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The Measuring Post is a podcast about growth, not perfection.
It’s a place to pause, reflect, and measure what actually matters in your life, your work, and your personal development. Not by comparing yourself to others, but by comparing who you are today to who you were yesterday.
I'm Joe Massa, and I created this show because I believe growth isn't a solo journey. Each week, you’ll hear thoughtful interviews with incredible guests: entrepreneurs, leaders, creatives, and everyday people doing meaningful work, sharing real experiences, lessons learned, and practical insights you can apply right away. These conversations are designed to help you think differently, grow intentionally, and move forward with clarity.
Alongside the interviews, you’ll also find The Daily Measure, short, bite-sized solo episodes focused on simple words of wisdom and actionable ideas you can use in your daily life. Think of these as quick check-ins to help you stay grounded, focused, and consistent.
This isn’t about hype or shortcuts. It’s about honest conversations, small improvements, and growing together over time.
If you’re someone who values progress, reflection, and becoming a better version of yourself, you’re in the right place.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, join the conversation, and grow with us.
Joe Massa (00:00.105)
a giant pop-up for no reason. I don't know why they would do this right when you start recording every time. All right.
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of The Measuring Post. Joe Masi here in a place where we can learn and grow together. And today I've got a really exciting conversation because it's one that I know a lot of people really vibe with what the topic is about because everybody loves our pets. We never talk about pet health here on The Measuring Post and I figured it's about time that we did that. Me as the owner of a 15 year old, well almost 15 year old Puggle, I can definitely say I'm a lifelong fan of owning a dog and cats. We've grown up with them.
I'm really excited to learn a little bit more today. So with that in mind, I brought someone in who's an integrative veterinarian with over 40 years of experience. She's a pioneer in holistic pet health, a bestselling author and educator, the founder of Naturally Healthy Pets, and an advocate for natural healing and better nutrition for animals. Today, please welcome Dr. Judy Morgan to the Measuring Post. Dr. Judy, how are you today?
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (01:03.65)
I'm doing really well and I'm very happy to be here.
Joe Massa (01:06.503)
Yes, thank you for giving me some time today. And when you kind of came across my radar, I knew instantly, we absolutely have to do this because like I said, right outside my door here, there's a 15 year old Puggle who I can't let in the room because she snores so loud, even while she's awake, just got that puggy. Yeah, yeah. So, and I love her to death. Her name is Bowser, but.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (01:23.606)
I have a few of those.
Joe Massa (01:29.287)
You know, we've been blessed she's been really, really healthy, but we've also had some pets when I was growing up with my parents that didn't get so lucky. Some that had cancer, some that were diabetic, some that either had these issues where they had a very short lifespan. So before we get into all the healthy things we should be doing for our pets, tell me a little bit about where you got started from. It sounds like you've been doing this for quite a while.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (01:50.54)
Yeah, I'm literally from the land of the dinosaurs. I've been around for a very long time. I started out in very traditional medicine. I graduated from veterinary school at the University of Illinois in 1984. So we are talking mid-80s, Midwest America, 100 % traditional. Like if I had ever brought up any of the things I do now, they probably would have kicked me out thinking I was just off my rocker.
But I did practice traditional medicine for the first 10 years and I was really unhappy. I did not like it at all. And I almost left the profession because it just felt like we were spinning our wheels and going nowhere. And then I accidentally got introduced to alternative therapies by taking a chiropractic course and I did not know that that's what it was until after I was there for a few hours and I said, think this guy's talking about chiropractic medicine. I don't know if I believe in this or not.
But I finished the course I paid a lot of money and then I went back and started using that in my practice and I was blown away. Animals that couldn't walk when they came in ran back out the door and that was so powerful that I thought what else is out there? And so I just started dabbling in almost everything and it's kind of one of those things you
For a lot of people that are in the holistic space, we play with a lot of different modalities and then suddenly we find what hits our hot button. And so when I got around to looking at traditional Chinese veterinary medicine, I took an acupuncture course. That was my first thing. And then through that I discovered herbal medicine and then also discovered food therapy and started incorporating that into my practice, started writing books about it.
And it is amazing how many diseases, particularly chronic diseases, we can totally reverse using just food. Food is so powerful if we get the right food. And so we've been doing so many things wrong in veterinary medicine that the average life expectancy for a middle-sized dog, so think medium-sized golden retriever, in the 1970s was 17. Now it's 10.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (04:12.718)
we're going backwards, we're doing everything wrong. And so I've spent the 40 years kind of looking at what we're doing wrong, what we can do better and how we can reverse that. And my husband and I are very active in rescue work with all animals really. We have a farm with a bunch of rescue animals of all sizes and shapes. But a lot of our dogs that we've rescued came to us with...
tons and tons and tons of health problems because the rescue groups that we work with are kind of like, oh, well, she's a veterinarian. She can take care of that. You know, it won't cost us as much. She'll fix it. And using our holistic methods, we have turned so many of them around. We ended up adopting way too many of them, which is fine. At one time we had 13 dogs. you know, our dogs, we raise Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and English toy Spaniels. We have a Cocker Spaniel right now too, so.
Joe Massa (05:00.006)
Ow. Yeah.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (05:09.582)
We're spaniel family. But most of us are living to be 17, 18, 19, and that's after getting off to a really bad start and coming to us with just tons of problems and we can turn them around and we can give them a really high quality of life for a long period of time. And so that's really my goal since I've gotten out of clinical practice and I'm now in e-commerce and education with naturally healthy pets.
And so my goal is to educate and empower pet parents around the world to give their pets more vitality, longer lives, better health, and do it without using all the chemicals.
