of fluids, and if you put those various types of gas and oil in the car, it is going to run as well as it is mechanically designed to run. If I put the wrong kind of gas and the wrong kind of oil in my car, the car will probably still run, at least for a period of time. It's not going to run as well as it should and it's going to be much more likely to break down over time. That is exactly what happens with nutrition. The only difference is that, as a biological system, our bodies, our pets' bodies, are a lot more forgiving than, say, our cars are, which means you can get away with doing the wrong thing for longer, but at the end of the day, those proverbial chickens will come home to roost and things will start to break. And when we start to think about, you know what is optimal nutrition for an animal or even for a person. You know the place where you start is what did that? You know we'll call it a machine, a biological machine, which is our body. What did that machine evolve to thrive on? What types of nutrients did it evolve to thrive on? And you know I mean. The one thing that we can say without question is that every animal on the planet evolved eating a fresh, whole food diet. Nobody evolved to eat processed food out of a bag or a can. You know, we all know from our own health that the more processed foods we eat, the more problematic things tend to be for us. You know, if you're eating a bunch of preserved garbage, if you're eating fast food, whatever it may be, you know you don't have to have a PhD in nutrition to know that that's potentially going to be problematic for you down the road. The problem when it comes to animal health is that is exactly what everybody is being told to feed their dog or their cat. You know, feed this bag of kibble, feed these cans of dog food or cat food. These are highly processed foods that come with all of the baggage that highly processed foods come with, and we see the effects of that play out in these animals over years, whether it's skin issues, gi issues, onset of disease like arthritis or cancer or premature aging. All of these things can originate from a poor diet, a suboptimal diet. So really getting started on the right foot or at any point that it is possible to change and get these guys on an optimized, fresh, whole food diet is absolutely the foundation of not only good health but longevity in general.

Yeah, and I think, as a consumer, when you're looking at whether it's the commercials or the packaging, it's the same thing with human food. You know. There are things that advertisers will say that kind of trick you into believing that this is something healthy. Look, it's beef flavored or it's beef, and it's like okay, well, there's a big difference between beef and beef flavored. It's all natural. Well, yeah, there's poisons that are natural too. So, you know, how is a person supposed to kind of filter through that and find what's best for their pet?

Yeah, unfortunately that's a really difficult landscape for pet owners, in part because and it pains me to say this, but my profession is not necessarily making that landscape any easier for people. You know, when I was in vet school, what they taught us was put the dog on a kibble that they do well on and leave them on that for the rest of their life, or at least until they need to go on a prescription diet when they're older. That's a disaster, you know, and it's a shame, but I mean that is the way that a lot of the veterinary profession operates. There is not a lot of education as far as nutrition goes amongst veterinarians and there is not a lot of guidance that most people get from their veterinarians about what they should feed, which unfortunately puts the burden on the pet owner to do their due diligence. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to understand that you don't want to necessarily trust the person who's selling you the product to tell you why that product is superior. You know that's just common sense. I mean manufacturers, they have a product to sell, so what they're going to tell you is not necessarily the whole picture. So that means we as consumers have to educate ourselves about what optimal nutrition looks like, what's good, what's not so good. There are certainly resources out there for people to avail themselves of my first book, the Ultimate Pet Health Guide. There is a very, very long and involved discussion about optimal nutrition and how to get from A to B with dogs and cats and you know that's certainly not the only resource out there for people. I think people just need to take an active role in their pet's health care and particularly their pet's nutrition, and not necessarily take the word of either what's going on in the pet store or the commercials that they see or, unfortunately, sometimes even what their veterinarian has to say.

And I think the quality of the research too is really important, at least in my experience. It's kind of like the television commercial that says well, you know, it's got to be true, it's on the internet, kind of thing. You have to look at the source of the information when you're out there researching and I know I've tried to do at least my due diligence in the recent years and even when you do and you kind of get in your head, all right, well, I'm trying to avoid these certain things in my pet's food, and then it can become very tricky to find well, okay, it doesn't have this thing, but it's got the other thing that's on my list that I'm trying to avoid. Is there kind of a hardened fast from the standpoint of looking at ingredients that you'd say, hey, you know, you want to definitely at least start by avoiding these certain things in your pet's food, or is it not that simple?

