Coastal Animal Hospital Modern medicine, classic service. Encinitas, CA Veterinary Animal Hospital Fri, 17 Aug 2018 05:21:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Why does my chihuahua/yorkie/shihpoo/(other dog that fits in my bag) get the same vaccine amount as a Great Dane? Fri, 17 Aug 2018 05:21:19 +0000 A common question we get asked is: "Why does my little 2 pound yorkie get the same amount of vaccine as a 90 pound rottie?"  Seems like a reasonable question since their flea and heartworm medications are different sizes, their deworming doses or antibiotics are different sizes, heck, even their dog beds are different sizes.

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Should little dogs get the same amount of vaccine as a big dog?

A common question we get asked is: “Why does my little 2 pound yorkie get the same amount of vaccine as a 90 pound rottie?”  Seems like a reasonable question since their flea and heartworm medications are different sizes, their deworming doses or antibiotics are different sizes, heck, even their dog beds are different sizes.

The first thing I would ask is, what drives this question?  Is it fear that your little dog will have a reaction to the vaccine because they are so small?  Or is it the thought that they may not need as much vaccine to give them the same level of protection as a big dog?

Well, here are the answers.

More often than not, people choose not to vaccinate their pets out of fear.  Not the fear of their pets contracting a deadly disease like Parvo but more the fear that their pet will have a serious reaction to the vaccine.  Let’s talk about vaccine reactions.  According to a recent study1, only 0.2% of dogs had an owner-reported vaccine reaction that ranged from lethargy and injection site sensitivity (minor reaction) to major anaphylactic reactions.  The more serious reactions (major anaphylactic reaction) accounted for 85 of the 343 reactions reported (so only 25% of the 0.2% which equals an overall risk of serious reaction of 0.05%).  So vaccine reactions are pretty rare.  Be that as it may, what if your dog is that unlucky one?  If your dog is the unlucky reactor, it means that his or her immune system is responding inappropriately to something in that vaccine.  By reducing the vaccine by ½ does not change the fact that his or her immune system is going to inappropriately respond to it any more than a person with a peanut allergy will have less chance of a reaction if they only eat ½ a peanut.

So why do they need the same amount of vaccine as a big dog to get the same immunity?  This question stems from the idea that a small dog will need less antibiotics to treat infection, less flea medication to prevent infestation, less hair dye to make them completely pink (do not try at home), etc.  Well, the immune system does not work like that.  The vaccine is a biologic that is designed to create an immune system response that will ultimately provide protection by creating antibodies.  We know that there is a “critical mass” of antigen (the bad thing we are vaccinating against) to get the process started and that critical mass is roughly the same for all dogs (a super tiny amount).  It’s like rolling a snowball down a hill.  You need a big enough snowball to start with to end up with a bigger ball at the bottom of the hill.  If you start with too small a snowball, it may not get rolling at all, and even if it does, the ball you end up with at the bottom of the hill will be smaller than you had wanted.

And finally, the legal disclaimer.  The American Veterinary Medical Association’s official position statement is: “Failure to administer a vaccine in the method deemed appropriate by the manufacturer (e.g. allowable concurrent treatments, route of administration, full dose) may result in suboptimal protection and/or adversely alter the established safety profile of the product. All manufacturer cautionary warnings on vaccines should be followed. Veterinarians should recognize that failure to use vaccines according to manufacturer-labeled directions may result in potential liability to the veterinarian in the case of an adverse event or lack of efficacy.”

Here at Coastal, we have taken every measure we can to ensure that your pets are getting the safest vaccines available on the market and getting them at the appropriate time intervals to provide protection for as long as possible.  Please see the other blogs, Puppy Vaccines: What if we already gave 3? And DAP v. DHLPPC and why more is not better.

Any questions about your pet’s vaccines? Give us a call and we can get you in to have our team evaluate your pet and get you our best recommendations.

Dr. Tedder


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Sizzle Reel Thu, 24 May 2018 16:01:28 +0000   Did you know Dr. Evans and Dr. Bishop filmed a sizzle reel for a reality TV series? Well, they did and are only slightly embarrassed by it! This came to be because Dr. Evans and Bishop started working on an idea to travel down through Central and South America and provide free veterinary care […]

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This came to be because Dr. Evans and Bishop started working on an idea to travel down through Central and South America and provide free veterinary care to remote villages along the way (while also stopping to surf – but that was definitely a secondary reason as far as they will ever admit). They started making these plans prior to Dr. Bishop even starting veterinary school! Both doctors had spent a considerable amount of time in various parts of that region and fell in love with the people, the land, the culture, and also saw the animal need that exists there as well. Since Dr. Evans already had a mobile/housecall practice, working in the field would not be anything new and they believed they could do a lot of good along the way.

It was speaking with friends about this idea that connected them to a producer, Josh Haygood, who is also an animal lover and instantly connected with their vision. He offered to create a sizzle reel to see if there would be any way to get funding for the trip to be filmed as they were sure it would be an intense and gripping adventure.

While the funding never materialized, both doctors keep the idea alive and hope to someday (with or without cameras) complete this dream and bring their skill set to animals who don’t otherwise have access to the care that they deserve.


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Rattlesnake vaccines. Are they effective? Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:11:52 +0000 One of the funny things about living in Southern California is knowing that some people won’t go hiking because they are terrified of rattlesnakes. They think as soon as they step foot onto a trail, a horde of vicious, fanged menaces are going to leap out and inject them with poison. Maybe this helps keeps […]

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One of the funny things about living in Southern California is knowing that some people won’t go hiking because they are terrified of rattlesnakes. They think as soon as they step foot onto a trail, a horde of vicious, fanged menaces are going to leap out and inject them with poison. Maybe this helps keeps the crowds limited on our beautiful outdoor spaces (except in Torrey Pines on Labor Day, my goodness!). I’m sure the same people avoid the ocean because of sharks too. However unlikely an encounter may be, some people, including our beloved Dr. Tedder, are terrified of any and all snakes, and especially ones with built-in maracas. Fear is always an effective marketing tool, and there are a number of silly “snake-proofing” products on the internet. They run the gamut from ridiculous to plausible, and one of the more interesting products available is a rattlesnake vaccine ( for dogs and horses. But is this vaccine a good idea? The science isn’t there to support it just yet, although it’s better than some other stuff out there. Read on pet lover, and we will hopefully shake out fact from fiction.

While encounters are rare, I have to concede that we will occasionally come across a venomous little tube of muscle undulating across the trail. It’s exciting and scary and the best option is always to be respectful and keep your distance, which makes a bite VERY unlikely. But while we bipeds may be careful and cautious, often we’re hiking with dogs who can only be described as “simple-minded”. Their eagerness to make new friends and grab things that look like sticks can certainly get them into trouble. It’s estimated that there may be more than 100,000 venomous snakebites in dogs and cats in the US each year1. Fortunately deaths are pretty rare, but treatment is almost always necessary.