Joe Massa (05:52.135)
Yeah, absolutely love that topic. Dr. Judy, I'm gonna pause for one second. I gotta grab something right next to me. It's a prop I wanna share in just a moment. But since you brought something up, I wanna share it.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (05:58.967)
Okay.
Joe Massa (06:26.012)
get to this in just a moment, but I'll pop right in with where we're at.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (06:28.215)
you
Joe Massa (06:33.53)
So I've definitely seen some videos of people that do chiropractic work on animals and it's actually pretty fascinating to see. I even saw one guy doing things on a snake, which I didn't even realize they had like a bone structure, but it was really powerful to see sort of what that looks like in animals. And we've had people on our show where we talk about nutrition and taking care of your physical body for the humans.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (06:47.64)
They do.
Joe Massa (07:00.058)
it would make perfect sense that that applies to our furry friends, right? So I love the work that you're doing. It really makes a lot of sense to why you would need to feed them better things to give them a better chance at being healthy long-term. So sort of what are some of the practices and the turning point that really got you away from traditional veterinarian medicine? Like obviously taking that chiropractic course, but now you're running a farm. Was there like an aha moment where you're like maybe this westernized regular
taught medicine, practice isn't the way to go about it.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (07:32.729)
Well, it was really interesting. In the acupuncture course, I had no background in Chinese medicine. I didn't know what yin and yang and all the different things were. And so a lot of the people that were in that intro course, the very first part of it, they had more background in it than I did. so they would be talking about different things that they were seeing in their practices. And one of the things, and I talk about this in my first book,
where I called myself the Pep Food Salesman, where when I was in school, there was only one company that made prescription or therapeutic diets, and they're all given letters of the alphabet. So KD is kidney diet, HD is heart diet. And in our medicine class in school, we were told, well, if they have kidney disease, they all go on KD. And if they have heart disease, they all go on HD. That was all we ever learned about nutrition. We didn't learn how to...
formulate diets or balance things for animals. And so I'm sitting in this acupuncture course and somebody next to me says, well, you know, in my practice, all the traditional vets, they just keep prescribing that killer diet. I'm like, what are you talking about? You know, KD, killer diet. And I'm like, okay, well, that's a new acronym that I hadn't heard before. And I had been working in a practice where literally every patient was put on a prescription diet.
Joe Massa (08:50.472)
Yeah.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (08:58.434)
So the old ones were put on GD, which is geriatric diet, and the young puppies were put on PD, which was the puppy pediatric diet. And I had to sit back and look at it and say, okay, why are they calling this killer diet? And I had to start looking at how pet food is made and looking at ingredients. And let me tell you, I stopped pushing prescription diets and I started really looking at how we were feeding our animals. And once I started...
moving away from traditional practice, started looking at vaccines and how often are we giving them and do we really need to give them that often and what side effects are there and how are we not equating the chronic disease that we're seeing with the medicine that we're doing. And so I started rethinking and changing my protocols for everything. And...
Because I was starting to get a reputation, I had clients bringing me these really just off the wall cases that were, you know, had been seen by seven different veterinarians, were chronic problems. One client brought me a dog who had been put on antibiotics for chronic diarrhea, had a very bad reaction to it and it caused aplastic anemia. The dog's bone marrow shut down, wouldn't make any more red blood cells. The dog went to the University of Pennsylvania.
for multiple blood transfusions and was put on very, very high doses of steroids and immune suppressants. And after a couple of months of therapy at the university, the dog was making zero red blood cells. And the university said, there's nothing more that we can do. That owner came to me with that dog and said, is there anything you can do? And I said, I've never even heard of this. This is really crazy. Your dog had the weirdest reaction I've ever seen in my life.
And I said, I don't know. I'm not going to make you any promises. So I put the dog on herbs. I put the dog, I started acupuncture on the dog and I designed a diet for the dog, all designed at helping this dog make red blood cells, supporting the bone marrow, the immune system, and took her off all the immune suppressant drugs because of the side effects. And within a couple of weeks, the dog started making red blood cells and she did a 180 degree turnaround, very healthy.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (11:21.002)
And so when she came to me, she was like seven, she ended up living to 15 and died of something totally unrelated. And you know, I started getting more and more of these cases that it's just like, nobody else can do anything with this. But you know, they've been treating the dog with immune suppressants for chronic allergies, chronic inflammatory bowel disease. And all they're doing is throwing more and more drugs at the pets and they're not getting better. And so we have to look at it and say, well,
if we continue to do the same thing, it's like banging your head against the wall nonstop and wondering why you still have a headache. It's like we have to change what we're doing. We have to change the paradigm. We can't keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So we have to do something different to get a different result. And we just kept seeing so many cases that we were turning around. And for me, it's a miracle.
but it also made me realize that there are so, you the thing is you can't patent a lot of these herbs. You can't patent food. I mean, you sort of can, but it's not something that you're gonna make billions of dollars off. For me to design a diet and hand somebody a recipe, I could charge them for that recipe, but it's a one-time deal. They're not coming in month after month after month to buy more food from me. They're not coming in month after month to buy more drugs from me.
What they are getting is lot of happiness and a lot of health.
Joe Massa (12:51.079)
Yeah, and that's really important. So you actually said something that is, I want to touch on a little more. You talk about the vaccines that they get. Are there a lot of animal vaccines? I don't really remember. I've had my dog for so long now and we actually got her, she had already gotten her vaccines. Is that something they're supposed to be getting regularly or is it like time of birth? You know, obviously the more things we put into our pets are bad, but I'm a bit unaware. How many vaccines are out there for animals?
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (13:17.538)
A lot, really a lot. So if we were to give every vaccine that is available for our dogs, Lord, they might get 20 a year, which is a lot. They don't need them. And what we need to look at is how long does a vaccine last? So we have vaccines that are the core vaccines that are recommended for all dogs. And then we have core vaccines for cats.
