On January 4th, I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the Robin Falls Kids radio show. It was great fun talking about Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health and having the chance to reach people with my most important message: Our dogs (and cats) are individuals and need to be fed accordingly. Once pet owners understand this critical fact (and believe me that is a big step [click to continue…]
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With a title like that, I have to be selling something…right? Do I want to draw people to my website to buy my book? You betcha! Can the info in the book prevent tumors? I believe so. Let’s talk about it.
Dogs have several classes or different types of “masses” or growths that grow on the skin or under it. The most
sucking cells out of tumor or mass
common type is a papilloma or warty growth that slowly grows on the skin in middle-aged to older dogs. Next is the lipoma, or fatty growth underneath the skin or between the muscle layers. The nastiest and most dangerous skin tumor spreads locally and internally (metastasis= Meta (change) + stasis (stays in one place)). Its name is the mast cell tumor. This is the skin tumor vets want to rule out by aspirating a suspicious lump or mass. Looking at the cells we suck out of the mass often lets us know what we need to do. I say often because [click to continue…]
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Does your dog hold his or her head to one side? Scratch at his ears? Shake her head from side to side? Have a moist yeasty smell and grayish yellow gunk coming out of the ear? 
These symptoms are some of the most common ones that veterinarians see daily, and they can be the hardest to [click to continue…]
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This tick is engorged with the dog's blood
Tick-borne diseases are those carried and spread by blood-sucking ticks, which inadvertently ingest these “hitchhikers” and transfer them to the next victim. If the immune system of the new host doesn’t fight them off, a tick-borne disease can cause the animal to become ill. [click to continue…]
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As I wrote in my Thursday post, I’m recently returned from a trek up California’s Mt. Whitney. To my 
thinking, every day spent in nature is to be treasured. I told you too about the portly little marmot that’s a Poster Rodent for my fight to cut carbohydrates and calories in the diets of our pets–both dogs and cats. I lay out a path to better nutrition and dog [click to continue…]
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Doctor and patient discuss the surgery.
This last Sunday–a hot summer day here in Gilroy, California–my nephew invited me to a BBQ at his home. I love enjoying a pool on these late August and September; it actually makes the heat okay. Just as I walked in the door, and before I could even grab a beer and go sit by the pool, Steve called me over to check out his 40-year-old parrot, Merlin.
Merlin’s rear toe was hanging by a thread of skin, but there was little to no bleeding. In fact, this was the joint he had [click to continue…]
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Vaccines are an important part of good pet healthcare. My clients regularly ask me questions about vaccinating their dogs and puppies. And actually there are some common themes, so I thought I’d share my answers with my Dog Dish Diet readers.
What is a vaccine and how does it work? Vaccines are made of millions of “inactivated” or changed viruses that prepare the immune system for the “real thing” and chemicals (adjuvants) that further stimulate the immune system to react. The more the body reacts, the better the protection. However, in [click to continue…]
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Wouldn’t it be great to have a sense of smell like dogs do? You could tell where family members have been, and who they have been with by the odors left on their clothes. In fact, if you were lost you might be able to “smell” your way home by the odors of plants, trees, or activities present in your neighborhood. Dogs rely on their sense of smell as much as their owners rely on vision for [click to continue…]
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Hmmmm. Should I indulge myself in that triple-layer chocolate decadence torte (it looks so good) or should I be good and have chicken-broccoli-shitake mushroom stirfry with a side of brown rice. Yeah, I know it’s a tough decision. But at least we have a choice.
Our pets, however, don’t have nearly the freedom. Oh they can sit by the dinner table and seemingly watch an imaginary tennis match as their eyes track back and forth between our mouth and our plate. They can sit and stare at the cabinet where we keep the treats. And occasionally they get away from us and go outside and eat something incredibly disgusting. Still their options are limited. And at mealtime, we dole out the food. In short, our dogs are what we MAKE them eat.
And that’s why I wrote Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health. My goal is to arm YOU–every pet owner in America (the world?)–with the simple steps to selecting and serving your dog with the most nutritious food possible. There [click to continue…]
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When I first came up with the idea for my book, I thought I’d call it Dog Dish Blues because that’s exactly what so many of my patients (and my own dogs) have had from eating the wrong food. Dog Dish Blues is the perfect name for this syndrome, if you will: dry, itchy skin; red, goopy ears; upset stomach; all manner of bowel disorders; and much, much more. Any one of these ailments is most definitely cause for the blues…both for dog and owner.
By my own count, at least six of the Veterinary Pet Insurance Top 10 ailments as listed have a nutritional common denominator and may be caused by diet. Furthermore, I can tell you that in our own practice at Gilroy Veterinary Hospital fully one third of visits involve a Top 10 condition that can become chronic (meaning that the same symptoms come back several times after treatment).
I didn’t end up calling the book Dog Dish Blues because I wanted to focus on the benefits of nutritional treatment instead. And so, the book I wrote is called Dr. Greg’s Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health. Our success treating 100s of dogs is most encouraging. Our countdown to publication continues. Bone Appetit.
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