Neal: Hey everybody, it's Neal from Growlies. Just wanted to say thanks for watching. Today, I just want to give you some thoughts on how we go about choosing a vet. Vets range from the best in the world, some of my favorite people are vets. Well, bottom of the barrel, they go up and down, they do the spectrum just like every other profession in the world. They are a profession, they are governed by a regulatory body local to your area in British Columbia, that's by the BCVMA and they may be employed by somebody who has different values than they do, or they may own their own practice. They run the gamut.

What I recommend and what I've done is I interview my vet. I actually work with two vets. One comes to me and has what you would call a holistic approach. They do acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine and can guide me in Western traditional medicine, traditional or what is called allopathic medicine, homeop-- What your normal Vet does, as well as assist me with some of the alternatives to using pharmaceuticals for the most part. That works really well for me.

I have one who comes to me when I need a home visit and one I can take a vet to my dogs to for lab or for surgery or anything of a traumatic nature. When I'm looking for one, I'm looking at those kinds of services, number one, but the second thing I'm doing is I'm interviewing them. I went to this one vet, I understood from the scuttlebutt locally that they were really good, so I went I interviewed the vet. I got a tour of the location, and you may have to pay for this. This is their time, this is a profession, but let them know what you're doing, that you're there to see if you guys can work together.

They are your employees, essentially. You pay them for their services and their opinion and you work together to make sure that your animal gets the best that they can get, using both the methods that they use within their clinic as well as your own good common sense. We go and we interviewed, we talked about our values. What's important to me is I don't use flea medication, for instance, I don't allow pesticides in my home. We talked about are they okay with us not using flea medication, yet still coming to their clinic? Also, no, my dogs don't have fleas because I deal with them if I've ever seen them, which is really, really rare. I just use a flea comb and they don't have fleas.

I use some diatomaceous earth in the house if I find them but it's rare, it almost never happens. When it does happen, it's when my dogs were playing with other dogs and we find one flea, because when we see one, we get rid of it right away. We talk about that. We also talk about protocols like vaccination protocols. For us, I would much rather do a titer test if I had to prove my dog was, from previous vaccinations, still immune to any disease. The most common one of those would be rabies. In many jurisdictions, they require you have to have a rabies shot every three years or five years, or some such thing.

Science shows us-- Sorry, I hit the camera, science shows us is that the rabies shot when they're young is generally good for life. It's not always good for life, it doesn't offer lifetime immunity all the time, but almost always, so usually. We do titer tests to see that they're still immune to the disease. I talk to the vet about that kind of protocol. I talked to the vet about my raw feeding and see whether or not they can assist me in that kind of thing, rather than just telling me that I'm doing things wrong while looking at my perfectly healthy dogs.

If you don't discuss those things with them ahead of time, you don't want their negative opinions about what you do to come up as a surprise. The surprises are not good when you're in the middle of a medical emergency. Interview your vet when you have a healthy pet. Here, I'm just going to move over the back of the store because as always happens and it's me, I know it's me, once I turn on the camera, we get five people in the store. I'll just go down here to the quiet end of the store, hello again, sorry about that.

Ultimately, all I'm saying is they're your employee, work with them, talk to them. Make sure they meet your values. Make sure they can offer you assistance in raising your pet in the way that is appropriate to you. Sometimes, you can even say, "No." For instance, one of my dogs, we had a test and they wanted to do a needle in order to do a second follow-up test. We discussed it, we waited a few weeks to follow up, it ends up that the dog's healthy and we didn't need to do that invasive test. We're going to go for one more, we're going to make sure that everything's okay but hopefully, what we've done has made it so that she doesn't require this invasive test.

Just work with your vet is all I'm saying, interview them, they are your employee. They should meet your values. It's weird to me how many people come in and tell me, "My vet's terrible, they hate what I do, but I keep doing it." It's like some kind of battle of the wills and that's not how it should be. They should be able to say, "Hey, I see that you're doing a lot of red meats and with no bone. Is there a calcium source in there? Are you doing any Omega-3s? Are you supplementing at all?" that kind of thing so they can help you with these things.

That's what my goal is, is to have a partner, right? Next, I want to talk about Mountain Dog, Mountain Dog in our store has been lucky enough to have a price drop. Hello, sorry you're not on camera, I promise.

Female Speaker 1: I know it.

Neal: [laughs] Where was I? Mountain Dog Food company. Fantastic company out of Alberta, makes a HACCP-certified product in this fancy packaging, with loaves that you can break into half-pound squares, you peel it off without a pair of scissors. It's a fantastically simple and awesome recipe. This is the essential beef and organ which is beef heart, beef kidney, beef liver, carrot, celery, beef, chicken with bone so it gets a calcium source, kelp supplements and a pea bran. It's a simple recipe and I like that. I like the simple, great approach that this company has. Fantastic packaging gets to your door nice and safe.

I can't say enough good, and it's great to see a brand like that. Sorry, they take up almost two doors of my store. A brand like that have a price drop. It's such a fantastically affordable product now. I just want to let people know that that happened and we're really happy that had happened and we could pass those savings on to you, guys. Then the next is- we are in season- Pumpkin Spice, happy, looking forward to Christmas, I'm sure. It's not backwards, I'm going to flip this around and we're going to go-- This is Iron Will Raw's Pumpkin Spice, Raw Love in Every Bowl.

They have-- We can read it out here, there's an ingredient deck on there. No, it's back here. There it is, it'll be here. Ingredients, turkey and bone, turkey meat, turkey heart, turkey liver, pumpkin, kale, spinach, cranberries, blueberries and cinnamon. It's Pumpkin Spice, come get your dog's Pumpkin Spice fix on with Iron Will Raw, here at Growlies. We have lots in stock. It'll be a great stocking stuffer so that they can join in on Christmas.

Then lastly, let's just say there's more parking around back, ask us to show you where it is. It's easily accessible and it's actually undercover so it's the best parking available. Next, did you know that we deliver? I a minimum $50-order, $5 delivery free, bring it to your feet, bring it to your door the very next day. find us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram. Simon wants a treat.

Female Speaker 2: Simon says hello.

Neal: Hi, Simon. You want a treat? There you go, buddy. He didn't complain a little bit, right, Simon? You're not wearing your tie today.

Female Speaker 2: No, he's not.

Neal: Simon often wears a tie. Thanks for being a guest star, Simon.

Female Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm very proud of ...

Neal: Bye, everybody.