Veterinary Vertex
Veterinary Vertex is a weekly podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the clinical and research discoveries published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) and the American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR). Tune in to learn about cutting-edge veterinary research and gain in-depth insights you won’t find anywhere else. Come away with knowledge you can put to use in your own practice – along with a healthy dose of inspiration to remind you what you love about veterinary medicine.
Veterinary Vertex
Inside The Bowl: What Home-Prepared Dog Diets Reveal
Ever wondered what’s actually inside a “homemade” dog diet—and whether it truly keeps dogs healthy? We sat down with researchers Drs. Janice O'Brien and Audrey Ruple from the Dog Aging Project to pull back the curtain on what owners are really feeding, what the data reveals, and how to make home-prepared meals complete and balanced without guesswork. The conversation starts with a major survey upgrade: moving from simple checkboxes to detailed free-text responses that capture real ingredients, supplements, and routines. That shift exposes a surprising truth—most DIY bowls contain nine to ten ingredients, far beyond chicken and rice, yet many still miss key nutrients for maintenance.
We walk through the practical and the personal: how to take a smarter diet history in the exam room, what owners should ask before they shop, and which tools can reliably build balanced recipes. Instead of fear or food wars, we focus on action. Consulting a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, using validated recipe platforms, and leveraging commercial base mixes can transform care and confidence. We also explore the long game. Do incomplete diets quietly shape future health risks? Which deficiencies matter most over time? Longitudinal data from the Dog Aging Project aims to turn those open questions into guidance that protects joints, skin, metabolism, and longevity.
There’s another layer that deserves attention: diversity among human owners. While our canine cohorts are broad, our human samples often aren’t. Culture, income, education, and access influence feeding choices, shopping habits, and follow-up care. Broadening who participates in pet nutrition research makes our recommendations more realistic and more fair. By the end, you’ll have a clearer view of where homemade feeding succeeds, where it stumbles, and how to build a plan that meets your dog’s needs today and supports health tomorrow.
If this conversation helped you think differently about dog nutrition, subscribe, share with a friend who home cooks, and leave a quick review—your feedback helps more pet owners find science they can use.
AJVR article: https://doi.org/10.2460/ajvr.25.06.0216
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SPEAKER_01:Welcome to Veterinary Vertex, the AVMA Journal's podcast, where we delve into behind-the-scenes look with manuscript authors. I'm editor-in-chief Lisa Fordier, joined by Associate Editor Sarah Wright. Today we're exploring the really important topic of home-prepared diets. This is an important topic to both pet owners and veterinarians. We have our guests Janice O'Brien and Audrey Ruppel. Thank you, ladies, for being here with us today and sharing the background on this manuscript. Thanks for having us. Yeah, happy to be here.
SPEAKER_02:So you are both repeat guests on our podcast. We're so excited to have you with us today. And before we dive in, could you share a little bit about your background and what brought you to the dog aging project?
SPEAKER_03:Sure. This is Audrey, and I'll start. I went to vet school at Colorado State University and then did a residency and a master's associated with that, but then kept on for a little bit more pain and did a PhD in epidemiology and ended up really focusing on small animal Epi. And that's a pretty unique perspective to have as an epidemiologist in the veterinary field. Most veterinary epidemiologists have a large animal focus. And so it became a pretty natural fit for working on projects that look at longitudinal data in dogs, like the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study or the Dog Aging Projects. And then fortunately for me, I was able to convince Dr. Janice O'Brien to come back to school and do a PhD with me. Janice, why don't you talk about your background?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but that was um, yeah, basically I was in practice. Um I had gotten out of the army and I was in small animal practice in rural Virginia. And I was just kind of missing and having this feeling of wanting to do research. Um, and I really wanted to do it specifically in epidemiology. And I remember looking for the epi programs that I knew had existed when I was in vet school and wasn't finding uh things on them. So I just reached out to Audrey, who had taught me epidemiology when I was in vet school. And she was like, Hey, you're in Virginia. Uh, I'm in Virginia, you need to come do a PhD. And I was like, Yep, that sounds, that sounds like this needs to happen. That's a great story.