Oh well, I mean, sadly, nothing's that simple, but there are absolutely things that you can look out for, things that you should, if at all possible, avoid. Certainly, you want to avoid things like any kind of byproducts, so meat byproducts. You want to avoid anything that is termed meal, so meat meal, chicken meal, what have you? The problem with those ingredients is you honestly have no idea what's actually in there, because every batch of that stuff is that's made, can be made from different things, so you really just have no idea what is or is not present in those sorts of things. Also, I would recommend that people avoid feeding foods that are very, very high in carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are not bad by definition. By that token, grains are also neither good nor bad by definition. I know there's a whole lot of concern out there about grain. We can talk about that for days. There are plenty of properly formulated grain free foods out there that are just fine. Generally speaking, they're going to be fresh, whole foods. There are also foods out there that have grains in them that are also fine. So that, unfortunately, is not a very it's not a black and white situation either, but, generally speaking, what you want to look for is you want to look for a food that has ingredients in it that sort of makes sense to you as a human Meat, vegetables, plus or minus grains, depending on the food. Most foods are going to have a certain amount of vitamins and minerals added into them, which is completely fine, but that's really what you're looking for. There's a lot of stuff in there that just looks off or hard to pronounce, unless it's vitamins, because vitamins can be a little hard to pronounce. But as far as food ingredients go, I mean look for stuff that you would consider eating.

So kind of keeping it basic, keeping it to things that you would eat as a human being and trying to avoid the meals on the byproducts, because we don't really know what's in that and so that's just kind of an unknown factor in there. That at least gives people a place to start and still leaves the door pretty well open to having options. Because I think that's a challenge is, sometimes you listen to other podcasts or videos about nutrition and sometimes people can get so hard lined about it that it's like, okay, obviously I'm going to have to now raise my own chickens to feed my dog, and not everybody's willing or able to do that, so that's very helpful advice, thank you.

You bring up an interesting point that I think is worth highlighting, which is when it comes to anything that you're going to do for your pet, whether it's nutrition or anything else I mean, whatever you choose to do it needs to be sustainable. So I am more than aware of how much fresh whole foods cost, and if you're somebody that has like two big Labradors, it may not be financially feasible for you to feed a fresh food diet exclusively. So my recommendation to people is find the best thing that you can do that is sustainable in your life, and that might mean feeding some fresh food and some processed food, because that's just the reality of what has to happen. Just like for me, it's not a situation that every single meal I eat is perfectly balanced whole food. If I go out and eat garbage food from time to time, it's not the end of the world, it's not a. It's not an all or nothing thing. So you feed as much fresh whole food as you can and do the rest with whatever becomes necessary, but just make sure that it's sustainable for you to do.

Yeah, that's great advice. You know, I've been doing some experimenting myself and even with my own pets. Right now I'm feeding, for I'm focusing on the cats for the moment. I've gotten some different options. Well, by the time you feed four cats, whatever it was, that would have maybe lasted a normal cat, like I sometimes will say to myself well, this would work great for me if I only had one cat. But, because I've got four, this is going to cost me a fortune and this cat's are going to be costing more to feed the cats than in my family. And you get all gung ho in the beginning and then the bills start adding up and you're like, yeah, this isn't going to work. So that's a great point and I think the ability to mix it a little bit kind of like when we were doing some healthy male order meals and it's like, well, better to do it three days a week and then, if you can't do it five days a week, it's better than not doing it at all.

So yeah, and that's exactly the thing you do. You do as much as you can, and that's probably a good time to you know if it's within sort of somebody's ability to do so to have a conversation with a holistic veterinarian or a nutritionist or somebody that's a little bit more knowledgeable about this kind of stuff, to give you a little bit of guidance about sort of the best way to do this in a sustainable fashion.

