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Welcome to the official podcast of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, where we bring you conversations with leading veterinary experts from around the globe. Each season spotlights one WSAVA committee, sharing their knowledge, research, and insights through short, accessible interviews.
Every fortnight, we speak with two experts on a shared theme, offering concise, engaging discussions designed to spark curiosity and guide you toward WSAVA’s extensive library of educational resources, webinars, and events. Hosted by WSAVA President Jim Berry, the podcast delivers focused conversations that connect you with the latest thinking in small animal medicine worldwide.
You can find more educational resources from WSAVA here: https://wsava.org/education/
Jim Berry: Welcome to the WSAVA podcast. Today we tackle the messages our clients receive outside the clinic, and the practical use of treats to support health. Consider this, when it comes to external diet trends are we meeting our clients where they are? Our interviewer, Mohana Marathe Speaks first with Cat Henstridge and later with Rachel Lumbis.
Jim Berry: Let's listen in.
Mohana Marathe: Hi, Cat. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today to discuss the messages our clients are getting about diets and nutrition outside the veterinary clinic. The first question I'd like to ask you is, where do you think our pet owners are getting messages about nutrition and how accurate is that information?
Cat Henstridge: So everybody feeds their pet, don't they? Everybody has an opinion on nutrition and everybody's making a choice about what to feed their animal, and nobody's making that choice in a negative way. They're all making the choice in a positive way. They're feeding something that they think will do their animal good, which means that there's loads of opinions about nutrition and they're everywhere. Friends, family, the person you meet in the park when you go for a walk. But the particular place where it nutrition information is in the online space. It's on social media, it's on forums. There's lots of creators who are self styled pet nutritionists.
Cat Henstridge: There's lots of pet owners sharing their pets and what they feed them. If you are a pet owner online, you know the algorithms are feeding you constantly information about nutrition. The problem is that's very rarely correct, or it's very often misconceptions. It's maybe not fair to say it's always incorrect, but a lot of the time it leans into a populous messaging, which isn't accurate.
Cat Henstridge: Things like cats shouldn't eat carbohydrates. Their dogs shouldn't have carbohydrates. Cats are carnivores, which means they should only ever eat meat. Kibble is bad, fresh is good. There's often some very simplistic messaging that misses a lot of nuance that isn't correct and is very confusing for pet owners.
Mohana Marathe: As a Gen Z veterinarian, I completely relate with everything you said. There's so much content available online. What do you think about the food advertisements circulating online?
Cat Henstridge: So in the UK the food advertising and marketing is completely out of control. I dunno if it's the same in other parts of the world, but we do have some advertising rules and regulations in the UK that a lot of the time these adverts break.
Cat Henstridge: There's a lot of scaremongering messaging coming out of food adverts. There's a lot of, if you feed this diet, you will harm your pet. If you feed our diet, they will thrive. Really leaning in to those populist but ultimately incorrect messages about carnivores and carbohydrates and kibble being cooked at very high temperatures and this food is damaging and this food is great.
Cat Henstridge: It just adds to that scare mongering, confusing messages that pet owners are getting. What upsets me about that kind of messaging, it's how badly it reflects on the whole of the pet industry, and that includes vets. Vets are very rarely mentioned in these adverts. They know to not cross that line at least, but I think anything that goes out into the public space from a company, from a brand that people will know and will trust in that brand is trying to engender trust from their customers, when messages go out that undermine certain types of feeding or scaremonger about certain formulations of food, or make people worry about the nutritional messages they've received from elsewhere.
Cat Henstridge: That decreases trust in the whole of our pet industry. It, it makes owners worry unnecessarily, particularly when it comes from a professional source that they would naturally think whatever they're saying is correct.
Mohana Marathe: Yeah, it really is very worrisome, especially when you speak about other regions. I don't think all regions across the world have so many standardisations or regulatory protocols related to this so it's important to tackle this.
Cat Henstridge: Yeah, the UK generally is quite a highly regulated country, and these brands are still sending messaging out like this. So I can imagine in other countries where maybe the regs aren't quite so hot, it's possibly even worse. What's it like in India?
Mohana Marathe: It's not as well regulated as in the uk.
Mohana Marathe: There's a lot of fear mongering here as well, and the public believes advertisements pretty easily when it comes to the television, especially.
Cat Henstridge: Television. Yeah, exactly. It is a real problem.
Mohana Marathe: Especially when it's endorsed by celebrities.
Cat Henstridge: And the other problem is that negative marketing, making people worry about something, making them think that there is a problem and they should spread the word.