If a dog is bitten by a rattlesnake, they need veterinary attention ASAP, no question. If the dose of venom is high enough, then the dog will need antivenom, which is the antidote to rattlesnake venom. Antivenom is essentially pre-made antibodies to a mixture of different rattlesnake venoms4 (more on that later, but yeah they’re not all the same type of toxins). We can inject these antibodies into the bitten patient and they soak up all of the venom, stopping it from causing harm. It tends to work really well, although multiple doses are often needed and it’s not cheap (get pet insurance!). Also, if there are any delays in treatment, the antivenom may not be enough to prevent permanent damage. Obviously the best case is to not get bit in the first place (we recommend rattlesnake avoidance training), but as we all know, sometimes stuff happens.

Which finally gets us to this rattlesnake vaccine. Is it a good idea to have your pet “immunized” against snake venom? Sounds cool, right, and the idea behind it is interesting. Here’s the concept: create antivenom in the bloodstream so that when the snake bites the dog, the antidote is already there and the venom automatically gets neutralized. This is actually exactly how antivenom works when we give it. When a snake puts venom in a dog (bad), a veterinarian can inject antivenom (good) to stop the venom from doing bad things. So wouldn’t it be great to just have the antivenom in there in the first place?

Maybe a little Old West analogy will help. Let’s say there’s a bad guy in town, and we don’t know when he’s gonna show up and get to causin’ trouble (please continue to read in a Sam Elliot voice). The town is the body, and the bad guy is the venom. Think of a vaccine as a way for us to tell the body to target that bad guy before he gets there, like a “Wanted” poster that gets everybody in town on alert. In theory, the antibodies (townspeople) will jump on the venom as soon as it hits the body. If there’s enough of them, they’ll rangle him up and lock him in jail, and nobody gets hurt (ok you can stop the fun voice if you want to).

Like I said, it’s a very interesting theory, and in fact some squirrel species are naturally resistant to rattlesnake venom2 (how cool is that!). So we can basically make your dog immune to the venom, right?

Not so fast.

Here’s the big problem with the vaccine: we don’t know if it works. Kind of a tough sell, right? We know that it could, maybe, possibly, under-the-right-circumstances, work. But there are actually quite a few leaps of faith to we’d need to make to trust it. To stretch our Old West analogy further, let’s consider what we know about this vaccine. We know that the vaccine does post wanted posters (i.e. it makes the immune system create antibodies) and we know that it riles the townspeople up and that they do react when they see the bad guy (i.e. the antibodies react with and neutralize the venom). This all sounds good until we dig a little deeper and ask a few important questions. Here’s when we should be double thinking that leap. Ready for some monkey wrenches in the plan?

  • What if it’s not the right bad guy who’s causing a ruckus?

There are about 40 different species of rattlesnake species (we have four species in our county5) and the vaccine only produces neutralizing antibodies to one of them for sure. It might have some effect on other venoms, but we really don’t have any idea. Are you a good enough herpetologist to know which snake bit your pet?

  • How long do those “Wanted” posters stay up for?

If they get taken down after a week of not seeing our villain, how riled up are the townspeople gonna be? As of right now we have no idea, meaning, we have no idea how long a dog might actually benefit from this vaccine and when to give boosters.

  • How many bad guys are gonna show up?

If it’s just one troublemaker, the small town posse could probably handle him. But what if there’s a whole gang of them? We often don’t know how much venom is injected, and we don’t know how many antibodies are produced, so if our math is off by even a little bit, the antibodies can be overwhelmed.

Could it work? Yeah.  However, there are some “buts”, and those are big “buts”. I would not trust it to save my dog’s life. Even if a dog had been given this vaccine, that pet owner would need to react exactly the same way if their dog does get bitten, which means they need to get them a veterinarian with antivenom right away. In a recent study3, dogs that had been vaccinated did no better than dogs who hadn’t been vaccinated. If you really want a pet that’s immune to rattlesnake venom, adopt a ground squirrel, or learn this move (don’t do either of those please).

Written (and external links inserted) by:
Greg Bishop, DVM


  1. Armentano RA, Schaer M. Overview and controversies in the medical management of pit viper envenomation in the dog. Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care. 2011 Oct 1;21(5):461-70.
  2. Biardi JE, Chien DC, Coss RG. California ground squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi) defenses against rattlesnake venom digestive and hemostatic toxins. Journal of chemical ecology. 2005 Nov 1;31(11):2501-18.
  3. Cates CC, Valore EV, Couto MA, Lawson GW, McCabe JG. Comparison of the protective effect of a commercially available western diamondback rattlesnake toxoid vaccine for dogs against envenomation of mice with western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox), northern Pacific rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus oreganus), and southern Pacific rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus helleri) venom. American journal of veterinary research. 2015 Mar;76(3):272-9.



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How dangerous is anesthesia for my pet? Thu, 15 Feb 2018 16:50:17 +0000 Let’s talk about anesthesia. To pet owners, it can sound like a scary thing to be avoided at all costs. To us veterinarians, though, it is a daily and necessary part of keeping your pet healthy. When we do it well and safely, we can fix common pet problems like broken teeth and really bad […]

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Let’s talk about anesthesia. To pet owners, it can sound like a scary thing to be avoided at all costs. To us veterinarians, though, it is a daily and necessary part of keeping your pet healthy. When we do it well and safely, we can fix common pet problems like broken teeth and really bad ear infections. Although anesthesia sounds like a scary word, just think about doing any sort of medically necessary procedure without it (remember doctors used to be called “sawbones”?). With modern protocols and medications, people and animals don’t experience pain during these procedures, but we’ve all heard about somebody’s loved one having a problem or even died when they “went under”, and so the fear remains. So, the question we’re going to answer today is, how high of a risk is it? And, how worried should you be if we recommend an anesthetic procedure for your pet?

A study from the UK reviewed every procedure using anesthesia or sedation in a large group of veterinary hospitals. They collected data from almost 100,000 procedures in dogs and almost 80,000 procedures in cats. That is quite a lot of data for a veterinary study. Then the question they asked was, “how many of these animals died and are there any risk factors?” Here’s what they found:

For all dogs, the risk of death was about 0.17%, or about one in six hundred cases. For cats, the risk was 0.24%, or about one in four hundred cases. That’s not a high risk, but those numbers are a bit misleading, and here’s why: those numbers are coming from ALL the cases the group looked at over two years. Not only were young, animals included in those numbers, but also the high risk and emergency cases such as pets that had been hit by a car or may have had cancer. The group was interested to see what the risks were for healthy and sick pets, so they looked at the numbers more closely. The numbers had to be lower for a healthy young dog getting spayed than for an old dog with a ruptured spleen tumor, right?