So for dogs, the core vaccines are rabies, distemper, hepatitis, parvovirus, and now they've recently added on lepto virus or leptosporosis, which used to be a lifestyle vaccine. They moved it over to core vaccines. I guess the companies weren't selling enough, so they talked them into that. But there are rattlesnake vaccines, there are Giardia vaccines, there's kennel cough, Lyme, influenza.
There's a lot of different things that we can throw at our pets. And a lot of veterinarians recommend that we give all of those every single year. Well, we know that the core vaccines like distemper and parvo and hepatitis last anywhere from five to seven years. And for some dogs, they'll last a lifetime. So why are we saying that we should be giving boosters every single year when it may last a lifetime?
We have a very easy way to test whether they have antibodies. We can do a blood test called a titer. The problem with the titers is a lot of veterinarians don't want to do them. So they jack up the price and they say to a client, well, the vaccine is going to cost you $38. If we do a titer, that's going to be $350. Which do you want? Well, you know, people are a little bit cost conscious right now and
You know, then the next question is, well, is it going to hurt to vaccinate my dog? no, we can vaccinate him every year and it's not going to hurt. Well, it does hurt. We are seeing so much autoimmune disease, so much arthritis, so much chronic inflammatory disease. And every time we throw something else at the immune system, like another vaccine, it stimulates that immune system. And now we end up with cancers. We end up with autoimmune disease, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, chronic inflammation.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (15:35.629)
So we, and we also need to look at the individual pet's lifestyle. My dogs rarely leave my farm. If they leave my farm, they come to my office and there's one or two other dogs here in the office and they're very healthy dogs. So why would I want my dogs to get 27 different vaccines when they have exposure to nothing?
Where we run into trouble is for people who want to take their pets to boarding, grooming, daycare, training, competitions. A lot of those have very strict requirements for over vaccination. And so it's been partly my job and other people like me to try to educate those groups, like the boarding facilities, the daycare facilities, the dog parks, the groomers.
and convince them that there's a better way to do this and that we're causing more problems by over-vaccinating our pets. So a lot of veterinarians have very strict protocols. All puppies must go through a series of three or four, whatever they set, a series of vaccines. So they're having you come in every three weeks for another group of boosters.
until your dog is four to five months old. Well, it's not a one size fits all. We have to look at the breed of the dog, the size of the dog, the exposure, what their history is, what they're gonna be doing in the future. And we really need to be doing individual tailored protocols for each animal. But it takes time to have that conversation and veterinarians are overwhelmed, overworked, rushed, and it's an
particularly if they're working in corporate medicine, corporate will set the protocols and they don't allow a whole lot of room for free thinking and individualized protocols. And that's a huge battle that we have as well.
Joe Massa (17:28.647)
you
Joe Massa (17:40.635)
Yeah, and I think we see a lot of that in traditional medicine for, you know, humans as well. It's way easier just to pump them with a new drug, give them a new pill, give them a new shot. And it's easier to have that conversation. And again, it all comes down, I think, a lot of it to, you know, they gotta keep peddling their vaccines, and the more they sell, the more money everyone makes. you know, dogs get sick, that means veterinarians get busy. You know, it's sort of a flywheel effect, unfortunately, instead of thinking about the best...
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (17:45.419)
absolutely.
Joe Massa (18:10.486)
Options for the you know our pets and the the well-being of them, but it sounds like what you're describing really is more like holistic Veterinary and medicine and and it's it's not so Cookie cutter is the way that things are presented Everyone has a unique physiology and every animal does as well Even if they're the same breed same litter whether it's you and your sister me and my brother We might be very similar because we got the same mom and dad, but we might have completely different
physiological needs and things going on internally. So you can't give him what you give me and vice versa. And you can't give that to your Labrador and your poodle and expect them to have the same outcomes. I would imagine you see a lot of that where they say, let's just do the same three options we give to everyone and pick A, B or C. And then from there move on and best of luck. We hope your pet does really, really well.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (18:42.382)
Exactly.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (19:02.42)
Exactly. And so we know for a fact, it's been documented that the more vaccines you give at one time, the higher the risk of the pet having a severe reaction to it. And the smaller the breed of dog, the more likely they are to have a reaction to a vaccine. And so that reaction can be life-threatening. They can have an anaphylactic reaction where they go into shock right after you give the vaccine. And I saw it so many times in practice with small breeds.
you have a dachshund, the chances of them reacting to vaccination are really, really, really high. Little tiny three pound dogs, really high chance that they're going to have a reaction to a vaccine. And in my practice, if a dog or a cat has a reaction to a vaccine, they never get vaccinated again. And one of the problems with giving multiple vaccines at the same time, you have no idea which one they reacted to.
So it's Russian roulette next time you give them a vaccine. And if they have a reaction once, every time they get re-exposed, the reaction will get worse and worse and worse. I had a client in my office one day and I was really trying to convince her that we should just do the titers on her dog. Our titers were not very expensive, but it was gonna be like $90 for the titers versus $30 for the vaccine. And she didn't wanna spend the extra money.
and she had a small breed and I said, really, really would rather do like if your dog has a reaction, we're going to have to do IV fluids and steroids and you know, we may have to pull out the crash cart. This could be ugly. And she said, no, no, no, go ahead. I've got a lunch date. Just give them the vaccine. want to leave. I said, okay. I gave the dog the vaccine.