Yeah, definitely. So, moving on from nutrition, another thing that you had mentioned and I know this is also something that I have kind of questioned as life has gone on is vaccinations for pets. You know it used to be. It was not questioned. You gave them everything you got from the time that they're first able to get those vaccines until the day that they die. And there's just been a lot of information that has come out and a lot of people are questioning what vaccinations does my pet really need and do they really need it forever? So what would be some thoughts on that that would be helpful for pet parents to make some of those decisions.

Yeah, let's talk about that. So I'll preface this by saying that I am not anti-vaccine. I am, however, anti-ovavaxine. Probably most pets are over-vaccinated. What I mean by over-vaccinated is that they're being vaccinated for diseases that either A they already have immunity to, or B the odds of them getting exposed to or so astronomically slim that there's probably no point in them being vaccinated. Without question, puppies and kittens need to be vaccinated full stop. There's no discussion there. Anybody that has ever seen a dog get parvo will understand the necessity of why animals need to be vaccinated. However, the reality is that most dogs almost all dogs that are properly vaccinated for distemper and parvo as puppies, will actually retain immunity to those diseases for years, if not potentially their entire life. Most dogs that were vaccinated properly as puppies for distemper and parvo will never need a booster again. You can demonstrate that by running antibody titers. It's just a blood draw and find out what their antibody levels are to find out whether they actually need to be vaccinated, because most of them don't. The only vaccine that is a non-negotiable thing when it comes to dogs is rabies, because that's a legality Right. You don't have a choice in that. If anybody's wondering the reason why rabies is such a big thing is because not only is it 100% lethal to dogs, but rabies can be transmitted to people, where it is nearly 100% lethal in people as well. That's why the government cares. The truth is, if your dog gets parvo and gets sick, the government doesn't really much care because people aren't going to get parvo. If a bunch of people start getting rabies, that's going to be problematic.

It could be a problem.

Please, whatever your local regulations are as far as where rabies vaccines go, please follow that. Outside of that, quite frankly, everything else is on the table for discussion based on do they really need it? What is their lifestyle? Are they really going to get exposed to it? Vaccines as much good as they do, they are not completely benign substances. Vaccines, by definition, stimulate the immune system and cause inflammation. Neither of those things are things you really want to do if you don't have to. To me, the fact that on the calendar it says that a dog is due for this, that or the other thing that is the very beginning of the discussion, like, okay, here's what it's due for. Now let's look at the individual and figure out what does it really need or what does it not need. I think that's a thing that medicine really needs to work on. Is medicine should be personalized to the individual. My health care needs are surely different than your health care needs, because we're two completely different people. I think sometimes what happens is the medical profession just wants to do what it says to do in the chart and move on to the next thing. That's certainly the case if somebody's getting their vaccines at, say, like a vaccine clinic, because let's be honest that's how those businesses make money is by vaccinating. They're probably not going to be super quick to tell people oh, you don't need this, right Right. These are the kinds of things that people need to think about. I mean, if you're thinking big picture, long-term health plan, then you have to think about everything that you're doing now and how it may impact your pet's life down the road.

Yeah, you got me to thinking about. A couple of years ago I went to India and I had to go to the health department and get some vaccines that I had never had. The only time I had some of those vaccines was when I was in the Air Force and I was going to be shipped off to the Middle East, and it's like now you're going to get these special vaccines. So what that comes down to is, like you said, it's the lifestyle and the exposure. A person who lives in one place and never travels to a country, that has certain diseases that maybe have been eradicated in the US, for example, they don't need those vaccines. But a person who's going to be traveling and being in different parts of the world might need those. The same goes for your pets, and I'm assuming it's regional to a certain degree. Oh sure, or is that not?