Cat Henstridge: We're all gonna pay far much more attention to something that says, did you know you could be harming your pet? Or did you know your pet might be in danger? And you'd be like, oh my goodness, I'd better watch this, I don't want my pet to be hurt. Rather than something that goes, this is really great for your pet and it should help them really be very healthy.
Cat Henstridge: Obviously we want our pets to be healthy, but we far more want them to not be harmed. That's the other issue. It's very effective marketing. That's why it's so common, because it works. We have to be wise to it. We have to educate clients about it and report these adverts.
Mohana Marathe: Speaking of problems, what do you think are the problems caused by this advertising on,
on that scale globally?
Cat Henstridge: I think the biggest problem is the amount of confusion it causes, because a lot of these messages are conflicting. You must feed fresh diets because fresh is best, or you must feed raw diets because raw is best. Or you'll get some kibble companies going, both of those are dangerous, you must feed a kibble food or you must look for this level of protein, our food is high in protein, you must look for that. So it's confusing and pet owners want to do the best thing for their animal. What upsets me is pet owners might be making choices over food out of guilt. Some of the best diets we have are actually some of the most affordable. Clients who might be, pet owners who might be on a budget, might be choosing those diets, but feeling bad about it, feeling like they're letting their pets down.
Cat Henstridge: We should be caring for our pets in a really positive way. Veterinary medicine is all about preventative care and positive care. And the second issue is that a lots of pet owners are trying to fix health problems or health problems that they perceive in their pets using these messages, but doing it in a way that's not as effective as it could be.
Cat Henstridge: Obviously we can use diet to manage and heal a lot of disease, but they're doing it from messaging that starts off as incorrect or, or misinformed, and so therefore that's not very successful. So particularly one is atopic skin disease. Certainly every itchy dog that I see has generally, the owner has generally tried to change the diet to fix the dog.
Cat Henstridge: The vast majority of cases, they've tried a few diets first before they've come to me. So some of these messages are delaying animals receiving effective veterinary care because the owners have tried at home already, and that's not their fault. That's not them doing the wrong thing. That's them being fed messaging from sources they trust and advice they're following that actually is doing their pets a disservice and delaying care which is a real issue, so we need to do something about it.
Mohana Marathe: Yeah, these are really serious issues and I can imagine how much of an imprint it will leave on the minds of pet parents after listening to such messaging online.
Cat Henstridge: Imprints, that's a really good word. It becomes part of their normal, doesn't it? Once you've got an idea in your head it's very difficult to change it.
Mohana Marathe: Yeah and since it's also so emotionally driven, I can imagine how difficult it is to actually unlearn this and how much effort a veterinarian would have to take in the consultation room to actually change the mind of pet parents who have already been exposed to such information.
Cat Henstridge: Yeah, they've received so many messages from the online space that have been so consistent that when the vet then talks to them about actual evidence-based nutrition, which very rarely follows the populous narrative, it sounds like the vet is wrong. It sounds like we are the ones who don't know about nutrition because the online space is so consistently incorrect.
Cat Henstridge: These ideas are imprinted and we have to help our pet owners unlearn them, and that is where the challenge comes for, for the vet profession.
Mohana Marathe: How can we as veterinarians and veterinary teams restore the balance?
Cat Henstridge: We have to get some balance in this debate and get more sensible evidence-based, pragmatic messaging about nutrition out into the world.
Cat Henstridge: I think we have to accept that we are not the first port of call for nutritional information for our pet owners. They are not gonna pick up the phone and ring if they've gotten a question, they're not gonna want to bother us. They're going to worry that we're going to try to charge them for that information.
Cat Henstridge: And it's the same for loads of things. My dog's limping, what should I do? They put it in the internet. My dog's got flaky skin, what should I do? And we all do that. I don't think it's fair for us to point fingers at clients and say, you are not doing the right thing because we all Google questions all the time, so we have to make sure when they do Google that information, that correct information is there for them.
Cat Henstridge: Vets blogging, writing, using social media to amplify correct messaging. That's where the WSAVA comes in with the global toolkit and all the quick reference guides that we've got that we can share out to clients, but we have to tackle it on two levels. We have to tackle it in the clinic and we have to tackle it in the online space.
Cat Henstridge: Tackling it in the online space is very challenging because you do often get a lot of kickback, and I can appreciate how veterinary individuals or veterinary clinics won't want to be too loud and proud about nutrition, but certainly in the clinic we can definitely do something and it's about proactive discussions about nutrition.
