The PetHQ Newsletter
Dogs, cats and everything between. Plain-spoken guides on what's actually in the bag, and what the evidence actually says.
Latest guides
- Label reading
Read Any Pet Food Label in 60 Seconds
Four checks in order, the three complete-and-balanced statements most guides miss one of, and the one calculation that makes two bags comparable.
- Grain-free
Grain-Free Dog Food: What the Science Actually Says
An honest status update on the FDA's DCM investigation: what's confirmed, what's still unknown, and what to actually do about it.
- Training
Positive Reinforcement Training: Getting Started
Where "be the alpha" came from, why the man who popularised it spent a decade trying to unpublish it, and the timing that decides whether your dog learns anything.
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Labels & Ingredients
Compare Two Pet Food Labels Fairly: The Dry-Matter-Basis Calculator
A 10%-protein canned food and a 26%-protein kibble aren't actually 16 points apart. Convert both to a dry-matter basis, the same basis AAFCO's own nutrient minimums use, with a working calculator and two real worked examples.
Read Any Pet Food Label in 60 Seconds
Four checks in order, the three complete-and-balanced statements most guides miss one of, and the one calculation that makes two bags comparable.
What Actually Counts as a "By-Product" in Pet Food
AAFCO's real definitions, word for word, what each one actually excludes, and the 4-D question nobody answers straight.
Food & Nutrition
Pet Obesity: What Actually Reverses It
More than half of US dogs and cats are overweight or obese, and a 2023 survey found only 17% of dog owners and 28% of cat owners recognize it. What that gap means, and which interventions actually have evidence behind them.
Homemade Pet Diets: The Nutrient Gaps That Show Up Without a Formulator
Two studies, a decade apart, examined homemade dog food recipes for nutritional completeness. In the older one, only 4 of 200 recipes were written by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, and all four passed. The other 196 didn't.
How to Switch Your Pet's Food Without Wrecking Their Gut
The 7-to-10-day schedule is the same everywhere. What's missing is why it works and what to do when it doesn't. A 2023 study measured exactly what happens in a puppy's gut during a fast switch versus a slow one.
Raw Feeding: What the Evidence Says, and What the Bird Flu Recalls Changed
Cooking to 165°F kills H5N1 in pet food. Freezing does not. That distinction is the reason raw and frozen-raw diets carry a real, current risk that cooked food doesn't, confirmed by FDA's own recall records and a 2025 peer-reviewed review.
Grain-Free Dog Food: What the Science Actually Says
An honest status update on the FDA's DCM investigation: what's confirmed, what's still unknown, and what to actually do about it.
The Cat Nutrition Essentials Checklist
What a cat's body genuinely cannot make, the two taurine numbers AAFCO actually sets, and the six-item check to run on a bag before you buy it.
Supplements
Calming Supplements: The Most Marketing, the Least Evidence
CBD is the most popular calming ingredient for anxious pets and has no supporting evidence for it. L-theanine has controlled studies behind it and gets a fraction of the marketing. A veterinary behaviourist's own review, read directly.
Probiotics for Dogs and Cats: Strain, CFU, and What Survives the Trip
A CFU count on a probiotic label tells you almost nothing by itself. The two questions that actually matter: is the exact strain named, and has that strain actually been tested for surviving stomach acid?
Omega-3s for Pets: The Supplement With the Most Consistent Evidence
Unlike CBD (no supporting evidence) or glucosamine-chondroitin alone (mixed), omega-3 fish oil has multiple randomized controlled trials behind it in dogs with osteoarthritis, and real dose-response data for skin conditions too.
Does Your Pet Need a Multivitamin?
If a food's adequacy statement is real, the answer is almost always no, and stacking one on top carries a real toxicity risk. Which vitamins actually build up in the body, and why.
Your Pet's Supplement Isn't Working: How Long to Give It, What to Check
Different supplement categories have genuinely different timelines before you can fairly judge them. A cross-category reference table, built from this site's own supplement research, so you know how long is long enough.
The Pet Supplement Label Decoder
Nobody signs off on these products before they ship. Five lines to read, in order, and the arithmetic to run on each one.