Yes, of course. And that is exactly what the data showed. The researchers used a scoring system to rank patients based on their overall risk for anesthesia. Here are the different classes:


Class 1: Minimal risk of normal healthy patient with no underlying disease. Think of a one year old dog getting neutered.

Class 2: Slight risk of a slight to mild systemic disease. Think of a cat with mild dental disease getting a cleaning.

Class 3: Moderate risk, obvious systemic disease. Think of a dog with a low grade heart murmur who needs a skin mass removed.

Class 4: High risk with severe, systemic, life-threatening disease. Think of an older cat with a blockage in its intestines that has been throwing up for three days.

Class 5: Extreme risk, moribund; patient will probably die with or without surgery. Think of a dog that has been hit by a car and is bleeding badly.


For simplicity’s sake, let’s call animals in Class 1 and 2 “healthy”, and animals in Class 3, 4, and 5 “sick”. When using this system, healthy dogs had their risk drop to 0.05% or one in two thousand. For healthy cats, the risk went to 0.11% or one in nine hundred. Let’s compare that with sick patients; in dogs and cats the risk of death with anesthesia is about 1.4%, which is one out of every seventy cases! Just think about that for a second. A sick dog’s anesthetic risk of death is TWENTY-SIX times higher than a healthy dogs. For cats, it’s about THIRTEEN times higher.

Well, “who cares” you might say, “my pet isn’t sick, so the risk is low”. That might be true right now, but early intervention is the BEST way to keep your pet in the low risk categories. Just think, a dog with mild dental disease that goes untreated could easily go from a Class 2 risk to a Class 3 within a year, increasing their risk of death SIX TIMES. Running that pre-anesthesia blood panel is going to help us determine which category your pet is in. This is one of the many reasons we focus on preventative medicine here at Coastal Animal Hospital.

Some of the other risk factors for anesthetic death highlight how important preventative care is. Scheduled procedures were lower risk than emergency procedures. This makes a ton of sense, and not all emergencies can be avoided, but identifying problems earlier can steer us clear of some emergency situations. Also, dogs over 12 years old had a higher risk. This doesn’t mean we can’t do anesthesia in dogs over 12, but if your pet is getting up there in age, think about scheduling some of these procedures sooner rather than later. Some of the risk factors we may not be able to change, such as herding breeds having a four times higher risk, or dogs 10 pounds and under having a seven times higher risk.

There are a lot of things that we can do to lower this risk though. On your end, preventative care to reduce risk category is one of the most important. On our end, the way we perform anesthesia obviously plays a big role. For example, if you induce anesthesia by holding a mask with an inhaled gas over a pet’s face, it is associated with a SIX fold higher risk of death than using a more balanced technique. Here at Coastal, we NEVER “mask down” our patients, and they always receive a safer combination using a premedication and the inhaled gas is for maintenance only.

Another one of the significant findings from this study was that about half of all the deaths associated with anesthesia happened after the procedure was over, and most of those happened within 3 hours of finishing the procedure. At Coastal, we always ensure that our patients have a dedicated technician monitoring them, which typically only happens at large specialty or university veterinary hospitals.

So, what are the takeaways? First, we now have really good data to show that overall, the risk of death with anesthesia in dogs and cats is low, but especially low in healthy animals. Second, the risk to YOUR pet depends a lot on both keeping them healthy in the first place, AND how the anesthesia is performed. Anesthesia is not standardized amongst all veterinary hospitals, you might not get a dedicated technician, balanced protocols, or good monitoring equipment depending on where you go. At Coastal, we take great pride in offering you up to date and excellent care, which minimizes the risks for your beloved pets. For more information on how we minimize risks at Coastal – see our page on Safe Anesthesia.



  1. Brodbelt DC, Blissitt KJ, Hammond RA, Neath PJ, Young LE, Pfeiffer DU, Wood JL. 2008. The risk of death: the confidential enquiry into perioperative small animal fatalities. Vet Anaesth Analg. Sep;35(5):365-73
  2. Matthews NS, Mohn TJ, Yang M, Spofford N, Marsh A, Faunt K, Lund EM, Lefebvre SL. 2017. Factors associated with anesthetic-related death in dogs and cats in primary care veterinary hospitals. JAVMA Mar 15;250(6):655-665


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Sunscreen for pets?? Fri, 25 Aug 2017 17:03:52 +0000 People and animals are more alike than we realize. Walk along the beach at Moonlight and you’ll see a bunch of Encinitians soaking in the sun. Walk into my backyard and you’ll see my dogs laying out flat enjoying the warming rays. Lucky dogs, lucky people, to live in such a warm and sunny part […]

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People and animals are more alike than we realize. Walk along the beach at Moonlight and you’ll see a bunch of Encinitians soaking in the sun. Walk into my backyard and you’ll see my dogs laying out flat enjoying the warming rays. Lucky dogs, lucky people, to live in such a warm and sunny part of the world. To say nothing of the sun-seeking kitties!

Look familiar to cat owners? (source:

Well, not to scare you, but we know that if you sunbathe without any protection, you can be at huge risk for skin damage. Did you know the same is true for pets? In fact, some skin cancers in dogs and cats are the direct result of too much sun exposure. The sun, necessary as it is for all life on Earth (except for your occasional benthic hydrothermal-vent-living-organisms), is in fact a massive nuclear reactor that sprays all kinds of high-powered radiation into the solar system. When some of this radiation hits a fleshy little Earth dweller like a chihuahua on his hairless little belly, invisible rays literally start cooking his skin cells. That’s that nice, toasty feeling. Keep him in the sun long enough, the skin will burn, and chronic exposure can cause serious damage and lead to skin cancer.

Chronic sun damage leading to scar tissue. Petey has white hair and a short coat. Now he always wears a t-shirt and sunscreen when he goes outside!

I know what you’re thinking, “Well my dog is outside all day and has never had a problem!”. That’s because not all animals are high risk! Pets with light skin, white fur, or no hair at all are most sensitive to sunburn. If you put a Dalmatian in sun every day, she will only get burns on the white parts. But even if you’ve never seen a major problem, it doesn’t mean that there’s no damage, sometimes sunburns can just look like small crusted rashes. The nose, the belly, and the tips of the ears are common problem areas.

So what can you do about it if you live on the top of Mt. Sunshine and you have a herd of naked sphynx cats who sleep outside all day? The number one thing is to try and avoid direct sunlight exposure during the most intense parts of the day (between 9am and 4pm), and remember that even on cloudy days, UV radiation can still get through and cause damage. Some people put up shades, some people put t-shirts on their pets, and some people use sunscreen.