Cat Henstridge: Our pet owners trust us in the vast majority of cases for all health advice. If we say you need some pain relief because your dog's in pain, they will trust us. So if we say, what are you feeding? Oh, okay, that's a good choice, but have you thought of this or giving nutrition advice for health related problems.
Cat Henstridge: Okay, your dog is struggling with obesity or a little bit overweight. What are you feeding? How are you feeding? How can we change that? And it doesn't necessarily always have to be a, you must feed X diet and we happen to sell X diet because that I think is something which people then think, oh, you're just trying to sell us something.
Cat Henstridge: You can say, okay, great. You're feeding this diet. Have you thought about the calorie content? How are you feeding the diet? So having nutritional conversations, keeping the conversation open and then when we do make specific nutritional recommendations, people are, are often very willing. We need to be enthusiastic and positive about it and discuss it.
Cat Henstridge: Make it a habit. Nutritional assessment is the fifth vital health assessment and we can talk about it right from the start. We talk a lot about growth stages, puppies, are you on a puppy diet? Which one? Then we can talk about seniority and nutrition for disease. It, make it part of normal conversations, so clients trust us on that as they trust us on anything and they're used to us talking about food.
Cat Henstridge: There's lots of different ways to do it and I do think that we shy away from it because we see how combative it is online and how passionate some people are and what we don't want to do is upset anybody and no one wants to come under a deluge of abuse, which unfortunately does happen as well. But I think there are clever ways that we can talk about nutrition, increase the public confidence in our education about nutrition, and help people to see us as a source of trusted advice about nutrition.
Cat Henstridge: I think the other thing to tackle is the accusations of bias within the veterinary community and whether we are bought by some companies and I wouldn't suggest tackling this directly yourself unless you particularly want to, but I think if anyone ever asks you, you say, I've had some sponsored lectures, but universities are very fierce about outside influence. So generally at universities nothing is sponsored, especially in the UK and I think to some extent in America as well. They maintain their independence very fiercely and we have a lot of experts speaking, even if it's a sponsored lecture, generally the expert is independent and has written their own talk without any outside influence, but also we're evidence-based professionals.
Cat Henstridge: So to show more trust in evidence and science-based diet is quite reasonable. I dunno how it is in other parts of the world, but in the UK, in the whole of Europe and also in America, I do know that the pet food industry is heavily regulated from a nutritional standpoint and quality standpoint. In many ways, doesn't really matter what a pet owner is feeding if they're feeding a diet, which is telling them that it's complete and balanced, it will be because the regulations ensure that it is. So yes, I think we can do it on a lot of different levels and as a profession, we do come under a lot of criticism about nutrition, and the only way to tackle that really is to just doggedly talk about it and make it part of our normal social media and real life ecosystem.
Mohana Marathe: So what are your recommendations for veterinarians when it comes to combating these messages in their online space?
Cat Henstridge: It can be hard to combat poor nutritional information in the online space because generally the people making or sharing that content are convinced what they're saying is correct, and they have a belief in a feeding philosophy.
Cat Henstridge: When that belief is challenged, they can be combative and it can be quite unpleasant. I've been on the receiving end of not very nice comments and messages because of the information I share, nothing that I share is wrong. Everything is evidence-based. Nothing is shared from my end in an aggressive or outlandish way. Because it goes against a populous narrative, unfortunately, and because it challenges peoples firmly held beliefs you do get a lot of kickback. While it's never pleasant for me, I know to expect it and can deal with it, if you are on the receiving end of it and not, it's unexpected, it's horrible. And a lot of people see it and then think, I'm not gonna talk about it because I know it's gonna cause a problem.
Cat Henstridge: So what I would say is we all have our own personal social media platforms. You don't necessarily have to create that kind of content, but you can share that kind of content. If you see it and you think, this is a messaging that I agree with as a professional, it combats a lot of the problems that I see online or I'd like my friends, family, pet owners, whatever, to know about it. You can share it. Very rarely is that gonna cause any kickback on you personally. But it gets that information in front of more people and it tells the algorithms that it's reliable information that should be shared 'cause a lot of the social media companies now, particularly Google, are very hot on categorising information as science and evidence and what's true and what necessarily isn't true. In the clinic, all our clinics have social media, and again, for a clinic, you do not want to upset anybody. You will have pet owners who raw feed or fresh feed, that's okay, as long as they're doing it well.