true? No, it's absolutely true. So part of its regionals. For example, if you have a dog and you live in New England, you're probably going to want to vaccinate your dog for Lyme. And while here in the San Francisco Bay Area we do have Lyme, it is not anywhere close to the prevalence that it is in, say, new England and we don't really vaccinate dogs for Lyme because it's very, very uncommon and not only is it geographic, but it's also a lifestyle thing. I think a great example for dogs is a border televaccine, so the vaccine for Kennelkopf. That is a vaccine that I never recommend, unless a dog is going someplace that requires it. So if they're going to boarding, if they're going to daycare, grooming, and the facility requires it, then fine, we'll give it. Otherwise it's just not a vaccine that I give. The bottom line is border tele-as-a-disease is not that bad. It's kind of like if you or I were going to get a chest cold. You're probably going to cough for a week or two and then you're going to get better Big deal. Does that mean I'm going to go out and get vaccinated for that?

No, it doesn't. Yeah, that's a good point, and I know one of the things that I think is important too for people have these conversations with your veterinarian. When it comes around to that annual thing and you get that postcard or now that email that says Gunny is due for these things, if you don't know what they are and what they're supposed to be preventing and you haven't had a conversation with your vet to say, yeah, she's had that for six years, do we still need to keep giving that? What does that do? Here are the things that we do. We either go to a dog park or we don't go to a dog park, or for us, part of the conversation is we do bring unvaccinated animals right off the street. I mean, we try to keep them isolated, but my dogs and my cats might be at slightly higher risk than your average person for catching things that other people's pets might not catch. So have those conversations with your vet and educate yourself about what's being put into your pet, just like with the food.

Yeah, I totally agree, and as it pertains to going to your veterinarian, you absolutely are allowed to and, in my mind, are encouraged to respectfully ask questions of your veterinarian. There should be no problem with that. If you don't understand what something's necessary for or whether or not your pet actually needs it, ask. If you find that your veterinarian is not receptive to respective questions, then you might need to find another veterinarian. I've always had a rule in my office as long as somebody is respectful, I will answer your questions all day long, because I want you to be an informed pet owner. It benefits me as well as you for you to be informed and to understand the rationale of why I'm recommending or not recommending something.

That's always a plus to build on that issue of creating a relationship with your veterinarian. I can only imagine how frustrating it can be when we get out there and we consult with Dr Google and we read all these things on the internet from who knows what sources and then maybe go into the, into the vet, with an attitude I'm not getting that. You know, I read, I read. I say blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and I think it is important to have a respectful conversation and ask questions. Don't go in and just start like acting like you're suddenly a veterinarian because you read a few articles on the internet.

Yeah, no, it's very true, and there's a lot of information out there online, obviously, and you know some of it's good and some of it's not, and you know, like I say, I mean, if you see something and it raises a question, then respectfully ask it when you go in and you know, maybe you'll find that, lo and behold, what you read was correct, or maybe the person that wrote it was a maniac, and I have an opportunity to educate you and tell you why. So, one way or the other, it's a win. Being able to make an informed decision is always a good thing.

Yeah, well, one thing I would just put out there, for listeners too, is you know, as these questions come up or as you're reading things that you might have questions about for your veterinarian, you know, write those questions down, because I think sometimes we get into the office and we're getting asked a lot of questions about our pets that we might forget the things that come up and it's like, oh, I forgot to ask this or I didn't ask that. Those are definitely things that you can kind of plan for ahead. What are you going in there for, what's your appointment going to be about? And have those questions ready to go, so you can kind of be efficient not only with your time but with the veterinarian's time as well. Along that same same lines of vaccinations, what about parasite control? You know that's a big thing that we have, especially in Texas. Fleas are just rampant and it's pretty much a year round thing, or at least it feels like it is, because of our warm climate. What are your guidelines or what do pet parents need to be thinking about when it comes to worms and whatever? What else falls under the umbrella of parasites? I mean, I'm thinking about worms. I'm thinking about is heartworm a parasite or is? Yeah, it's a parasite, because heartworm is also a huge thing down here.