SPEAKER_01:Your guys' AJVR article describes home-prepared diets for dogs enrolled in the dog aging project cohort. We've seen a lot of studies, really fabulous, uh meaningful studies from this dog aging project. Uh, what motivated you behind this specific area of looking at home-prepared diets?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and so the really the impetus for this was the change in the diet survey. So um originally the dog aging project diet survey collected really, really basic information about diet type. Like it was just a button of like, do you feed your dog kibble, canned food, um, you know, freeze-dried food, uh, or a home prepared diet. And it was just a button. Um, and then in response to feedback from participants, the diet survey changed in 2023 to allow um much more detailed information to be collected about both commercial and home prepared diets. But when I started looking into the home prepared diet, free text responses where people are just telling us everything that they wanted to tell us about their home prepared diets, um, it was really interesting. And I was like, there's a lot here we should look into this.
SPEAKER_01:Surveys are tough. Those free text uh areas are need to be combed through pretty carefully to find out what your next goals are. Janice, did you have any assumptions uh going into this study that were challenged by the resultant data?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, absolutely. So, and this is one of the reasons that I love epidemiology. Um, my experience in my narrow worldview had taught me that basically home-prepared diets were all chicken and rice. And so turns out that that is not at all true. Um, this uh data set really showed me that all of the ingredients that can go into a diet are so varied. And then the average number of ingredients uh in each diet in this data set was nine to ten ingredients. So that's not two. Um so yeah, that was important to learn why epidemiology is so important and not just knowing your small um big breadth of experience.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was just at a um association management leadership seminar last week. And I was the only veterinarian there. So of course people are talking to me about their pets, and a lot of people are like, what are your thoughts on like homemade versus commercial diets? And I'm like, well, if you're gonna do homemade, please work with the veterinary nutritionist to make sure it's complete and balanced. Like that's always my take-home message for people when they ask. So with that being said, Janice, what are your key take-home messages that you hope veterinarians and clients will remember from your work?
SPEAKER_04:Well, yeah, uh, that's definitely one of them. That yeah, we there's a lot of things that we can do to help people to make a complete and balanced diet. Um, but that most of the diets that were in this data set were not um likely meeting nutritional recommendations for maintenance. Um, and it was interesting to me to show that in a different way than previous research has demonstrated that because previous research just looked at the recipes that were available. Um, then this was actually looking at the way that um people are feeding their dogs. And so I think that's the first one. Then the second one is just that, yeah, the home prepared diets are really as different as they could possibly be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm sure glad no nutritionist looks at my diet to see if I'm meeting all the nutritional requirements. Uh, Giannis, of all the projects uh within uh the dog aging project, what sparked your interest in nutrition?
SPEAKER_04:I feel like it was uh literally just having been in practice, I felt like a lot of the questions that I wanted to answer um in terms of my research were focused around nutrition. And so that's that's what really drove me to focus on nutrition, but in the epidemiology sense.
SPEAKER_01:From that lens, how could you approach nutrition? As you said, it's so highly varied. Uh, give us some insight onto how you think about researching this area of nutrition.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so my PhD program, um, like both the classes, but then also just the experience of being able to conduct research, get feedback on it, um, has really taught me so much about all of the different ways that we can approach a question and try to answer it and all of the, you know, potential flaws, you know, with survey data and and the study designs that you have to be considering when you're trying to work with the data.
SPEAKER_01:What questions are still out there that really bother you and drive your current research or next research project?
SPEAKER_04:Um, so my big questions are all related to um, you know, how how we feed our dogs for the period of time during their lives when they're basically young and healthy and how that affects their life later on. Like we know so much about nutrition for disease processes, but as a preventive medicine person, I wanted to know how nutrition exposures can help keep pets healthy.
SPEAKER_02:So, Janice, looking ahead, what are the next steps for research in this area?
SPEAKER_04:Well, so my big follow-on research question is now that we've uh demonstrated within this data set that um these diets in general are not um meeting nutritional recommendations, I want to know what sorts of effects long-term feeding of these diets has. Um, because I know when I was in practice, I saw patients that were eating very clearly incomplete diets, but they seemed mostly fine when I was seeing them. And so I would, I was always curious how much of a fuss should I be making that as a practitioner? Um and so, yeah, my research question is to basically answer that long-term feeding question for dogs that are eating home-prepared diets for maintenance, um, are they more or less likely to develop any particular health conditions later in life?