By the time she hit the front desk, the dog was having an anaphylactic reaction. We had to run the dog to the back, get out the crash cart, get out the IV fluids. And it ended up costing her a lot of money to save the dog because she didn't want to spend the extra money to do the titer. And, you know, to me, it's like, I'm not trying to talk people into something because I want them to spend more money. The money has nothing to do with it. I could offer you both for free. I'm just trying to...
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (21:16.322)
get you to do the thing that is going to be less of an issue for your dog. So, and she happened to be a new client. So she wasn't quite as familiar with my way of doing things. So I think I kind of caught her off guard, but you know, once that dog had that reaction, I said, your dog should never be vaccinated again. Now I never saw that client again. So she probably was going elsewhere and probably the dog continued to get vaccinated, but it's, it's, it's frustrating, because it takes a lot of
time and effort to educate people. Now I've been doing this for so long, we've educated a lot of people. And I think that pet owners are driving the change in veterinary medicine. And I think it's going to take that because the veterinary schools are not changing. The veterinary schools are getting more and more pharmaceutically leaning.
and more and more processed food because they get a lot of money from Big Pharma and Big Pet Food. Those companies will sponsor chairs and professorships at the schools. They sponsor continuing education for all of our ongoing continuing education after graduation. There's a lot of money thrown at the industry. So it's not going to come from the top down, from the veterinarians. It's
the change is going to have to be driven. And it is being driven by the pet parents who are saying, know, I don't, cause I think people woke up a lot in the past five years to human medicine and big pharma. And I think because we're seeing a change on the human side, you're right. We are now looking at our pets and going, hmm, maybe the same thing goes here.
Joe Massa (23:03.61)
Yeah. And you know, I hear that same side of the argument, like from the medical doctors I've had on here for humans. And they talk about the same thing. Like they are just told to just peddle the drugs. And it's because big pharmas in there throwing big checks and they go, we don't want to learn the new tactics. We don't care if it works better. We want you to take our fancy pill because we make more money. And it doesn't mean every person giving medical,
is malicious and that they're looking to just do that, they just, they still work inside of a business and there's an administrative side that gets to make the ultimate decision. And a lot of times, I think you nailed it earlier, you kind of have your hands tied. You don't get to make those decisions. It's kind of like...
you know, you have a board that tells you what you can and can't do, which is really unfortunate when you talk about the health of a living creature, you know, your own life in particular, but certainly, you know, our best friends that we cuddle with every night. So it's really important. And if you're just joining us, I'm here with Dr. Judy Morgan, the founder of Naturally Healthy Pets. You can also find her at drjudymorgan.com. You are also a bestselling author. So tell us a little bit about the book that you put out.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (24:12.93)
I've actually written nine, working on my 10th. And we actually, for your listeners, we are offering 50 % off any of the books that I have written on drjudymorgan.com. So if they use the code measuring50, they can get 50 % off. So I wrote my first book kind of on a dare. I had joined a Facebook group for Cavalier King Charles Spaniel owners. And it was a fairly small group, a few hundred people. And people...
As in any social media, people would ask questions. Well, what do you feed your dog? What do you use for heartworm preventative? How do you prevent fleas and ticks? My answers were always different from everybody else's. And so they finally figured out that I was a holistic veterinarian. And they said, you you should write all this down somewhere so that we don't keep asking you the same questions and you have to keep answering them. And I jokingly said, maybe I'll write a book. And then I did. So that started the first book and then that started my social media and
You because I wrote a book and I thought, well, you write a book. Everybody just buys it, right? Yeah. No, actually you have to market a book if you write a book, if you want anybody to know what's out there. So I did. And so from there I went on, I've written quite a few cookbooks for dogs using traditional Chinese medicine, food therapies, because that's just, it's so powerful and it's so fun. But I've also written a book on taking your dogs to dog parks. I have a book called Raising Naturally Healthy Pets.
which is for anybody who is kind of new to the holistic pet space, then that's a really good one to start with. It talks about how to find the right veterinarian for you if you want to be holistic. For a lot of people, if you walk into a veterinary office and say, I feed my dog raw food, or I make my dog's food at home using whole foods, most veterinarians are going to freak out.
So how do you have that conversation with them, not have them get their hackles up and you not get your hackles up? How do you find that veterinarian to work with? Which is really interesting for me because I moved, when I sold my practices in New Jersey, I moved to North Carolina. I didn't get a license in North Carolina because I'm retired. That's working out really well. So I had to find a veterinarian because I have a lot of cats, a lot of dogs, horses, cows.
Joe Massa (26:31.749)
Ha ha.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (26:38.382)
chickens, the whole nine yards. And so the horse veterinarian was easy. Happens to be one of my classmates from University of Illinois lives in North Carolina in the same town. So that was easy. But for my small animals, for my dogs and cats, I was like, all right, well, eeny meeny miny moe, I've got to pick one of these local veterinarians and hope that it's somebody who's not going to freak out. And so I picked one, went in with four cats or four dogs and a cat.
And I also brought with me, because I can do this, I brought all their blood samples, their urine samples, their stool samples, all labeled in their little bags and their little tubes. And I also brought a stack of my books. I think I had like six at the time. And so when I walked in, she said, okay, this is really abnormal. Nobody brings spun blood samples with them. Who are you and why do you have these blood samples? And so I told her and I said, look, I feed my pets raw food. I make my own food.
I don't vaccinate my animals unless I'm backed into a corner. Are you going to be okay with that? I need you for things like surgeries or dental care or whatever. That's what I'm going to need you for." And she said, yeah, that's cool. No problem. I went, all right, we can work together. She wasn't going to argue with me doing things differently. She knew better than to try to push chemical parasite prevention on
my pets. She knew better than to push a lot of the chemicals. And if my animals go in for something, she will always ask, do you want the antibiotic? Do you want the pain meds? And you know, if I want them, say yes. And if I don't, say, nope, I've got something else I can use that'll work just fine. And she's okay with that. Finding that veterinarian can be very difficult for the typical pet owner who wants to do things on a different path.
