Nutrition Growth Consult for Pet Owners

Welcome Pet Parents seeking nutritional advice for Growing Dogs or Cats
 

Veterinarians:  Click here to switch to the consultation process for veterinarians.

The Growth Consult is a service available for pet owners seeking a feeding plan for their healthy, growing puppy or kitten. Please read the following information carefully, and select "Continue" at the bottom when you are ready to initiate a Nutrition Consultation.   

Our Expertise

We specialize in making sound dietary and nutritional recommendations for healthy dogs and cats. You may have nutrition related questions concerning your pet. For example:

• You may be uncertain which pet food product to feed.
• You may have general questions on dog or cat nutrition.       
• You may have questions about commercial pet foods or alternative feeding options such as homemade, fresh, raw, etc.
• You may have concerns about feeding a large or giant breed puppy through the first year.

We make dietary recommendations based on the current principles of medical management and the pet's food preferences. We offer choices based on the known current scientific literature and clinical experience. The veterinary nutritionists at PetDiets have, all combined, more than 100 yrs. of experience from clinical practice, research, teaching, industry, and private consulting perspectives. Meet the PetDiets.com Nutritionists on the 'About Us' page.

Your Veterinarian Must Be Involved

Your primary care veterinarian is a vital partner in the care of your pet. The medical record (MR) specific to your pet must be sent and reviewed by us before making a dietary recommendation. This is not optional.

We work through your veterinarian in making nutritional recommendations for healthy growing dogs and cats. We do not have a veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR) with you according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and State or Provincial regulations. Please see https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/pet-owners/petcare/veterinarian-client-patient-relationship-vcpr for more information. Therefore, we work through and with your veterinarian as a nutrition specialist.

Please have your veterinarian fax (636.238.4359) or email (Admin@PetDietsNutrition.com) the pet’s medical record to us. We cannot request the medical record from your veterinarian directly. In many cases, veterinarians will require verbal or written consent to forward your pet's medical records to us.

AVMA Principle: The information within veterinary medical records is confidential. It must not be released except as required or allowed by law, or by consent of the owner of the patient. See https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/principles-veterinary-medical-ethics-avma and https://www.avma.org/advocacy/state-local-issues/confidentiality-veterinary-patient-records.

We will match up the medical records sent by your veterinarian with your online Consultation Request. A VRCP Referral form is required and we will forward this form to your veterinarian after receiving your consult request. You can check on the status of your consultation at any time by emailing (Admin@PetDietsNutrition.com) after you have made that MR request of your primary care veterinarian. You may have more than one veterinarian or specialist, and, you may send the MR from each to us for review. There is no page or file size limit.  The more information we have, the better for the pet.

Accurate, Easy-to-understand Information and Feeding Instructions

We consider client education an important part of our mission and service. We will provide you with the most current information specific to your pet’s growth requirements, written in language that you can understand. Feeding instructions for commercial product recommendations and homemade recipes are provided until the pet achieves a mature body weight.

Individualized Dietary Requests

Dietary requests for individual patients are what we do best.  View Types of Nutritional Recommendations.
We can, on paper, balance most any reasonable dietary request for a homemade diet, if you wish. The homemade diet instructions are quite detailed, yet give options and allow for food substitutions if appropriate. The homemade formulations usually involve protein and carbohydrate/fiber sources, +/- vegetables and a single, readily available specifically designed vitamin-mineral supplement. We give the daily food amounts in grams and some common kitchen measures specific to the pet’s weight. Feeding instructions are provided through to expected adult weight. Most pets only need one nutritional formulation (one base recipe) and then food substitutions are offered where appropriate.

Consulting Process

Each dietary consultation is completed by a state-licensed ACVN Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist®. Meet the PetDiets.com Nutritionists on the 'About Us' page. Each dietary consultation includes a teleconsultation, arranged by email at a time convenient for you once we have received the pet’s medical record. The teleconsultation will be by telephone or video conference software whichever you prefer at no additional cost to you. Your online consult information and the medical record will be reviewed before the teleconsult. Meet your veterinary nutritionist in video chat!

Turn around time: Generally, the entire process can be accomplished within 7-10 days. Depending on receipt of the medical record, a signed veterinarian-client-patient relationship (VCPR) form and then scheduling of the teleconsultation with you, we can have written dietary recommendations to you and your veterinarian, simultaneously, usually within 10 days. An automated email update on your consult will come from 'Intelligen@aciemails.com'. You may check on the status of your consultation at any time by emailing (Admin@PetDietsNutrition.com).

Fees

The fee for a Growth Consultation including a 30-minute teleconsult is $500 (USD) per pet and includes food dosing information until the pet achieves a mature body weight.

Reformulations: There is an additional charge of $250 to reformulate another homemade diet if you should later request a specific change in ingredients, foods, or supplements that were not previously specified or if the pet should develop another medical condition.

Included Services

Our consulting fee covers product research, a review of the medical information, a 30-minute teleconsultation with you, software recipe formulations, and written dietary recommendations. The fees cover ALL follow-up questions you may have about our dietary recommendations. Food rejection or aversions are potential problems and we provide additional guidance in these cases. Food substitutions are always suggested in the write-up if appropriate.

If you have questions about this process, please feel free to email us (Info@PetDietsNutrition.com).  

Ready to Get Started?

• New clients:  If this is your first time consulting with us, you will be asked to open an account to link you and your pet(s) with your local veterinarian or specialist from our extensive database. If your veterinarian or local practice is not in our database, you may add that information.
• Returning clients:  If you have been here before, you will be asked to log in on the next page.

Continue