Cat Henstridge: None of us want to upset our client or be too combative from a business perspective, it's never gonna work. But what we can do is, we're all very good at sharing our cases, our patients and stories, and the happy endings. We can weave nutrition into that in a natural, passive way that will help to show that we do talk about nutrition, we are interested and we are educated in it, and also how successful it can be. This patient was obese, we popped him on a therapeutic weight loss diet. Look, he is now thin or we can talk about arthritis and the positive impact of nutrition or diabetes or kidney issues, or we can take it from a very clinical perspective and discuss it, or we can talk about top tips for puppies, feed a complete and balanced diet for growth. Did you know senior pets can benefit from these nutrients in their diets? And then our clients can take that information and do with it what they will, but it turns that positive light back on the practice. You become a trusted source of information on nutrition.
Cat Henstridge: It combats messaging that vets aren't educated or aren't interested in nutrition. So there's loads of things we can do to redress the balance. We just need to get on and do it.
Mohana Marathe: Do you have any final thoughts for our participants?
Cat Henstridge: I think what I would say is that at the moment, in some ways, the profession is letting pet owners down when it comes to nutrition by shying away from conversations because we don't want to upset anybody.
Cat Henstridge: But by being quiet and too permissive, what we've left is we've left an open goal for other people to talk about it and our voice is missing. So we need to get our voice back in the game. We can change the narrative as a profession, but more importantly, we can make sure that pet owners are educated, empowered, and supported in the nutritional choices that they're making for their pets.
Mohana Marathe: I think that organisations like the WSAVA and active speakers like yourself go a long way in empowering pet owners and helping them to reclaim the topic from the other messaging available online and restore balance in this topic.
Cat Henstridge: That's all we want, is we just need some balance so pet owners are able to make an as informed choice as possible.
Jim Berry: After Cat Henstridge, Mohana Marathe is joined by Rachel Lumbis to discuss the rational use of treats in disease management.
Mohana Marathe: Hi Rachel. Welcome to the podcast, it's nice to have you here. This is a really interesting interview about my cats favourite word, that is treats. So Rachel, how do you define a treat in a clinical or nutritional context?
Rachel Lumbis: I think treats is any non-essential food item that's offered in addition, over and above a sort of main complete and balanced diet.
Rachel Lumbis: We use the term treat a lot, but really it's important to also consider other words that are basically meaning the same thing, so snacks, chews, supplements, diet toppers, and any foods that's used to administer medication. We need to make sure that when we're talking to pet caregivers that we are using these different terms, so they do realise that it's all encompassing.
Rachel Lumbis: Quite often these additional food items are not required to meet an animal's daily nutritional requirements. People are typically using them to reinforce the human animal bond, potentially also just as a source of enrichment or as a training aid. So there's a positive reinforcement and to reward good behaviour.
Rachel Lumbis: Also, when you think of things like supplements or dental chews or more functional snacks, they're generally used with the viewpoint that they're supporting health.
Mohana Marathe: Oh, that's interesting because I assume most pet parents would think a treat is just a fun snack. But it's interesting to note there are so many other categories of pet food as well that qualify as treats.
Rachel Lumbis: Yeah, absolutely and I think that's why it's so important that when obtaining a, a diet history, for example, that we do make reference to all of these different terms and descriptions so that pet owners realise that it's not just a little treat there. There's potentially so much more beyond that.
Mohana Marathe: And what are the ways veterinary healthcare teams can frame treat conversations so they're seen as a health tool?
Rachel Lumbis: I think for any good communication practise, first of all, it sounds a bit bizarre, but asking for the caregiver's permission to discuss food provision can be a good start. Simply saying, I'd really like to discuss buster's food intake, would this be okay with you? You are asking for their permission rather than just launching into a conversation that they may be a little bit more uncomfortable about, and then understanding their intent for providing treats.
Rachel Lumbis: It helps to show respect and identify whether the goal for treat provision is for training, bonding, enjoyment, to support health, or you know, for any other reason. I think when caregivers feel that they're listened to and they're understood, they're more likely to be open to recommendations and guidance.
Rachel Lumbis: Another important thing to consider is that we need to accept that treat giving is considered by caregivers to be an expression of love and affection. So by having these conversations, it may be perceived by a caregiver that we are criticising their dietary decision making and interpreted as a suggestion that they don't care or love their pet
so
Rachel Lumbis: I think the conversation needs to be approached from more of an emotional viewpoint. Acknowledging that giving treats as a normal pairing behaviour can then help to reduce defensiveness. I think the other thing is to make sure that we ask and acknowledge the caregivers's concerns, their expectations or their goals and ensure that you know you are listening to them and that you are validating them and empathising without any kind of judgement.