Which leads me finally to which sunscreens are safe and best for pets? There are a million different products out there, and not a lot of clear product labeling, which makes things confusing. Here’s your takeaway message: if it’s safe for babies, if should be safe for dogs and cats. Why are baby safe products okay for pets? Basically because they aren’t absorbed into the bloodstream and they’re safe if ingested. Here’s what you do, grab the bottle/can/tub of sunscreen that you want to use, ignore all the logos and fancy stuff on the front, and turn it around. Look at the “active ingredient” list, and you really only want two things there. Their names are “titanium dioxide” and “zinc dioxide”. These are considered “physical sunscreens” (v. chemical sunscreens) and work by creating a protective barrier on the skin that literally blocks harmful radiation.

You also want to make sure that it’s SPF 30 or higher. And finally, you want to make sure that it doesn’t have an ingestion warning, so even if the pet licks the sunscreen, they won’t get sick. Make sure to reapply frequently. And if you have any questions, find some shade and just call us!

-Dr. Greg Bishop


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Pet Food Series, part 3: How to Choose a Pet Food Mon, 10 Apr 2017 21:22:47 +0000 Our goal is to help you figure out how to navigate a bag of pet food and how to pick one out from the store because it can be really confusing. There's so much marketing material that goes into it and it's hard to read through all of the...

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An edited transcript of the video is provided below:

Today we’re gonna conclude our three-part series on pet food – the new religion, and, provide you with information on how to choose a good pet food. Our goal is to help you figure out how to navigate a bag of pet food and how to pick one out from the store because it can be really confusing. There’s so much marketing material that goes into it and it’s hard to read through all of the BS to come with the right answer.

Let’s start with reading labels. This is hardest part because everything on that bag is designed to market to you. The first thing somebody will do is go to the back of the bag and read the ingredient list. However, the marketers also know that and why we sometimes see weird trends in dog and cat foods. Just realize that an ingredient list is a marketing tool that they’re using for you. Here is an example: one of the biggest things that they’ve started doing is making meat the very first ingredient. And that’s how people will make that decision; “Oh, meat is the first ingredient. This is a better diet than this food because they don’t have even chicken meal until the fourth ingredient down on the list.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but that means absolutely nothing. If you look at those two bags, the order of the ingredients is based on weight. It means the most weight of that diet is going to be chicken, or beef, or whatever that meat is. On the surface, it seems obvious to choose the diet that has more actual weight of meat in it. But the problem is, if you look at the actual protein content of both of those foods will be identical. And the reason is because when you have chicken meal, it’s the same thing as chicken, but they’ve just removed all the water from the chicken breast. If you have a chicken breast it’s full of meat, but it’s also full of water. In order for them to actually create a kibble out of that, they have to dehydrate that and turn it into a meal, and then make the kibble out of that. So in reality, the amount of chicken is identical between the two diets, but one is just calculated with the water weight included. So you’re getting the same thing, whether it’s the first or the fourth ingredient. I would choose the one with the chicken later down the list because they charge you a premium to list it first. Marketing.

This is the other part of it too – the guaranteed analysis. We like to look at the Protein Content, Carbohydrates, and Fat content, but It is hard to even know what they mean. Here’s why: Crude protein is just a calculated value based on the total nitrogen amount in the dog food. It means nothing about how digestible it is (how much they can absorb from that protein source). This is the big difference in pet foods, but it is near impossible to figure out. What is important is not the calculated protein content number, but more important is the quality of food that you’re getting (and that doesn’t mean “Human Grade” is better). One of the main reasons why we recommend actually sticking with a larger brand of dog food is because they actually have a lot more data on the digestibility and bioavailability of these nutrients that they put in their food, versus a smaller, more mom-and-pop boutique brand, which might not have the resources to actually study that and actually look to see how much is available and digestible.

Now that I have trash talked reading labels, there is one I want you to focus on. There will be something called the AAFCO feeding statement. It will be on every bag of food, but it’s really hard to find. It’s a tiny statement lost among all the other noise that’s on a bag of food. But what you’re looking for is a statement that will say something to the effect of: “This diet is formulated to meet the requirements for growth, lactation, gestation,” or “Formulated to meet all life stages,” or “Formulated for adult maintenance. What does this mean? If it says, “For all life stages,” it’s a food that you can feed to a pregnant dog, a lactating dog, a puppy, an adult dog, or a senior dog. It’s actually good for everybody. The problem with that is that when you feed that to an adult dog, that’s a lot of energy. There are a lot of calories that are required for growth. There’s a lot of calories that are required for lactation and pregnancy. If you’re feeding that an average adult dog that is sitting around your house most of the day, they’re going to get fat. And that’s why there are so many fat dogs out there. I think they’re feeding the wrong diet because it’s formulated to be good for everybody, but it isn’t actually good for adult dogs. What we recommend if you have an adult dog is to find a diet that says, “This is formulated to meet the requirements for adult maintenance.” That will be a more appropriate diet for your dog at home if they’re an adult. If they’re a puppy, find one that is specifically for puppies. If they’re a large-breed puppy, it should say, “For large-breed puppies.” They’re going to have very specific nutritional differences between them.

Looking for that AAFCO feeding statement is really important. Then, you know, there’s the debate on what should we feed our dog? Home cooked, versus raw, versus commercial. Again, see our previous post about raw diet. We don’t recommend that. Home-cooked is good. I think that there’s a lot of benefit to that. The problem with home-cooked is that it’s really time-consuming and there’s a lot of nutritional deficiencies that can develop because of that. Again, there was a study that showed that something like 80% of home-cooked diets were inadequate in one or two nutrients. It can be good, but just make sure you’re doing it right. We do recommend consulting with a veterinary nutritionist. We eat a really varied diet as people, so we’re always getting different nutrients and can choose our food if we have a craving. Dogs can do well on home cooked foods, but often we tend to get into a routine with them and if we’re just feeding the same couple of things over and over and over again, they can actually get nutritional deficiencies, and that isn’t good.

The kibble that you can get from the store is made to be what they need day-in, day-out for the rest of their life. So it is really important to get a good kibble where they are actually doing testing on it to make sure that everything is in there that they need. And again, why we recommend using some of the larger brands than some of the boutique ones. But almost all of the commercial diets are really good. Back in the 80’s, there was actually a disease called “Generic Dog Food Dermatosis”. These dogs were getting these terrible skin lesions because they were on various generic brands of dog food. It turns out they were deficient in a lot of different nutrients and minerals. So this is where government regulation came in there and actually improved the industry. And now I’ve never seen a case of that because it doesn’t really exist anymore here. Dog foods have really come a long way, and they’re really an easy and cost-effective way for us to keep our dogs and cats.