Absolutely so. I mean, I think I think again, those are things that you balance, based on exposure, based on the sort of relative pros and cons of the preventative that you're using, and based on, like, how bad is it if my pet gets exposed? So let's start with heartworm, because you know, from a major medical perspective, that's the one that counts the most. If a dog gets heartworm and it goes untreated, they are more than likely going to die. Heartworm for those of you that are not aware of it is transmitted by mosquitoes, so that's not necessarily something that you have a lot of control over. In the same way that you say do like fleas, which we can talk about as well. But of course you know mosquitoes are a very sort of climate driven thing, so it's heat and humidity. I grew up in Florida and you know when I was in Florida, if you did not have your dog on heartworm preventative, it was just a question of when they were going to get it and die. I live here now in the San Francisco Bay area where many of my patients are not on heartworm preventative and they do. Just great, because it's relatively cooler here. We have very little humidity, not so much heartworm. So it very much depends on where you live. You know you can talk to your veterinarian about this. There is actually there's an organization called the American Heartworm Society. You can look them up online and they have incidence maps on their website so you can look up where you live and see how big of a problem heartworm is. So these are all things that are in your power to do, but just realize that the consequences of your dog getting heartworm are bad.

And even if you do catch it, just because I know as a rescue, we pay for it, the treatments a lot. Not only is the treatment quite expensive, you know because people will complain well, heartworm preventative is expensive it's like it ain't as expensive as the treatment and obviously just the damage that's done to the animal's heart the longer the worms are there. But the treatment can also be deadly in some parts of the process Down here. It's an extensive treatment, I mean it's several months.

It's true, heartworm treatment is expensive, is painful for the dog and a dog can literally die from the treatment for heartworm disease. You know so. It's no joke, it's a very, very serious thing. So you know, heartworm, of all of the various parasites, is the one that you really need to take the most seriously. The other side of it are like fleas, ticks and gastrointestinal worms. With the exception of tick-borne disease, it's very, very rare for a dog to get significantly ill or die from fleas, ticks or intestinal parasites. So there's a little bit more flexibility from the standpoint of what you're going to do. Just as an FYI, if your dog is on heartworm preventative, they're also almost certainly getting a monthly dose of a intestinal parasite preventative. So you're covered there regardless. Again, in my area, because most GI parasites again it's kind of a heat and humidity thing. So there's far more GI parasite issues, say, where you live in Texas than there would be where I live in Oakland, Not to say we don't have the occasional dog that comes in with roundworms or something of that effect, but we just don't see it like you guys would see it down there. Fleas and ticks on the other hand, fleas for the most part are their annusance. They're gross and they make your dog itchy, and if your dog has an allergy to fleas, the itching can be pretty severe, but usually that's as bad as it gets, except in rare occasions. There's a lot of choices that, as it pertains to flea control, there's orally administered products, there's topicals, there's natural products. To be quite frank with you, there's no perfect answer. The orally administered products work very, very well. However, there is some concern for side effects. It is not recommended to give those products and animals that have a predisposition to having seizures, and there is some concern that has been raised about could there be long-term neurologic related side effects to those medications? Truthfully, I don't think that anybody really knows the answer to that question, but the question has been posed. The topicals work pretty well. Some people have concerns about topicals in the sense that they, as a person, are going to get exposed as well, because it's on your dog. So you're getting exposed. Is that a concern? I don't know that anybody really knows the answer to that question. And then, of course, there's the natural products. Natural products are never going to work as blanketly effectively as, say, the more pharmaceutical, chemical type products, but they have far fewer side effects. So I think a lot of this has to do with your personal level of risk aversion, where you live, what the parasite load is, what your dog situation is. If you have a dog that can walk around with a couple of fleas on him and it doesn't bother you and it doesn't bother the dog, then maybe that's a different calculus than a different situation. And I think the last thing to say as a pertain to flea and tick control is depending on where you live, you need to think about tick control through the lens of not only is this healthcare for your dog, but it's healthcare for you. Interestingly, your average dog can get exposed to Lyme disease and more often than not they don't actually get sick. If a person gets Lyme disease, your life is ruined if it's not diagnosed and treated soon enough. Literally it will ruin you. So if your dog is bringing home ticks, that is a problem for more than just the dog.