Rachel Lumbis: Making it very clear that the veterinary healthcare team, we are here, we've got the same goal as the client. We ultimately want the best for the pet, and we want to optimise their health and their wellbeing and their longevity. Positioning treats as part of the care plan. So instead of just saying to somebody, you need to feed less treats, trying to say something like, let's see how we can make treats work for your pet's health goal.
Rachel Lumbis: That then integrates treats into the nutrition or the weight management or the behaviour plan, making it feel more intentional rather than problematic. I think once you've agreed on the pet's health related goals, it is really important to demonstrate or to affirm what the caregiver is already doing really well, but highlight any potential negative effects of additional calories on the pet's health and wellbeing, reminding caregivers that they're not usually nutritionally complete, so we need to try and limit them usually to around 10% of their overall daily calories. We need to count it as part of their total dietary intake, and obviously it can impact on health if it's overused or if they're inappropriate.
Rachel Lumbis: We have to find out exactly what it is that pets are being given. Even if they're homemade foods, they're table scraps, they're human foods, they can lead to nutritional imbalance. There's been association with certainly increased risk of being overweight or obese, although not always, but quite often. So we need to make sure that every individual situation is assessed with appropriate and individual recommendations that are given, and I think by emphasising that specific individualised guidance is likely to be seen as being more supportive rather than just giving caregiver general rules.
Mohana Marathe: What ideas do you have to help owners balance food rewards in training with strict caloric or nutrient requirements?
Rachel Lumbis: It's tricky, isn't it? We know that treats are inevitably going to become part of that pet's daily intake. When recommending a treat, we need to think about every pet is obviously an individual. No single treat is going to be best necessarily. So I think instead we need to consider questions about what the pet and also the client prefer and why in order to help decision making.
Rachel Lumbis: So thinking about is there a certain texture or smell or flavour that the pet prefers. Is the pet more food, toy or affection orientated? Do we need to be providing a food treat? Could it be that they get a different type of attention or they get a toy instead? Also, finding out what the client's budget is.
Rachel Lumbis: What is their reason for treat provision? Is it as a form of distraction or interaction, or just as a way of showing affection? What would be the average activity level and do they have any underlying health conditions or medical conditions that we would need to consider? And I think engaging caregivers in planning and determining these feeding strategies that they can realistically use in their home will obviously help to improve adherence to the recommendations that you're giving.
Rachel Lumbis: Also, thinking about things like consumable chewing aids, so raw hides, they don't have any real nutritional value and often contribute to a surprising number of calories and then there's safety aspect. Whilst most have been evaluated for efficacy, you still need to be very cautious and consider the safety aspect as well.
Rachel Lumbis: Providing recommendations of appropriate treats is helpful and pet owners will find that useful, but reminding them that even healthy foods like carrots, celery, parsnips, green beans, they contain oxalate. So they're not necessarily going to be suitable for animals that are prone to calcium oxalate urinalysis.
Rachel Lumbis: And similarly, we also think of healthy foods that we would eat, like fruit, that can offer a nice low calorie treat, but often high in sugar and it's making sure the food we're recommending is appropriate and the owners aren't inadvertently feeding a type of food that could be toxic like grapes to their dogs.
Rachel Lumbis: I think trying to think of strategies that they can use, for example, using smaller size treats. Cat food kibbles, particularly for a dog, may be a good option 'cause they're quite small. They can provide essential nutrients, but they have a limited number of calories and when feeding a dry food, can you take out a portion of that daily recommended amount as a treat.
Rachel Lumbis: That can obviously help in terms of managing calorie intake if weight management is an issue, and I think as a team, just remembering that there are several resources available on the WSAVA toolkit. We have the guides to feeding, treats to cats and dogs. We've got the calorie needs for average healthy adult cats and dogs in ideal body condition.
Rachel Lumbis: These tools are available for the veterinary team to help them in calculating an optimum number of treats, and also to identify the energy density of commonly fed human foods. Provide that tool to instigate that discussion with caregivers. Ultimately, I think making sure that you're setting smart objectives for caregivers as well, so they have something specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based as well.
Rachel Lumbis: So rather than saying you need to feed your cat less treats, actually saying your cats treats need to to make up no more than, for example, 25 calories per day so that they've got something very specific that they can action. Ultimately, I think a client is going to be excited about finding new combinations of treats or ways in which they can present treats, I'm thinking of these interactive feeders, like the puzzles or the lick mats, they're going to be far more likely to limit the total volume of treats or to follow the recommendation, I think, if they're sort of buying into it, if they've got concordance there. So in addition to setting the smart objectives, it's also really important that the veterinary healthcare team, when a recommendation is given to a client, that is documented within the patient's history or you know, their medical file, so that then when another member of the team is then talking to the client or when they're following up to provide support, then it's very clear that same recommendation, there's consistency there, and that same recommendations is being reinforced.