So when you go to a pet store, how do we pick a commercial diet? For the most part, almost all the commercial kibble diets out there are good and unless your pet has an actual disease (food allergy, etc), they are going to be fine. Just choose one you like and they’re gonna be okay. I know this is anti-climatic – but this is good news. You don’t have to stress and overthink this. Again, I do recommend one of the larger brands to make sure that if there are any problems, they have a million dogs on the diet and can quickly find problems versus a boutique brand which only has a smaller number of dogs making deficiencies more difficult to detect. Other questions to ask each company: Do they have a vet nutritionist on staff? How are they formulating their food? Do they make their food in their own plants?

A lot of pet foods will have another company make their food, and they just slap their name on it. And that’s actually one of the problems of Blue Buffalo. When they first started, you know, they were making all of these wild claims about grains and by-products(see our last blog post about that), and villainizing every other pet food company. But they weren’t making their own food at all. So when somebody actually tested their food, they found grains and by-products and all these other “contaminants” in their food that claimed weren’t in there. Blue Buffalo likely had no idea because they weren’t in control of their food. Again, they were just putting their name on something that they weren’t making. So recommend going with a company that makes their own food, in their own plants, so they have more control over the final product. Ask where they source their ingredients. Do they get their ingredients from the U.S.? I’d only recommend getting foods that source their ingredients from here and are not importing them from overseas.

Just find a food that they like, that they eat readily, they do well on, their coat looks good, their stools are normal, and is a food that you feel good about. I mean, does it also fit with your take on the world? Is it organic? Is it a sustainable food source? Do you just like the color of the bag? Whatever it is, just find one that you like, it’s easy to get, and they will most likely be fine. Some brands that we recommend, Wellness, Nature’s Choice, Natural Balance, Purina Pro Plan. You can go to Costco and get the Kirkland brand dog food and they will likely do great on it.

So there you have it. It’s not as complicated as what people like to make it out to be. But you are getting hit with a lot of information at dog park, at the pet food stores, and online. Your uncle at Christmas dinner probably has a strong opinion about it at as well. But just realize they probably have no idea what they’re talking about. There’s a lot of bad information out there, and hopefully, this clears some of that up for you.

If you do have any questions about any of this, feel free to give us a call. Visit us on the web, Call us at 760-633-2254. Once again, I’m Dr. Brian Evans here at Coastal Animal Hospital. Until next time.


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Pet Food Series, part 2: By-Products and Grains, Oh My Wed, 15 Mar 2017 17:20:31 +0000 One of the biggest things you're going to see and hear about is the “Grain-Free” fad. You can't even pick up a treat or bag of food these days that doesn't say it's grain-free. The other villain in dog and cat food right now is byproducts. Many pet foods will say...

The post Pet Food Series, part 2: By-Products and Grains, Oh My appeared first on Coastal Animal Hospital.


An edited transcript of the video is provided below:

This is our second in a three-part series regarding pet food, the biggest religious topic that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. People feel very, very strongly about it but there is such bad information out there and misinformation and terrible marketing that we’re here to dispel some of those myths. One of the biggest things you’re going to see and hear about is the “Grain-Free” fad. You can’t even pick up a treat or bag of food these days that doesn’t say it’s grain-free. The other villain in dog and cat food right now is byproducts. Many pet foods will say they don’t put any byproducts or meals in their diet, so I want to explain what those things are and maybe calm some people down because again, there are really passionate feelings about this. We want to provide another balanced viewpoint on it and calm down some of the internet furor over these otherwise ridiculous arguments.

So first up let’s talk about byproducts. This is one of my favorite things because everybody will talk to me about the food they chose and they’ll sound really proud, “We’re not feeding our dog any byproducts.” And it’s great because they think that they are doing the right thing. They are getting this marketing from these pet stores and from the internet, and they are trying to make a good choice. And I do applaud people for putting the thought and effort in to their decisions. The problem is that the information they are being fed isn’t necessarily all that useful. Personally, I am a big fan of byproducts.  The problem with byproducts is that they just have a terrible name. Nobody has any idea what a byproduct is so it was really easy for some of these pet food companies (namely Blue Buffalo) to come in there and villainize ingredients because it was a really easy marketing thing. By claiming they weren’t going to put any grains or any byproducts in their food people assumed that was actually a better diet to have, to be byproduct-free and grain-free.

So what are byproducts? Here’s the definition of it by the pet food industry: “A byproduct is the nonrendered clean parts, other than meat, derived from mammals. It includes but is not limited to lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, partially fat and low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents.” So basically byproducts are anything that’s not meat. If you think about it, it got its name because when we produce food animals, we’re producing them for meat. We like steaks, we like just pure meat. But then there are things that are not meat and so what do they do with them? That is what byproducts are. They’re byproducts of producing meat. All of that organ meat is actually really good nutrition. In our culture, we just don’t eat it as frequently as in other cultures around the world. But liver, lungs, kidneys, spleen all of those things actually have a lot of really great micronutrients. Animals can’t just eat meat by itself. It’s actually pretty nutrient deficient. Most foods that don’t include any byproducts just end up taking all those necessary nutrients and artificially adding them in one at a time to try to simulate what the liver naturally provides if you eat that. If you’re looking for a more natural diet, you actually want one with byproducts in it. So byproducts actually are a really good protein source, and a really good nutrient source, but it just has a really bad name. And that bad name made it a really easy target for some of these more unscrupulous marketing machines to capitalize on and make it appear like their pet food was better.

Then there’s the question of grains. This is another one that everybody is really proud of, “Oh, I don’t feed my dog any grains.” Well, it’s just like the gluten allergy phenomenon that’s going on where everybody seems to have a gluten allergy these days. Well, you don’t. The majority of people don’t have celiac disease. And the same is true for dogs. If you remember from our last video about raw diets, dogs actually evolved to eat grains along with people because they’re eating the waste from our agriculture. And so they have genes that encode for breaking down those sugars and those carbohydrates.

So dogs can do really well on grains. The reason why the pet food industry has tried to market their products as grain-free is that some dogs can have a grain allergy. But it’s actually a really low percentage. More often dogs will have allergies to beef, chicken, dairy, fish, lamb. Of the grains, a wheat allergy is the most common, but that is rarely included in dog food. It’s really rare for them to have a corn or a soy allergy so this whole phenomenon is really overblown. If you wanted to actually provide a diet that was less likely to cause an allergy, you wouldn’t feed them chicken or beef. But most of the food out there is still based on chicken and beef, so again, it’s just a marketing tool to try to differentiate themselves and make it seem like they’re putting some thought into their diet when really it’s just there to trick people. Some dogs might do better on a grain-free food, but it’s possible they are doing better from something other than the lack of grains.