And so, you know, what you need to find is a way to have these conversations with a traditional veterinarian and say, can we work together? And it is possible. It's worked for me and a lot of people that I work with with their animals online or through emails and things, we kind of give them hints on, yes, this is how you can manage to make this work. But it can be difficult.
Joe Massa (29:00.419)
Yeah, I can definitely imagine. I would imagine that veterinarian seeing you walk in with all of those items that you get. She's thinking one of two things. This is either going to be a dream client or a nightmare client. And, and because
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (29:13.044)
Exactly. Or, you know, maybe this is a nurse or a doctor who just happens to be able to draw blood on animals. But she's actually been really great. so for social media, a lot of times we need to film something like, you know, an animal having a dental procedure or whatever. We wanted to get her on board with alternative sterilization techniques. So instead of neutering and taking out the testicles, we're like, would you do a vasectomy on one of our dogs?
Joe Massa (29:16.824)
Yeah.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (29:42.967)
And she says, I've never done one. And we said, well, we'd like you to do it and we'd like to film it. So here's the videos that I need you to watch to learn how to do this. And we're going to come in and we're going to film you doing this for the very first time. And we're putting, we're paying you for it. And we're putting our dog up as the guinea pig. She was fine. I mean, she's just, she's kind of got this personality. Like, sure, let's give it a try. But you know, until we start teaching veterinarians that there is,
another way to do things. They just don't know. They're certainly not taught that in vet school. And that's why a lot of them get defensive. And it's not that they're trying to be mean. It's not that they're, you know, they don't want to hear what you have to say. They just don't know any better. Like they're not trying to push all those vaccines on your puppies and kittens because they want money. They're doing it because that's what they were taught. They don't know any other way. They can only go with what they know.
So I feel like it's our job to teach them as well as teach the pet owners to try to push toward that. And so one of the things that here at Naturally Healthy Pets that we are working seriously on is getting more veterinary students on.
Joe Massa (31:00.088)
I love that, know, catching before they learn too much that they can't unlearn the bad habits, right? And there's a lot of truth to that. If you've only learned to do things one way or even, you know, I put it in this perspective, we've had different conversations on the show with like parenting. When you grow up in a household that's maybe toxic, there's two outcomes really that come from it. You either perpetuate that toxicity, become the next chain in the link or link in the chain.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (31:04.396)
Right?
Joe Massa (31:26.634)
or you completely break it go the complete opposite way. But the reality is if you've learned that your whole life, the odds that you're going to get away from doing that are very hard, very slim. And if you've been through years of training and years of work in the field, and that's the only way you've ever done anything, it's really hard to break that habit. And it's really hard to see that there might be a different side of the business or the healing that you can do that wasn't maybe made known to from the get-go. So that actually funnels into my next
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (31:36.718)
Exactly.
Joe Massa (31:56.541)
question, where do you see the future of pet health going from current, you know, trends that are happening now?
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (32:03.604)
current trends are really bad. And it's interesting because I'm preparing a talk. I'm speaking all over the world this year and I got some really interesting requests. But quite a few requests have come in for a talk on how big pharma and big pet food are influencing the veterinary industry. And it's not good. Corporate.
is a huge problem. It's really taking over. I know we see this. I think it started in the pharmacy industry. So you used to have your mom and pop pharmacies in every town that was owned by, you know, a family and you had a relationship with them. And then we got the big corporations, Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens came in and then those pharmacies started taking over a lot.
from the doctors, like, you can walk into a pharmacy and a pharmacist will give you your vaccines. So the doctors lost that business. And then, you know, we got corporate takeover of human medical practices. And now we are seeing the exact same thing. The veterinarians gave away...
the easy money, which is the vaccines. There's a vaccine clinic on every corner. You can walk into Tractor Supply twice a week and they have lines of dogs getting vaccinated, which is ridiculous. Yes, they're being given by veterinarians, but that veterinarian's not doing a full exam. They don't have a relationship with your animal. They don't know the history. They don't know what problems your pet has. It's totally different than walking into that privately owned practice where you've been going for years.
The veterinarian has been treating your animal since it was a little tiny baby. my practice, I started with clients and we went through three or four generations of their pets and we had these great relationships and I knew everything about their pets. We don't have that in corporate medicine. And unfortunately, the biggest owner of corporate veterinary medicine is a candy company. They're also a pet food company, Mars.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (34:13.642)
Mars, their biggest division is their pet food division and they own two-thirds of the veterinary specialty and emergency clinics in this country. They also own the biggest veterinary lab and the biggest veterinary imaging company and they are buying up more and more all the time. Now,
When you don't have a choice other than to go to a corporately owned emergency service or specialty service, guess what? The FTC actually had to step in because it's price gouging. They can set the price wherever they want because you can't, you go down the street, it's still owned by the same people. You don't have a choice. My daughter had her dog in for vomiting and diarrhea. She'd eaten a toy and she was worried that the dog might have an obstruction. Took her out on a Friday morning.
had to go to a specialty center just in case she might need surgery. She was there for 48 hours. She didn't need surgery. She got IV fluids and a bunch of x-rays and her bill was $7,200 for 48 hours without any surgery. That is crazy. People can't afford it. And so now we're getting into financial euthanasia. Like I can't afford to do that.