Mohana Marathe: Thank you for sharing that. These practical tools and strategies are so important. Since we see such a rise in obesity and other nutritional conditions in clinical practice nowadays and treats and table scraps contribute to one of the major causes of them.
Mohana Marathe: What are the most common treat myths you have encountered that practitioners should debunk?
Rachel Lumbis: I think actually just caregivers not appreciating that any additional calories that are consumed in whatever format will contribute to the overall diet and certainly their calorie intake. I think a pet's body weight and condition should always be assessed by a vet or a veterinary nurse with clear recommendations given.
Rachel Lumbis: I think a few treats can easily add up and contribute to undesirable weight gain in a very short period of time. From the research that's been done, we know that pets caregivers don't necessarily have an accurate understanding or appreciation of then a pet's body weight and condition. So they need that support from the veterinary team to make sure that the pet is actually a healthy weight.
Rachel Lumbis: So I think one of the other common myths is that natural or homemade treats are always healthier, and that healthy treats can potentially therefore be given more freely. And I think certainly natural is often considered better or wholesome by caregivers, but there's no actual legal definition or regulation of the term, just definition guidance.
Rachel Lumbis: Another myth that I've definitely heard is that begging for treats equals hunger. I think for many animals, begging for a treat is simply learned behaviour. It's perhaps a way of getting attention or it's a positive interaction, so it's not necessarily an indication of the pet actually being hungry.
Mohana Marathe: I absolutely relate with so many of the myths that you just debunked, especially from a pet parent point of view, where there's such an emotional side of it, where you try to think from the pet's perspective about whether they're hungry or don't they deserve just a little piece of it.
Mohana Marathe: But then putting all these points together, I can see it much better from a veterinarian's perspective now about how the tiny treat pieces or food scraps contribute to the diet as a whole.
Rachel Lumbis: Absolutely. It's it's normal human behaviour. We enjoy a treat, so we want to involve our animals in that, they're part of the family.
Rachel Lumbis: It's natural that you're going to want to involve your pets and give them pleasure.
Mohana Marathe: Absolutely. So since this topic requires such a collaborative approach, how do you think the veterinary healthcare team can promote healthy treat provision as a whole?
Rachel Lumbis: I think one of the most important things is really making use of the veterinary team, and I'm not just talking about vets and vet nurses, I'm talking about the entire team.
Rachel Lumbis: Using the veterinary healthcare team to obtain an in-depth nutritional history with open-ended questions is really fundamental to learn the extent and type of treat provision and I think that together with a nutritional assessment is essential in order to develop a nutritional plan and recommendation for each individual pet.
Rachel Lumbis: Non-vet members of the practice, that can actually help to enhance caregiver compliance. So again, making sure that your veterinary nurses and your support staff are involved is really important. Make sure that you are signposting clients to evidence-based resources and sources of information that they can go and look up after they've seen you. Just making sure that you are utilising, thinking about the people that are part of your team and who is best placed and available to be able to provide that follow up is really important.
Mohana Marathe: That was so insightful. Rachel, what is a final message you would like the veterinary teams and veterinarians to incorporate from this podcast into their daily practise?
Rachel Lumbis: I would actually say thinking about it from more of an inter professional point of view and making sure that you are utilising all members of the team to the best of your ability. As we've been discussing, treat provision is common, and if it's not well managed, it can have harmful effects on pets.
Rachel Lumbis: So communication and support to owners to make sure they're being given an accurate recommendation and making sure that they're actually going to follow that recommendation requires a team. So making sure that you're providing individualised, tailored advice and clear communication, and ultimately that requires the input of the veterinary team.
Mohana Marathe: Thank you so much for sharing all your advice and strategies for veterinarians and veterinary teams. I hope more veterinarians can incorporate this into their practise and ensure a healthy treat provision regime for pets and pet parents around the world. Thank you so much, Rachel.
Rachel Lumbis: Thank you, Mohana.
Jim Berry: Thanks for joining us on the WSAVA podcast, where we are transforming care, one episode at a time.
Jim Berry: We hope today's discussion was helpful, wherever you are in the world. You'll find further resources in the show notes and we look forward to sharing our next conversation with you soon.