And also grain-free doesn’t equal carb free. That’s the other part that people are trying to do – to get them on more high protein, more “natural wolf-like” diet. See our previous video on raw diets and why that doesn’t really matter. But just because it’s grain-free doesn’t mean that it’s carbohydrate-free. There can be other carbs in ingredients like potatoes.

So hopefully that clears things up on why we typically don’t care whether or not your food is grain-free or byproduct-free and why we actually prefer them to have some byproducts in them. And again, there will be passionate debate on this and that is fine. We’re just providing you with this information because there’s a lot of bad information on the internet and it’s hard to know what is real when you’re getting it directly from some of these websites.

If you have any questions, give us a call 760-633-2254. Visit us on the web at


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Pet Food Series, part 1: Raw Diets Mon, 27 Feb 2017 22:38:41 +0000 Today we're starting the first of our three-part series on a very tough topic to talk about - Raw Diets. There are people who feel very very strongly about it and we're here to provide a balanced viewpoint on some of the marketing information and internet information that's out there.

The post Pet Food Series, part 1: Raw Diets appeared first on Coastal Animal Hospital.


An edited transcript of the video is provided below:

Today we’re starting the first of our three-part series on a very tough topic to talk about. And the reason why it’s tough to talk about is because people are bananas about it. Pet food is a religion for people. There are people who feel very very strongly about it and we’re here to provide a balanced viewpoint on some of the marketing information and internet information that’s out there. Also, we hope to help you navigate the pet food world and how to pick a pet food. The first topic, which does inspire probably the most passion out of people who are believers, is raw diets. We will talk about how we go about evaluating it and why we make the recommendations that we do.

Raw diets. And to come straight out with it, we are not a fan of raw diets. It really comes down to three metrics that we look at when we make a recommendation. The first question is, is it beneficial? Second is, is it safe? And three, what is the cost? Is it effective, or is it crazy expensive? (Which it is)

The first question we will talk about is, is it beneficial? And this is really where all the marketing claims come in and this is where all the passion really comes in. There are claims that it cures everything, your dog will never get sick if they’re on a raw food diet, and they’ll be able to skip and do back-flips if they’re just eating this food. The problem is that those marketing claims sound too good to be true and as is the usual, it typically is. We would recommend it more and be more on board with it if there was any sort of data showing that there was an actual benefit to it. Right now, it’s all anecdotal evidence. The raw diet fans are always saying how much happier their dogs are, but really when it comes down to it, they could be doing really well on a dry kibble as well. Its likely they just have not found the right one that their dog really enjoys or does well on.

The anecdotal evidence and the marketing claims are really a little bit over the top right now, without really any science to back it up. And part of the things that people are claiming is that when you cook food you’re losing all the nutrients and you’re breaking down enzymes that dogs need. The problem with that is, if that were the case 98% of dogs that are on dry kibble, that’s billions of dogs across the world, that are on dry kibble would be really doing poorly, and the vast majority of dogs would be really sickly. But they’re not. They’re actually doing great. Most of the dogs that are on regular dry dog kibble do really well.

The other part of this marketing is that it’s a more natural diet, more ancestral, more like what wolves eat. And it’s a fallacy to believe things that are natural are always better, because they’re not. There’s a lot of wolves who are struggling out there, who are sickly, because they do get a lot of intestinal parasites, they do get a lot of illnesses, and it’s not always the healthiest diet they could possibly be on. And the other fallacy is that dogs are wolves. Your little Chihuahua, your little pug, your Pomeranian, your German Shepherd is not a wolf. I don’t want to break your heart right now, but they’re not wolves. They’ve evolved into these other domesticated creatures, which might have a common ancestor a long time ago, but they evolved as humans evolved.

And actually, there was a really interesting paper that was done that studied and looked at the genes of wolves and of domesticated dogs, and found that domesticated dogs had new genes that the wolves didn’t. And those genes actually coded for digestion of things like starches, carbohydrates. This evolution correlates along with the byproducts of what humans were doing with their agriculture. Dogs actually consumed a lot of those waste products and actually evolved a natural adaptation to be able to process those foods and it was an advantage for them. So dogs’ digestive systems have evolved from wolves, and that goes along with the agricultural revolution of humans and what got us to where we are today. So your dog isn’t a wolf. They don’t need to eat all raw diet. They can handle carbohydrates fine and do really well on it. So all the claims of raw diets being the most beneficial, and the most natural, have no basis.

The other reason why we don’t jump on board with raw diets is the second question, which is, is it safe? And this is the part that really gives the strongest reasoning for us on why we don’t recommend it, and why we advise people actually against it. It’s raw meat. We know raw meat and the food that we buy from the grocery store for ourselves, requires a lot of caution in handling because there’s always a chance that there’s going to be an infectious component to that. Because of that, we really wash our hands and we cook it. And it’s the same thing for dogs.

These raw diets can give you a false sense of security because a lot of them will say that they’ve been tested pathogen-free, but it doesn’t really work. The way that they test the food is they take a huge vat of food, and they take a little core sample out of the center of it, and if there’s no bacteria on that little tiny core sample, then they claim that that whole vat is clear of any bacteria. And that’s just not the way that it works. We know that raw food is filled with bacteria. And, again, what does the science say on this? There’s lots of data out there showing and proving how infectious this stuff is, and we get recall alerts all the time on raw diets. There was just a report of two dogs dying from eating raw food infected with listeria. And a lot of the time, the dogs don’t even get sick. The bacteria pass through the gut and the dogs are fine, but then these bacteria end up infecting us. Those most at risk are young children, immuno-compromised people, and people trying to get pregnant as listeria causes abortions. So it is not a really fun thing for humans to deal with, or your dog either. There was a study done in 2014 that looked at dry kibble versus raw food. And they bought random samples of food, they tested it, and they found that of the 480 samples of dry dog food, two of them were infected, one with salmonella, one with listeria. That is 0.4%, so less than 1% of dry dog kibble had an infectious component in it.

On the contrary, they also looked at raw foods. They took 576 samples of raw food, and of those there were 81 which were positive for all the various infectious diseases. So that’s nearly 15%. So yes, there’s a chance that you’re gonna get infected with the dry dog kibbles. You should still wash your hands and do good quality control, but it’s 0.4% versus 15%. There’s a 40-fold increase risk of getting one of those infectious diseases from raw diets. So this is a big reason why we don’t recommend it. It isn’t safe. You could take the raw food and cook it, and then I’d have much less of a problem with it. But then it’s kind of counteracting all the benefits that their marketing department has told you it’s good for. So that doesn’t really make sense.