Yeah, it kind of goes back to the rabies issue Once it starts crossing species lines to humans, you're exposing more than just your pet, obviously.

Yeah, it's true, and your dog brings home ticks and then lays in your bed and then there's ticks in your bed. That's real bad.

Yeah, definitely. What about heartworm in cats? Because I know that's something that, like back in the day, nobody ever talked about cats being able to get heartworm. And now it's becoming more of an issue. I will be the first to admit I do not give heartworm preventative to my cats. They're indoor cats, my barn cats. You can't catch them to give them anything. Every once in a while we'll get a little flea medicine on somebody while they're eating and kind of drop it from a, drop it from a height like and hope it lands on them, kind of thing. But we just do our best with the outside cats, yeah, so you know, cats are what's called an aberrant host for heartworm.

It's not the natural host for heartworms. It is much, much less likely for cats to get heartworm disease, and the heartworms don't actually reproduce very effectively in cats either, so they tend to not get heartworm disease as severely as, say, would a dog. That said, is it possible for a cat to get sick from heartworm disease? Sure, it is. So I think for people who live in very highly endemic areas that may be something to consider. I would never dream of putting a cat in the San Francisco Bay area on Heartworm Preventive. It's just not nice. I think. Even if you live in Texas and Florida, probably the odds are in your favor that your cat's going to be fine. I think it boils down a little bit to like what is your personal level of risk aversion?

So last major topic area would be general lifestyle factors that increase longevity and health, and that's probably bigger than all the other areas combined. But what advice do you have for pet parents related to that, or what do you mean by that as far as lifestyle factors?

Sure, a lot of people. When we talk about longevity, people very rightly get very excited about, you know, a lot of the sort of technological advances regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy, peptides, what have you? And that's all great stuff and all very well, very well gone over in the longevity books that are coming out. But the reality is that diet and lifestyle is the foundation to everything. And you can throw all the peptides and stem cells at an animal or a person that you want, but you know if they're eating like crap and they're living a high stress lifestyle, none of it's going to do anything. So that's what this is really all about is how do we set the stage? And you know diet and lifestyle are the ultimate low hanging fruit when it comes to things that anybody as a pet parent can do. It's not expensive, especially when it comes to lifestyle. That's a really easy thing to do and as a benefit, you know, as a side benefit, it's good for us as people as well. So you know what do we mean by lifestyle. A lot of it is very similar to what an optimal lifestyle will look like for us as a person. So we're trying to minimize stress, we're trying to optimize social interactions for what works for our particular personality type. We want to make sure that there's a certain degree of regularity and routine, particularly as it pertains to dogs and cats, because dogs and cats like routine. They like to know what is going to happen on any given day. Think about it this way If you think about almost anything in your life that you've ever had stress or anxiety about, it almost always roots back to uncertainty. I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know what's coming next. I'm frightened about it. That's what we all get stressed out about. It's just that you know the particular flavor of whatever. You're worried about changes, but that's what it always boils down to. Right Is uncertainty, and that's the same thing with dogs and cats. If they know when and where their next meal is coming from, if they know when it's time for walks, if they know when it's time for play, if they know what their owner's schedule looks like, for the most part they are going to be more relaxed and less anxious. And it is no mystery to science that stress and anxiety leads to higher levels of cortisol, which leads to all kinds of other problems in the body insulin resistance, what have you? You could go on and on for days, but it puts excessive wear on the body and accelerates aging. It's true for people, it's true for dogs, it's true for cats.