Health & Preventive Care
Anesthesia-Free Dental Cleaning: Why Every Major Veterinary Body Opposes It
AAHA's own guidelines call it "unacceptable and below the standard of care." The AVDC has opposed it since 2004. A real case: a dog cleaned anesthesia-free for years needed 15 teeth extracted once someone actually looked underneath.
Toxic Foods and Household Hazards: The Watch-vs-Emergency Line
Food isn't the top real-world poisoning risk. ASPCA's own 2025 data puts human medications ahead of chocolate, and household products ahead of most named foods. What's actually most likely to poison your pet, and when to call now.
Parasite Prevention: What Changes by Season and Where You Live
The actual recommendation from CAPC, the veterinary parasitology authority, isn't a seasonal on/off schedule. It's year-round, everywhere, and the reasoning is more specific than "better safe than sorry."
Pet Food Recalls: How to Find Out Fast, and What to Do
FDA offers a free email subscription for animal food recalls, and AVMA runs a dedicated recall-alert feed too. Here's how to actually get notified instead of checking manually, and what the Safety Reporting Portal does for you.
Is Your Pet a Healthy Weight? A Body Condition and Portion Check
Four hands-on checks (ribs, waist, abdominal tuck, fat deposits) to place your dog or cat on a body-condition scale, then a calorie calculator tied to the result, built on the same physiological checks used by the published veterinary scoring system, in original wording.
Training & Behaviour
Separation Anxiety: What Helps, and What Makes It Worse
Punishment and "tough love" don't just fail to fix separation anxiety, they make it measurably worse. A review of 91 dogs found systematic desensitization plus counterconditioning succeeded in all of them.
Enrichment and Puzzle Feeders: What Actually Reduces Problem Behaviour
A randomized shelter study found food-toy enrichment measurably increased calm behavior in dogs. A cat-specific study found no activity increase from food puzzles at all. The evidence isn't uniform, and treating it that way misses the real finding.
When Reward-Based Training Stalls
Progress stopped isn't a mystery; it's almost always one of three things: the reward lost its value, the criteria got too hard too fast, or the environment changed. A diagnostic to run before assuming your dog "just isn't getting it."
Positive Reinforcement Training: Getting Started
Where "be the alpha" came from, why the man who popularised it spent a decade trying to unpublish it, and the timing that decides whether your dog learns anything.
Gear & Products
Litter Boxes and Litter: What Cats Actually Prefer
A controlled 28-cat study found no real preference for covered versus uncovered boxes. A second study suggests the "cats prefer covered boxes" claim some sources repeat may actually be a surface-area confound.
Dog DNA Tests: What Independent Testing Found
A journalist told one company a 52-kilogram purebred Great Dane was suspected to be a chihuahua. The company's DNA test came back 100% chihuahua, the exact breed it was told to expect, not the dog's actual breed.
Life Stage
"Puppy," "Senior," "All Life Stages": What Those Claims Legally Require
"Growth" and "all life stages" are real, AAFCO-defined claims backed by an actual feeding trial or formulation standard. "Senior" is not. AAFCO has never defined it, on any species, at any age.
What to Ask For at a Senior Pet's Wellness Visit
AAHA's own guidelines name specific tests and frequencies most vets never spell out unprompted, including one that should be run before any procedure requiring anesthesia. What to actually ask for, by name.
Multi-Pet Households: Feeding, Resource Guarding, and Keeping the Dog Out of the Cat Food
A bite of cat food won't hurt a dog. A whole bag can trigger pancreatitis, a real emergency. The severity depends entirely on amount, and on whether your dog already has a risk factor for it.
Trends & Reports
The Cost of Care: What's Driving Vet Prices, and What Owners Are Actually Doing
70% of pet owners have delayed or skipped a vet visit over cost, per a 2025 survey of 1,000 owners. Pet insurance, sold as the answer, covers barely 5% of US pets, against 95% of dogs in Sweden. There isn't a clean fix, and pretending otherwise doesn't help.
The State of Pet Parenting in 2026
Where the $158 billion actually goes, why a record total and owners cutting back are both true at once, and the gap between dogs and cats nobody prices in.