Finally, the third question is, is it cost effective? And that answer is no. I talk to people all the time who are just dying trying to provide food for their pet which is the best and they’re spending any amount of money. They’re buying all this raw diet because they have been told at their pet store that it’s good. The problem is, it really isn’t worth it.

So that’s our take on the raw diets. I know there’s a lot of passionate people out there who probably have a much different opinion, and have really strong feelings about it. And that’s fine. But here at Coastal, we’re here to gently tell you, based on the best available science that’s out there, the reason why we make these recommendations.

Coming up in our Pet Food series, we have two more videos. The next one is going to be about byproducts and grains and other fake news stories. And then the final one is how to choose a good pet food, and how to read the label, what it means, and what to look for.

If you have any questions, give us a call on 760-633-2254. Visit us on the web at I’m Dr. Brian Evans. Till next time, thank you for joining us.


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Muzzle Training Thu, 22 Dec 2016 22:52:11 +0000 We have been spending a lot of time talking to people recently about a fear-free experience in the vet office. How many of our pets are nervous, trembling, or flat out terrified when they come to the vet? That is a terrible existence and we really want to turn that fear around and make the […]

The post Muzzle Training appeared first on Coastal Animal Hospital.


No stress!

Part 1. Why wear a muzzle?




Part 2. Principles of training



Part 3. How to muzzle train









Here are the steps:

Step 1 – Muzzle predicts fun/treats


Step 2 – Muzzle around neck only



Step 3 – Feeding from muzzle


Step 4 – Clipping in



The post Muzzle Training appeared first on Coastal Animal Hospital.

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2016 Pet Insurance Shootout Thu, 01 Sep 2016 19:35:08 +0000 The post 2016 Pet Insurance Shootout appeared first on Coastal Animal Hospital.



UPDATED 5-16-17: See the new asterisk on our number 2 recommendation based on a policy change (for the worse).

Pet insurance can save your pet’s life. Veterinary medicine has rapidly advanced in the past 10 years and we can now diagnose, treat, and cure more rapidly, accurately, and with less morbidity (pain, suffering, etc) than ever before. The problem with these advances – they’re expensive. Our clients have told us stories about how one trip to the emergency room cost them over $10,000. While those super expensive trips are few and far between, it is not unusual for an average emergency room visit to cost $3000. When pet owners aren’t prepared for that, it can mean that the family pet is euthanized and this reality is heartbreaking. This is why we recommend whole heartedly for all of our patients to have pet insurance. No one wants to make the decision between providing food or paying rent, and you pet’s life.

The other problem is that choosing a pet insurance plan is completely overwhelming. Its really hard to know if what you are signing up for is actually good insurance. After listening to hundreds of confused clients, we decided to weed through the details and see if we would find major differences between the plans. And we did. Disclaimer: We are not insurance agents, brokers, or insurance experts. This is not insurance advice. We do not receive kickbacks from any of our recommendations. However, we are well positioned to write this because we are experts in veterinary medicine and know the financial fallout if a company excludes hereditary conditions or a knee surgery, for example, because those exclusions can cost you thousands of dollars.
We judged each company on over 40 parameters to see how the companies stacked up against each other (a big thanks to Nicole for doing all of the research) and came up with our top 3 recommendations. Without further adieu, here are our 2016 Best Pet Insurance winners:

  1. Nationwide Whole Pet with Wellness

This was initially a non-starter for us here at Coastal. Nationwide used to be called VPI, and VPI, while the largest pet insurance company, was, in our estimation, the worst. They had, and still have, several terrible plans which give a false sense of security of coverage but the fine print leaves people liable for thousands of dollars in vet bills that would typically be covered by almost every other insurance carrier. BUYER BEWARE – we do not recommend these plans: Major Medical or Pet Wellness. Here is a screenshot from Nationwide’s own website showing the comparison of reimbursement between these plans and our recommended plan for 2 different diseases:

You can see that the Major Medical Plan leaves a $5,610 gap in reimbursement compared to a more standard pet insurance policy for hip dysplasia and $6,177 gap for cancer. These are huge holes that would prevent most people from being able to treat their pets because the plan isn’t providing coverage like it should.

However, they have created a new pet insurance policy that even stopped us in our tracks and forced us to become believers. Their Whole Pet with Wellness Plan is a first of its kind insurance policy that covers every medical recommendation made by a veterinarian. It is a comprehensive insurance plan with the only exclusion being pre-existing conditions. The plan has an unlimited benefit with a $250 annual deductible and 90% coinsurance. However, this is where it stands out from the pack: it will not only cover illnesses and injuries like all other pet insurance companies, but it also covers exams, flea meds, vaccines, spay, neuter, and basically anything else that we would recommend for your pet at the same 90% reimbursement rate. Never before has there been such complete coverage offered by a pet insurance company. Here are a few other highlights

  • Nationwide will cover any condition (provided it is not pre-existing) once the policy has been in place for 14 days. If your pet injures themselves on day 15 – they will be covered. This is a big deal because most companies will not cover any knee or orthopedic conditions for 6 months to a year after the policy has been in place. With Nationwide, it is immediately covered.
  • They cover all wellness recommendations. Previously, pet insurance companies that covered wellness would charge an extra $15-50/month extra and have a defined reimbursement that usually would not cover the actual expenses and would be limited to certain wellness recommendations. For example, a “wellness plan” would reimburse $75/year for flea medications when most flea medications cost over $200/year but wouldn’t cover annual bloodwork or cancer screening. There are a few other variations on this theme, but basically the typical pet insurance “wellness coverage” plans were not very helpful or cost effective. This new plan will reimburse (after the $250 deductible has been met) 90% of all recommended wellness items. This includes exams, vaccines, flea and heartworm medications, annual bloodwork, cancer screening, even spays, neuters, and other recommended procedures such as a preventative gastropexy.
  • Dental cleanings. If we determine your pet has periodontal disease, they will cover the cost of the dental cleaning from start to finish. Our top 3 pet insurance companies all do this and is one of the biggest factors in choosing a pet insurance company. Note: If your pet has pre-existing dental disease, it will not be covered until you have a dental performed and then they consider that disease “cured” and will be eligible for coverage when the next dental is needed.
  • Prescription pet food. Here is another industry first: they cover prescription pet food without limitation at the standard reimbursement rates.
  • Cost. While they are not the cheapest plan on the market, they tend to fall right in the middle of the pack. However, when taking into consideration all of the additional benefits and what they cover, we feel the price point is a steal.