And the veterinarians are very frustrated because people are waiting so long to bring their animals in. They're like, well, if you'd brought them here when this first started, we could have solved this for a lot less. Now it's going to be really expensive and you can't afford it. So we've got, you know, people, pet owners who are mad at the veterinarians because the prices are so high. We've got veterinarians who are mad at the pet owners for waiting too long, except the pet owners are just scared to to walk in the door because you know, you're not getting out of there for less than a thousand dollars or
You take your animal in because they're sick and while you're there, you get the, he's overdue for all of his vaccines. We'll give those while he's here. Well, first of all, you should never vaccinate a sick animal. This makes me crazy. I want to take my dog in to have him examined and get his teeth cleaned and they won't do it unless he's up to date on 15 vaccines. Well, one has nothing to do with the other and my dog doesn't need all those vaccines. So part of that is corporate medicine has quotas.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (36:27.894)
and the veterinarians are told, this is your quota of Lyme vaccines for the month. This is your quota of fecal exams for the month. This is your quota of heartworm tests for the month. And if you don't meet those quotas at the end of the month, they drag you in the office and say, well, you didn't meet all these quotas. Here's your quotas for next month. You better meet them. And that's not a good way to practice medicine. If you care about your soul,
Your answer would be, well, I sold as many Lyme vaccines as I thought were appropriate this month. I didn't push them on animals that didn't need them. So we've got a bit of a standoff and unfortunately, veterinary medicine has one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. And a lot of this is frustration driven because client, you know, pet owners are angry. Corporate is, you know, owned by private equity.
and it's all about the bottom line and making money. So where do I see the future of the profession if we don't turn this around? If the FTC or somebody doesn't step in, it's kind of a nightmare. It's really a nightmare. And that's part of why we are trying to educate pet owners to try to keep you out of the emergency room. Like you don't want to end up there. So you want to do everything you can to keep your pet from having...
chronic diseases from having to be put on all these drugs and chemicals, from having side effects from all the drugs and chemicals that are pushed. So it's, it's pretty critical that we now kind of start taking charge ourselves. I remember when I first retired and sold my practices and a client who was texting me, cause I'm an insomniac texting me at one o'clock in the morning. And she said,
My dog's got bloody vomit and bloody diarrhea, is coming out both ends. This dog is not looking good. I have called four emergency services and they're all too busy and none will take him. And she said, I know if I don't get him somewhere in the next two hours, I'm gonna have a dead dog. It took her until six in the morning to find somebody who would actually take the dog. She drove two hours to get the dog there.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (38:36.126)
And when she got there, they said, man, if you waited another hour, this dog would have been dead. She said, I didn't wait this long. I couldn't find anybody that would even see the dog. So the state of veterinary medicine is a problem right now. we're working, there's a lot of new veterinary schools opening, which will at least put more boots on the ground. But right now the average work expectancy for a veterinarian is about seven years.
They get in and they can't take it and they're bailing. It's not good.
Joe Massa (39:08.651)
No, that's actually eye-opening. You know, because you know that there's people with the passion to do it. Obviously, there's a lot of animal lovers out there that want to do their best, and a lot of people that want to join the medical field on both sides of the aisle, for lack of a better term. And I've heard this over and over again from the human side of the fence. It's daunting to work here. It's depressing. It's anxiety-filled. It's the inability to make decisions.
for the actual emotional and health benefit of the client. Instead, I'm doing it for the bottom line, like you mentioned, being the statistical quota that needs to be met instead of the individual that needs the treatment or the animal that needs the treatment. We've lost sight of that. And it's really unfortunate that these prestigious careers have been completely taken over by these big companies that only care about how much the return on investment is and not like, we actually doing the good work we set out to do?
It's hard to hear that, know, because you want to believe that everyone's getting into this for the right reasons and to help their fellow people and animals and, whatever you're working on, but it's not the case.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (40:16.782)
I think they do. think the people who, the students who want to get into vet school, they're doing it not for money, because if you want, if you're going for money, you better go to human medical school because they make a lot more money. So they are getting into it for the right reason. And then they get lured. Like I have gotten text messages on my phone, hey, we're hiring, we've got a $200,000 sign on bonus. Now that.
was never a thing in veterinary medicine until corporate came in. But what these young graduates don't realize is that sign-on bonus comes with a huge price tag to you. You gotta stick with them for five years. They're gonna use you, abuse you, run you through the mill and make you hate yourself. what I, and I don't wanna leave your listeners with something negative. So what I would say is to the pet owner, like me, find,
that veterinarian, if you can find somebody who is in private practice and not in corporate practice, that would be great. In some places that can be difficult. Find somebody that you like and then you treat them so nice. You bring them bagels, you bring them flowers. I had one client, she'd bring me a bottle of my favorite vodka every time she came in. You bring them stuff, you send them nice messages, send them thank you cards, become...
their best client. Like you want to be the one who has the A written on your chart that says they're an A level client and we will bend over backwards for them because that's how you are going to establish that great relationship and keep that veterinarian who's going to really care about your animal because you proved that you care about them. So it's really critical to make
relationships and I would say that for your human doctors as well. you and what I hate about human medicine and veterinary medicine is turning more toward it. What the heck does your GP do anymore? Your GP is basically the hub for sending you to 20 specialists. Like you don't have a GP who knows everything about you and is in charge of all of your medication and that's really you know your veterinarian should be that that
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (42:33.854)
one person and you shouldn't have to go to 16 specialists with your pet. You shouldn't have to go to 16 specialists for yourself. You should have a doctor who, and see when I graduated, we were, we had a lot more GPs and a lot less specialists. And now we have specialists in everything, which is, which is great because you want to CT scan an MRI, you know, some fancy tests, your pet can have it. Your pet needs brain surgery. There are people who can do it. And that didn't exist 40 years ago.
