Many of the smushed-face, brachycephalic breeds need help breeding and whelping and having the puppies, but not all of them. Those tend to be the ones that we watch out for.

So the more significant thing for that is going to be if you've tried to breed them before and they didn't get pregnant, or if you're trying to breed a dog that isn't local. So if you're shipping semen, you'll need some help with that. And progesterone timing, like we already talked about, is recommended for any dog when you're breeding her on her cycle.

Here at the Animal Hospital of Statesville, we're committed to helping healthy dogs produce healthy puppies. So all of our requirements revolve around the health of the dog. We require that the mother dog has been seen regularly by a veterinarian, preferably with a visit in the last year—that they're up to date on vaccines or titers, their heartworm test, and a Brucella test, which is a sexually transmitted disease in dogs that can be passed to humans and cause infertility. So we cover our bases to make sure they have the best chance of getting pregnant and are healthy to carry the pregnancy.

Some of the things that we can do at the visit if we need to - like the heartworm test and vaccines - are not safe to give before pregnancy, so we can pull titers if we need to in order to check that they have appropriate immunity. Or we can wait a heat cycle if we absolutely have to, to make sure that everybody's healthy.

Progesterone timing is a very complex thing, but to boil it down, the premise is that you pull blood every other day about when she comes into heat and can track when she ovulates and when she's going to be most fertile. So using that to guide breeding has been shown to increase pregnancy rates, increase litter sizes, and give you an accurate due date, so you know what day to be on the watch.

Peak fertility in a dog is between two and five years old.

There are many myths about cat food, just like there are many myths about our nutrition. Nutrition is a science that is frequently changing as people become more interested in it for themselves and their pets. One of the myths that we need to dispel right away is that you can tell very much from a pet food label. It's not possible to do that. The only thing that you get from a pet food label is what ingredients are in there. However, I can tell you that even that ingredient list is easy to manipulate. The more important things with a cat’s diet are digestibility and bioavailability. Is what they're eating being absorbed by their body? Is it in that food in a form that can be absorbed efficiently and easily by their body? Are the nutrients that are in there what's put on the label?

They also can do something called ingredient splitting. The public has now decided there are certain things that are bad to have in pet food. So pet food companies can split that into something different, call it two different things, and so it goes down lower in the label. So it looks like there's less of it in the diet, meaning it's no longer the first ingredient or one of the first ingredients. So I know I have people who frequently email me a label and ask me if it's a good diet. And I can tell you that it's simply not possible to tell if that's a good diet from a label. There are things to look for in foods.

The World Small Animal Veterinary Association has come up with a list of things that consumers should look at to choose a diet for their pet. That's a good resource. It is not a perfect resource. There are problems with the list. However, it's the best thing that we have right now. Though, some of the things on their list are a little difficult for a person to traverse. A second organization called the Veterinary Nutrition Alliance has taken some of the questions from the first association, and they've surveyed pet food companies to try and find those answers. So those are two resources. If you are looking to try and determine what might be best for your pet, those are two resources that you can look at.

Of course, we will help guide you. But again, there are new diets on the market coming out all the time, and we can’t be well-versed in all of them. No one can be well-versed in all of them. So it will take a little bit of detective work on your part. And again, you watch your pet and their health and determine if this diet is good for your pet. But that's one of my big beefs.

Another one I'll mention quickly is the byproduct concern. Many people are very concerned when they see byproducts on the label, but I want you to know that byproducts are organ meats. These are not indigestible products like hooves and feathers and beaks and nails. These are organ meats like the spleen, liver, and kidney. These are good for our pets. So I don't want you to have the impression that byproducts are bad for pets. They're highly edible, digestible, and nutritious.

That definitely could, yes. Cats don't typically regulate their intake. Some cats do. I have clients who leave the food out all the time, and their kitties are beautiful and lean, but that's not the norm. Most cats will overeat. So if you have a grazer, meaning you've tried to meal-feed your kitty, which is the ideal way to feed, even if it's multiple small meals a day, and they're not going to eat that way, then you have to control the number of calories that you're leaving out. So you have to control the food. So you can leave a set amount out that you've measured out in the morning. And when it's gone, it's gone. Or you can divide that set amount into two times that you put out—however you want to do it. But the bottom line is you need to control the number of calories they have exposure to every day.

No. Human food won't make your cat overweight. What will make your cat overweight is feeding more calories than they're expending and a sedentary lifestyle. Many of our kitties are inside now. And for important reasons, they stay inside. But part of the downside to an indoor lifestyle is they move their bodies less, and they have less to do. So we need to continue to engage them in interactive play and give them things to do to exercise their brains and bodies to burn those calories they should be burning. So again, in your mind now, it's not the food specifically. It's the number of calories that they're getting in excess.