Obviously, if you catch your dog in the act, definitely try to figure out what it is. As I said, that ASPCA website is a massive help to pet owners. It's very reliable and easily accessible through the internet. If you're not sure and they start showing some symptoms, look for clues around your house or maybe torn corners of bags or food boxes or things like that. The best thing to do, though, is to try to keep all of that stuff way up in cabinets or off the countertops to keep your dog safe.

We use elimination diets if we're trying to figure out if your pet is sensitive to a specific protein. So you often hear this as a food allergy. And so, what we're trying to do with an elimination diet is figure out what specific protein your pet is allergic to. So it may be that we have you take out all of the things with chicken, or maybe we have you take out all the things with beef. Your vet may recommend a completely hypoallergenic diet that has a plant-based protein like soy. But the best thing to do is get strict guidance from your veterinarian, and they can walk you through how to work that elimination diet step by step.

You’d mostly see a lot of diarrhea, so we recommend making that food transition over at least seven days. Because if you think about it, your dog's GI microflora, those happy bacteria that live in their GI tract, generally sees the same thing day in and day out. And when we make a sudden change, those guys are like, whoa, what is going on here? And it can cause some changes in the consistency of their stool and possibly some vomiting. Dogs’ systems don't like that change, so we want to make that transition slow.

Suppose they had a bite of people food, and you've noticed maybe they're just not feeling a hundred percent. In that case, their activity levels are down a little bit, or perhaps you see things like vomiting, diarrhea, or even changes in the consistency of their stool. That might be an indication that whatever you fed them isn’t agreeing with them. You can also notice those things if you change from one dog food brand to the other too fast. So that's why we always recommend a slow transition when you're changing foods.

I don't recommend it, but you can give them some human food. You might consider things like apples, green beans, and steamed carrots. Also, we sometimes recommend offering your pet boiled chicken and white rice if they have some GI upset. So there is sometimes a need or recommendation for it, but I wouldn't feed your dog the fat from your steak, a piece of bacon, chicken bones, or anything like that.

That's a good question. There is a whole bunch of food out there that's toxic to dogs, and some of them are the common ones that people think of, like chocolate. Some are not readily thought of, though, like onions and garlic, or even things like grapes and raisins can be quite toxic. The best place to go is the ASPCA website. You can look it up on Google, and they have an easy-to-access list of foods that you shouldn’t feed to dogs because they are toxic, and cats too.

Yes, preventative care can definitely save your dog's life. Heartworm disease is potentially fatal, especially if they do have it severely, and these tick diseases as well. Some of them are quite severe if left unchecked.

Yes, in most instances, it’s much cheaper. For example, heartworm treatment is usually in the thousands of dollars, whereas monthly prevention is maybe around $10 to $15. Then with our tick prevention, that does prevent some tick-borne diseases as well, which can also cause some very serious diseases and costly bills just to diagnose them.