It could. Free-choice feeding is one of the culprits in obesity. There is undoubtedly a growing epidemic of obesity in our small animal patients, just like it is mimicking human obesity. We don't want to allow a dog to eat as much as they want.

There are a very small number of dogs that don't overeat, and with those animals, grazing is fine. We need to control how much the vast majority of dogs are eating, and meal feeding is an ideal way to do that.

Human food won't necessarily make your dog overweight. What makes your dog overweight is eating more calories than they expend and being sedentary. Again, human food is no more harmful than a kibble diet as far as weight gain goes; if they're eating more calories than they're burning off. That's the thing to focus on.

Boy, isn't this the $10 million question? Over a long period, people have been asking that question, and I always find it interesting. Studies have been done on it, and they have not shown any deficit in a diet based on grass eating.

We suspect that some dogs eat grass when their tummies are upset. It's more of an upset digestive tract symptom rather than a deficiency in the diet. However, most grass-eating dogs just simply like to eat grass, and there is no concern over that. Even if it makes them vomit, there's not a big concern with a dog eating grass unless it's grass that's contaminated with something.

A prescription diet would be better if the dog has a medical condition that that prescription diet helps treat or slow the progression of.

Again, a healthy dog does not need a prescription diet. If they have a condition that your veterinarian has suggested may benefit from a prescription diet or, again, slow progression of that disease process, then a prescription diet's a good way to go. They've been heavily researched and with feeding trials done and studies to show that they are beneficial, but I would go by the guidance of your veterinarian on that.

Just because a food is wet or dry doesn't tell you anything about its nutritional value. The difference between wet and dry food is basically the amount of water in it. If your pet has a condition that requires them to have more water, like kidney disease or bladder stones, canned diets may be a direction you want to go in because they would help alleviate that water deficit.

In general, there's no better quality with a canned food diet than a dry diet. However, it’s a costly way to feed. Unless you have a picky eater or have a dog that needs more water in the diet, it's unnecessary to feed canned food.

Dogs can live on vegan diets. First, let me define a vegan diet. That’s a diet that does not have any animal products in it. The primary protein sources come from things like seeds, nuts, legumes.

Dogs can get their protein requirements from a vegan diet. However, studies have been done on the commercially available vegan and vegetarian diets that show that the amino acid profile, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, are not in most of those diets described on the label. They're deficient in the amino acids that are required for normal growth and maintenance for dogs. Also, the other thing that's been found with those diets is that they are often contaminated with mammalian DNA, meaning there are animal products in those diets.

I would not recommend that a dog goes on a vegan or a vegetarian diet given the lack of an appropriate commercial diet available currently unless the dog had a medical condition that required a vegan diet. I have to admit, I would either use a prescription vegan diet, or I would work with a nutritionist and formulate my own cooked vegan diet for my pet because, quite honestly. Right now, I don't trust the over-the-counter commercially available diets.

Depending on the procedure is the answer to that. In many procedures, such as spays and neuters, cats receive pain medications. Occasionally our kitty cats will receive long-lasting medications in hospital and won't need other oral meds to go home with. Depending on the procedure, we'll need to send some medications for a bit longer after surgery, and that will be discussed at the time of their procedure.

After surgery, many of our kitty patients will go home with some post-op pain medication, so understanding how to administer oral medication is essential. And some cats will also have some activity restrictions placed on them, so knowing what those activities can and can't occur are important. And occasionally, we will have some dietary recommendations, immediately post-op or a little while postop, depending on what procedure they had. So those are some things to pay attention to at home.

So on the day of their procedure, your veterinarian will be in touch with you about your cat's recovery, how the procedure went, and also set up the time that they will be going home. The staff will go over all of the discharge instructions with you. Typically, most of our patients will be going home from the Drake Center late afternoon or early evening with their discharge instructions and will have been well recovered.

So any questions related to any previous experiences that you've had with any cat surgeries are important to address upfront with your veterinarian so that you know what to anticipate going into the surgery. Understanding recovery time and any medications that your cat might be going home with are some other things to ask beforehand so that you know what to expect.