Right, it's good to know because there are many facets to it and I think, like you said, it's the low hanging fruit because it's something that we have 100% control. Maybe it's not 100%, maybe it's 90% control over it in some instances. And I know one of the things that we've tried to stress on this show and it's come up in several episodes, and I'm a big proponent because I've made this error myself is that when you are selecting a pet, to think about what your lifestyle is and whether that pet is a fit and vice versa. And the example that I've given before is I had always, having worked at a veterinarian's office for eight years, I got to see a lot of different kinds of animals and I had wanted my entire life. I wanted a Doberman Pinscher. Well, I finally got to the point where I got a Doberman Pinscher and he lived a good long life. He lived to be 13 years old, but I don't know that he lived his best life with us, because I believe he had a much higher need for enrichment, for exercise, and I finally got him a really awesome attachment for my bike. But even when I was a runner, there's no way I could run far enough fast enough at five, two and a half to get that dog to kind of exercise that he needed, and so I think he had more anxiety in his life and pacing and things like that because we weren't the active person that he really needed to have. Do you see that as being a big issue, like people just kind of picking the wrong pet for their lifestyle?

Oh, I think that's a huge issue and I'm so grateful that you brought that up, because that's where this all starts Like this whole longevity discussion starts before you even get the pet. The example that I always give people is if you're a person that works a 14 hour day and you live in a one bedroom condo, you better not get a border collie. Or a husky, or a husky or any number of other dogs, because both you and the dog are going to be profoundly unhappy. Certain dogs have certain personality types, just like with people. I have clients who their lifestyle is such that they literally have the dog out walking on the trails five hours a day, every day. That is absolutely amazing and I'm very happy for both those people and those dogs. That ain't happening in my life. I'm not that guy. What I'm looking for in a dog is a sweet, loving, fluffy little dog that wants to hang out on the couch with me and is more than happy to walk for a half hour a day. They're good. Border collies are not my jam. One of the things I love about being a veterinarian is I get to play with all these various breeds of dogs, but then I don't have to take them home and deal with them. If anybody's considering veterinary medicine, that is a good part of the career.

Hey, same thing with animal rescue, yeah right.

I have an employee with a 200-pound mastiff. I love that dog. Do I want that dog in my house?

Hell, no, we just had a great Pyrenees that was living in our dining room and it's like God he was such a nice dog, but that was just too much dog. I mean, he was as big as I was. I kept thinking I was just going to get swept off my feet by this dog every time he moved.

You're going to get lost in a snow drift of white fur. But yeah, I mean, I think it's really important for people to not get a pet based on aesthetics. I like the way that dog looks. I've got a whole mental list of animals I would love to own purely based on aesthetics. But I never will because I know better. So you've got to pick an animal that works for your lifestyle and then you tweak it a little bit. So if you have a dog that needs a little bit more outing time than you can deal with with your life, have a dog walker. Come and walk the dog for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. Your dog will thank you. Your couch will thank you when it doesn't get eaten. So, these are the kind of things that is really important for people to think about, and while it's never too late to think about that stuff, the earlier you think about it, the easier everybody's life is going to be.

Yeah, because it becomes part of the routine for you and the pet. Exactly, exactly. So I don't want to leave cats out of this discussion too, because I've actually got an episode coming up I don't know if it'll be next week or the week after with my best friend, bev, we've been friends we used to show horses together when I was in seventh grade and we've been friends for 40 years now. And she has this cat, cuzzy. That is not a normal cat. I mean, this is a cat that I mean the stuff that she does I don't want to tip my hand on the episode but the stuff that she does to give this animal mental and physical enrichment, because he's like a wild. He's not a Bengal, but he's like a wild cat living in a home. But and I know, not all cats are like Cuzzy. But do you think that sometimes people don't take into consideration that cats need stuff, that they're not just a potato to have around the house and feed periodically and scoop the litter box?