And it's great that we have that available. But for me personally, I want that really great general practitioner. Like one of my dogs, had glaucoma and had to have an eye removed. And we had taken him to an ophthalmologist, a specialist for his cataract removal when we first adopted him. And I've never met that ophthalmologist because they won't allow clients in the building. So the dog's been there about 10 times and I stand in the parking lot every time.
And the guy will call me on the phone from inside. I'm like, don't you think it would be nice to actually meet your pet owner clients in person? And I said, why do you not let people in the building? Well, it's corporate policy. Corporate policy for what? Well, it's easier not to have to deal with the clients. Well, maybe it's easier not to deal with the clients, but who do you think pays your salary, dude? Like I'm the one paying the bills here. So, you know, when my local vet tested the pressure in this dog's eye and said, okay, well now this
Joe Massa (43:54.433)
Yeah, that's crazy.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (44:03.234)
this eye's blind, it's bulging, it's painful, it needs to come out. And I'm like, God, please don't send me back to that guy that I've never met that's inside the gold building that won't talk to me. And she said, well, I can do that. And I'm like, you can do that surgery here? That is so amazing. Yes, we'll be here tomorrow. I want that relationship and I want that general practitioner who is willing to do something a little above the normal give shots.
And I guess I like that because that's the kind of practitioner I was. I love surgery and you know, I remember I had somebody come to me, their dog needed a kidney removed and they couldn't afford to go to the specialist and their doctor wasn't willing to do it. And I said, well, I've done that once before. If you want your dog to be the second one I do, be happy to do it. And she was thrilled because I did it for about a quarter of the price that the specialist was going to charge.
She knew that I wasn't a specialist, but I like surgery and I had done it once before. She was thrilled and it went fine. Yay. But you know, the new doctors are because they now have standard of care, which means you're going to spend a lot more money and there's no bending the rules. They're really afraid of getting stepped on by the higher powers, the bosses. They're also afraid of being sued.
by pet parents if they don't do standard of care, kind of gold standard medicine. And unfortunately, not everybody can afford gold standard medicine. we need to find those practitioners who can do a lot of that for us and don't require that we always spend $3,000 when we walk in the door.
Joe Massa (45:47.713)
Yeah, and you're so right about that. And really that's sort of what general practitioner means, right? I remember when I was growing up, I had the same doctor my whole life. was, know, he was the guy that we went to for a broken bone or the flu or whatever. And then as an adult, now that I've got my own kids, every time I have to go to the doctor for a blood pressure check or whatever, just cause I'm getting older and keeping maintenance.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (45:53.614)
Cheers.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (45:57.772)
Me too.
Joe Massa (46:12.736)
It's a different person every time. I have no idea who my doctor is. You know, my wife will say, who's your actual physician? I have no idea. Every time I go in there, it's somebody different. They don't know me from the next person that comes through the door. There's no relationship. There's no, and I know a lot of it's going to be like from high churn and turnover in the industry. That's gotta be a big part of it. But you know, it was a different time. Even, you know, 30, 40 years ago when you literally had this, I had the same dentist and the same doctor for
the first 20 years of my life. And they knew me and I walked in and he was like, hey, you knew, I didn't have to look at the chart. He knew my face. He knew my story. He remembered the last time we were in and we talked about something and he brings it up. There's a level of care that comes from that sort of experience and time spent together that is irreplaceable. So to hear of a doctor, whether it's a veterinarian specialist or a human one, that won't allow you into the building while you're being, you know, your, your patients being like, I could imagine dropping my daughter off.
and her getting work done and I have to stand in the parking lot, absolutely not. There's no way. That's crazy to me.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (47:11.978)
Exactly, exactly. You know, and veterinarians think that clients should just accept this. Like, we're just going to take your dog to the back. You don't get to see anything that we do. And then they bring them back to you and go, well, while he was back there, we noticed he was due for his vaccine. So we gave those two. Wait, what? So, I mean, that's why I say really for your listeners, find that veterinarian that you love, treat them like kings and queens and
really establish that relationship. So first you have to find somebody that you can work with and then you really want to, and do this with your doctors, do it with your dentist, whoever, really establish relationships. mean, my husband, he's a Southerner, so he loves that we move to the South because when we go to the grocery store, he has to have a half hour conversation with everybody he.
he sees. mean, it's just what you do in the South. It's really weird for me being from the North, but you know, he makes relationships with everybody. The town butcher. my God. They're like best friends. So he, he just, you know, he strikes up conversations and he establishes relationships so that people remember him and then they always do nice things for you. So, you know, if, if like, I can call my local vet, one of my cats,
my barn cats, went out in the morning, his leg was facing the wrong direction and I went, pretty sure it's broken. It's Friday morning, I'm gonna call the vet. So I go in the house, I call the vet and I'm like, I know you just opened but I got a cat whose leg is broken, I need an x-ray real fast, I'm gonna drop him off. She's like, sure, bring him on in. She calls me back 20 minutes later, she goes, yep, need surgery or amputation? Well, he's a nine month old cat. I said, I'm not gonna amputate his leg.
But she literally spent two and a half hours on the phone trying to find somebody who would see my cat to repair, to surgically repair his leg on a Friday. Nobody wanted to do it. We called two vet schools. They wouldn't do it. They're like, we're not accepting patients or maybe we could get to it on Monday. I'm like, his legs face in the wrong direction on Friday. Like I don't want to wait till Monday. I know how bad that'll be if we wait. So we found a guy who was two hours away.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (49:28.046)
And he said, if you can be here by one o'clock, I can do it this afternoon. I was like, I'm in my car right now. And the guy was great. And I said to him, how come everybody else said no and you said yes? And he was a fairly young board certified surgeon. And he said, I never want to be the person who is responsible for an animal not getting care. And I was like, God bless you.