Now the bad:

  • Their website. Its terrible. It doesn’t provide details without a lot of searching and clicking. Overall we found it to be a frustrating experience. Plus, they are still trying to direct people to their other plans (see below) and we wish they would just remove them from the site all together.
  • They still offer those plans we talked a lot of smack about. We only recommend signing up for Nationwide’s WHOLE PET with WELLNESS. Avoid like the plague their other 2 plans – Major Medical and Pet Wellness. These are still on the antiquated set reimbursement benefits (only reimbursing up to a certain amount for a variety of selected diseases that are not always based on actual costs incurred) that can leave big gaps in the costs associated with getting your pet back to health (see the above images). We still have reservations about recommending Nationwide because these other plans can lure people in with lower prices but will bite their policy holders in the rear if their pet ever ends up in an emergency hospital. Don’t be fooled, the devil is in the details.
  • They won’t even issue policies for pets with certain pre-existing conditions – Addison’s disease, diabetes, or cancer. If your pet has one of those, you will have to look elsewhere for pet insurance.

Overall, this is the best plan money can buy – and it isn’t even that expensive when compared to other pet insurance companies. While there are less expensive plans (Figo, see below), they don’t come close to offering what this plan does and this is why they are getting the top spot in 2016.

  1. Figo*

They are the newcomers to the pet insurance world and were started in an incubator which is part of Google’s Tech Hub Network. Their goal is to merge technology and pet insurance though it remains to be seen how useful all of their tech will be. Some features do seem nice, such as the ability to text in invoices and ask questions. In terms of their plan – they have a great plan. They appear to have copied Pet Plan and made some improvements such as an annual deductible instead of a “per incident” deductible which is a big plus. They excel not only for their technology, but also because they have a great price point for their plans. They typically come in lower than most other pet insurance companies and have better coverage. However, in investigating their fine print details, we found one point that was going to be a huge downside to their policy. Their fine print stated that if your pet tears their cruciate ligament they will cover the first surgery. However, if your pet tears the ligament of their other knee within 12 months (which happens in about half of all pets with a torn knee), they will not cover the second surgery potentially leaving the unsuspecting pet owner with a $3500-5000 bill. This was a really bad policy and a big loophole that we didn’t find with any other company. What is the point of an annual maximum benefit of $10,000, $14,000, or even unlimited if they have fine print which prevents you from being able to use it? Well, we brought it to the attention of the company and because of our investigation and action, they have now removed that exclusion and both knees are now eligible for coverage! Way to go Team Coastal!

Overall, they (now) have excellent and comprehensive illness and injury coverage at a great price and we highly recommend them.

*UPDATE 5-16-2017: We have recently learned of another policy change with Figo, unfortunately this one is for the worse. They no longer consider “periodontal disease” a coverable disease. This policy change will mean any dental cleanings we perform will be an out of pocket expense for you and will ultimately lead to more chronic pain in animals. However, our #1 recommendation, Nationwide Whole Pet with Wellness, and our #3 recommendation, PetPlan (below), both cover dental cleanings and can save you a lot of money in the future. 

  1. Pet Plan

Pet Plan was our 2014 Pet Insurance Shootout Winner. At that time, they really set the bar on best practices in the pet insurance world and many companies have scrambled to catch up with them and try to beat them. Unfortunately, Pet Plan didn’t keep up and is now trying to transition and claw their way back to the top but they aren’t quite there. They still have great coverage. However, they are just now starting to offer an annual deductible in addition to a per incident deductible. The problem with their annual deductible and why they didn’t edge out Figo for the number 2 spot is the cost of their plan is almost 75% more expensive than Figo. Per incident deductibles aren’t as beneficial as annual deductibles because if you pet has 3 different problems throughout the year (an ear infection, a UTI, and an upset stomach), you have now paid your deductible three times instead of once. If their plans become a little more price competitive, then they could secure or at least tie the number 2 spot, but until then, they fell to the (still respectable) number 3 spot.

We did not rank the rest of the pet insurance companies because they all have their downfalls and few upsides that our top 3 aren’t already covering. However, because we get questions about why we didn’t recommend a certain company, here are some of the deal breakers that kept us away:

Trupanion: They don’t cover exam fees. This is a big deal because it discourages bringing your pet in for follow up/recheck examinations which can delay recovery, healing, etc and is a sneaky extra deductible every time your pet needs to be seen. They do have some good features (chronic diseases are not subject to annual deductible), but also some other downsides such as no coverage for periodontal disease and will exclude coverage for knee surgery if the other knee had problems in the past.

Embrace: They seem to be good overall, however, they exclude periodontal disease as a coverable condition, so if we recommend a dental, they won’t help. They do have a “wellness plan” which will cover part of a dental but is limited by the amount of “wellness coverage” you have.

Pet’s Best: The founder started the first pet insurance company and has a great story. However, they have a few downsides such as only covering medications that are in their “formulary” (if it isn’t in there, no reimbursement. This can be a big deal with certain name brand medications and/or cancer drugs). They don’t cover periodontal disease and also exclude coverage on a second knee injury if the policy wasn’t in place prior to the first knee injury.

Pet First: They do get an honorable mention as their Lifetime Coverage plan is fairly comprehensive. However, their fine print excludes removing retained puppy teeth, 12 month waiting period for back surgery, and most importantly, we consistently have had very negative customer service experiences with this company. In doing the research for this article, one rep told us “I was taking up his time” and was pretty rude. We have also had several incidents where Pet First claimed to have not received faxes for insurance claims and seems to mysteriously misplace paperwork.

Healthy Paws: They don’t cover the exam fees like Trupanion making their annual deductible also have another sneaky per incident deductible. They also exclude dentals, behaviorists, and exclude the other knee from any coverage if the first knee already had a problem.

ASPCA: They have lots of exclusions, confusing policies, limits on congenital and hereditary conditions, and overall have not simplified and streamlined their plans to be efficient, comprehensive, and cost effective. Their plans are reminiscent of where pet insurance was 5 years ago.

24 Hour Pet Watch: They have the same apparent underwriter and policies as ASPCA (Level 1-4) with identical website layouts and confusing terms. It looks like Hartford lets companies like ASPCA and 24 Hour Pet Watch just private label their product. 24 Hour Pet Watch doesn’t do much to even private label their insurance because when you try to get a quote, you are redirected out of their site to Hartford’s site. This company is not in the game to really give you a great plan and also had bad customer service when we called to get information.


We hope that you found this helpful. Again, almost any of these insurance companies are better than having nothing. PLEASE NOTE: If you already have a pet insurance plan in place and your pet has a chronic disease or pre-existing condition, you cannot switch to another company and expect them to cover that disease. It will be considered a pre-existing condition for that company and excluded from coverage. If your pet isn’t being managed for any chronic diseases – then you are ok to switch if you want to upgrade, just do your homework.

Do you already have insurance with any of the companies we mentioned? What was your experience? Do you have a company that we missed? Let us know if the comments below.

Here’s to anxiety-free pet ownership!

-The Coastal Animal Hospital Team



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