No, it's true. I mean cats are. They're predatory creatures, which means that instinctually they're on the prowl, they're on the hunt, and there's this weird balance between cats need a lot of environmental enrichment, they need a lot of stimulus, but at the same time it's so critical that people keep their cats indoors. The statistics are so clear about the relative lifespan of an indoor cat versus an outdoor cat. I think according to the SBCA, the average lifespan of an outdoor cat is less than five years. It's ridiculous, not to mention the fact that outdoor cats are absolutely decimating the wild bird population. It's a disaster. So you got to keep your cat indoors, but then you're left with these. How do I keep my cat's life interesting if they're indoors? There's a lot of ways to do it. There's environmental enrichment, there's play time with cats. You've probably seen these products called catio. Oh yeah, yeah, right, so it reminds me of like a habit trail you had for your hamster when you were a kid, except it's way bigger and your cat can run around outside, but they're not sort of really free roaming outside, loose outside, yeah. But, they get the sights and the smells and they can watch the birds and the squirrels and do all that sort of stuff. But they're safe, so you can do it. That way. People can engage in play time. You can sort of train your cat to hump for snacks and treats throughout your house. You can leverage their predatory instincts and get them to hunt. So there's a lot of things that you can do. But you're right, I mean, cats are not. They're not furniture. They're not supposed to just sit there and look pretty, although they're quite good at that. You know, keeping these guys interested and active is really important and I think, because cats are not very emotive from a facial expression perspective, I think a lot of people don't realize the degree of stress some cats live with because you just don't really see it because it's all internalized with them.

Right, we've talked about this in a couple of different episodes as well. It's like you know, whereas a dog is a predator, a cat is not only a predator but also prey. So it's kind of like I'm going after something, but I'm wondering what's coming after me at the same time. And I think, in my experience, being on the receiving end of lots of calls for people wanting to give up their pets, whether it's dogs or cats, a lot of times it has to do with the lifestyle factors, like you know, the poor choices that people make, but then also not being willing or able to provide that enrichment, even with cats. You know when cats are being quote, unquote, bad, you know they're climbing on the counters, they're throwing things on the floor, they're it's because they need something else to do than what you're providing for them. So, yeah, definitely bored. Yeah so definitely a lot of things out there you can do to provide better quality of life for your cats as well.

Absolutely. Anything else related to lifestyle factors, oh gosh, I mean, I think that's, I think that's the biggest thing, and it pertains to lifestyle with dogs. I mean, again, it's just a function of you have to know your dog. What is a safe and healthy amount of exercise for them to get. What kind of exercise? If you have a pugger and English bulldog, you probably don't want to take them jogging. So you got to understand what works right for them as an individual and optimize their lifestyle based on that. You know, just like the conversation about vaccines, there's no one size fits all answer here. It's all individualized based on what your pet really needs.

OK, so I just wanted to wrap up because I wanted to ask this question, because I see things popping up on my Facebook feed or on the Internet, or I see it in my vet's office. You know, when we're talking about proving the health or being able to improve the health of our pets. What are your thoughts about pet insurance and how that helps?

Sure, yeah, you know, when I, when I first became a veterinarian about 25 years ago, number one pet insurance was a terrible product. And number two I used to tell people well, you know, if you can afford five thousand dollars at a moment's notice and it's not going to hurt too badly, then you're probably fine without pet insurance. That number is now north of twenty thousand dollars and pet insurance is a far, far better product than it has ever been before. When I first started as a veterinarian, there was literally one company. They had no competition, so they really had no reason to be good. Now there's there's a million companies out there and there's all kinds of competition and they're fighting each other for your business, which is great for you as a consumer. And the bottom line is, you know, one of the most tragic things as a veterinarian that you will ever see is somebody having to make a decision to euthanize an animal that can be saved because they can't afford it. Right, that is. That is an absolutely horrifying thing. And just in case it might be crossing anybody's mind, do not think for a second that your veterinarian is going to be able to offer treatment for free purely because you cannot afford it.

Veterinary medicine is a business.

I have employees to pay, I have rent to pay, I have bills to pay. If I do too much stuff for free, then I go out of business and nobody gets helped and a whole bunch of people get unemployed. So I do everything I can, but it is not a fair thing for somebody to to assume that somebody is going to cover this for them, right? So ultimately, the answer to the question is yes. Pet insurance Get it, and get it early, before your pet has anything that could be considered a preexisting condition, and do your homework. You know, the thing about pet insurance is it's exactly like my own health insurance, in the sense of you have to make it, you, you, you, you.