And if I still had to practice, I'd hire you in two seconds flat. Like you are what this profession needs. And he said, well, you the problem is I'm going to admit your cat today. I'll do the surgery this afternoon. He's got to spend the night. So I have to come in on Saturday morning to discharge your cat. And I said, okay, I get that. And he goes, yeah, but it's no big deal. My wife makes me take the kids on Saturday and had little kids. And he said, so I just bring them to the hospital with me and they get to have fun. But he was just a great guy.
Joe Massa (49:52.556)
Yeah.
Joe Massa (50:19.393)
Nice.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (50:21.462)
And I thought, man, we need more of you because I had seven other surgeons who said no.
Joe Massa (50:27.254)
Yeah, definitely need more of those people in the world in pretty much every profession, but you know, the ones that go above and beyond and are willing to put themselves maybe at a bit of discomfort or inconvenience for a better word, to just do the right thing and help someone out. So I got a hot seat, couple of questions for you. So since you got all this wisdom you're sharing on us, the rapid fire wisdom from Dr. Judy Morgan. What is one thing every pet owner should stop doing immediately?
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (50:57.774)
Stop feeding ultra processed food. So that would be kibble, dry pet food, because it is basically the same as us eating all of our meals as fast food or ultra processed food. It's like, you know, buying TV dinners laden with salt and chemicals. So there are a lot of pet food companies now that make fresh foods, gently cooked foods, raw foods, if you're okay with raw feeding, which I am, but some people are still...
scared to death because they've been made to be scared. But fresh food is the difference between good health and bad health.
Joe Massa (51:34.774)
which leads me to believe that you just answered question number two. What is the most underrated factor in pet health?
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (51:41.849)
Food, nutrition, absolutely. I mean, yes, we need to stop all the other chemicals and over-medicating and over-vaccinating and all that, but food is the foundation of life. And if you don't have a good foundation, I don't care. We sell a lot of supplements and a lot of things to improve health, but if you're feeding ultra-processed food, I don't care how many supplements you throw in the bowl, you're gonna have a hard time making things better.
And we've seen so many recalls in the pet food industry for really bad things. So we had a huge recall in 2018 and 19 because there was excess vitamin D, which causes kidney failure and death in dogs and cats. So we had tens of thousands of animals that died before somebody figured out that, gee, somebody screwed up the vitamin mineral mix that's thrown in all these foods. So it was a recall across a lot of companies because they all use the same vitamin.
synthetic vitamin mineral mix, was formulated incorrectly. In 2007, we had the huge melamine recall where tens of thousands of pets died because melamine, you know, those plastic bowls and dishes that we buy, yeah, that's what melamine is. It was put in pet food to increase the protein content in supplements that came in from China. And again, thousands and thousands of animals died before we finally figured out what it was.
We've had recalls for mold toxins, aflatoxins in pet food. So if you have a pet who you get lab work on and their liver enzymes are high, good chance that there's aflatoxins in their food and that's what's causing it. If you get them off the food that has full of moldy grains, then be in a lot better shape. We've had recalls for pet food with euthanasia solution that have killed animals. How does euthanasia solution get into the pet food? Well,
Sometimes when we test the DNA in pet food, find that there's dog and cat DNA in there. It's not good.
Joe Massa (53:36.002)
No, that's actually quite disturbing. Yeah. Well, I'm really, I'm really blown away with all the information you've shared today, but also very grateful to have you on Dr. Judy Morgan. And I wanted to share something with you since we talked earlier about my pug Bowser. Now, several years ago, it about six or seven years ago now, late night, we were all, you know, happy hour late night. And I found a random site and I ordered something.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (53:38.338)
It is.
Joe Massa (54:03.521)
And I forgot about it because it came like eight, nine weeks later. But all of a sudden I get this random package on my porch and my wife's like, well, what did you order now? I go, well, honestly, I don't remember. It was a picture of Bowser as an astronaut. So that's my sweet Puggle. Yeah. So this is called Crown and Paw. You can get your own and I don't have any affiliate with them.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (54:20.224)
Love it.
Joe Massa (54:28.501)
but that's the company that did this. It's like a Photoshop version of my dog. So I uploaded a picture of her and got the space astronaut dog back. So yeah, you know, if you ever want to get a prestigious picture of your animal, crown and pot, check them out. So free, free a perk for them. But a Dr. Judy Morgan, can find her at drjudymorgan.com. She has been so gracious as to give our audience a discount on her books. That is by using the code measuring 50. And obviously you can learn more and more about
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (54:35.596)
Love it.
Joe Massa (54:57.963)
Pet Health Holistic Natural Healthy Pets. That is the name of her company, drjudymorgan.com. I'll make sure those links and the code for those discounts are all available when we release this video. But is there any final thoughts you have for our furry-friended lovers out there in radio and podcast land?
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (55:16.846)
You know what, do the best you can, get at least a little bit of fresh food in the bowl, give them lots of exercise and love because they give us unconditional love. And frankly, I think our animals are probably the best thing that ever happens to us.
Joe Massa (55:33.909)
Yes, and I'll end on a very, I love that. And I'll end on something that really struck me years ago when I heard it. And it was, you know, to you, a pet is part of your life, but to your pet, you're their whole life. So your whole life can go on without your dog. You'll most likely outlive your animals, but they don't do that. So you're everything to them. So make sure that you're treating them right, taking care of them, feeding them well, give them lots of snuggles and love and.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (55:47.918)
Absolutely.
Joe Massa (56:01.779)
learn more and more from Dr. Judy Morgan. So Dr. Judy, thank you so much for coming on The Measuring Post.
Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVFT (56:07.022)
Thank you.