SPEAKER_02:And Audrey, are there any particular populations, species, or environments that you think deserve closer study?
SPEAKER_03:I do. Um, we're doing a really great job in terms of getting a really diverse population of dogs enrolled in our research programs, not just the dog aging project, but at every individual vet teaching hospital across the US that's doing research, we do an exceptional job of getting a diverse population of dogs, but we don't do a very good job of getting a diverse population of human owners. And so it's hard for us to know how people's cultural or socioeconomic status really directs or interfaces with our dog's health outcomes. And so, especially when we're thinking in terms of nutrition, we know that nutrition for our animals would be impacted by things like an owner's um income level or an education level. And so I think that for me, what's really interesting is thinking about over the, you know, the rest of my career is trying to really broaden the scope of diversity in the human populations that we're enrolling in our dog-related studies.
SPEAKER_01:That's fascinating. And I forgot to say Go Rams, I'm CSU 91. Um, Janice, you've already uh alluded to mentorship and uh working with the fabulous Audrey. Uh, what other mentors' experiences shaped your perspective on research?
SPEAKER_04:Well, um, another one of uh my PhD um committee members is Dr. Katie Tolbert. And she is a board-certified veterinutritionist, and she has been really a truly amazing mentor in this arena and really helping to shape my questions and um and and how that fits into the nutrition clinical perspective. Um, and then also, if you can consider the mentors, the participants in the dog aging project themselves, I think, have really taught me a lot because they have really taught me about all the different ways that people are choosing to feed their cats that I would absolutely never have um learned about if I if I wasn't um working with this data set.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Katie's amazing. Uh it's I think it people take it for granted how hard it is to write a good question, whether it's a an exam or a survey or any other sort of research. And I remember taking two weeks on my, what was it, a T32 or an R01? I can't remember, my first training grant with my mentor, two weeks to write the hypothesis. I I was out of my skin, but it was absolutely the right thing to do and transformational, transformative in uh how I looked at writing good questions after that. What what would you say to how do you write a good question?
SPEAKER_04:I feel like uh for epidemiology stuff, that is like always our first question. We're like, what is the question you're trying to ask right now? And what do you want to answer? It's totally an epidemiology question.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, just what is your question, right? Just start there. What is your question? Um, you you said that, you know, we're looking at some of these animals clinically. How did that clinical work influence this direction of your research?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I alluded that. I feel like a lot of my clinical work um really left me with the questions that I hope to answer in my research. And, you know, some of those are, you know, I feel like some of them ended up being like, I don't want to say controversial. That's not the right term, but just like they're the edge of what we don't know and have not yet researched. And that's what I want to learn. And so um, yeah, I'm trying to figure out how we can use large data sets like Dot Gaging Project to answer all of those um questions that I feel like a lot of people, not just me, have.
SPEAKER_02:Now, Janice, this next set of questions is going to be very important for our listeners. And the first one is going to revolve around the veterinarian's perspective. So, Janice, what is one piece of information the veterinarian should know about home-prepared diets for companion dogs?
SPEAKER_04:So my number one take home would be that these diets have lots of ingredients. Um, and perhaps that's because it's the thing that surprised me the most. But um, the average number of ingredients in these diets was nine to ten ingredients. Um, so if you're asking in a history um and you're at like ingredient number three, I would just keep asking one more time if that's really everything that you're putting in your dog's diet.
SPEAKER_02:And for the public, what's one thing you wish more people understood about this issue?
SPEAKER_04:I think the thing I I wished so hard was I know that there are so many good tools out there that can help pet owners, um, veterinarians too, who are um wanting to feed and formulate home prepared diets. Um, and those tools can help them meet make one that needs nutritional recommendations. Um and that includes obviously consultation with a board certified veterinary nutritionist. Um, but there's also great um recipes that are written by board certified veterinary nutritionists. There are um websites that help you formulate based on particular ingredients that you want to make maintenance diets. Um, but just picking a random internet recipe is not one of those good tools.
SPEAKER_01:Perfectly said. Uh as you wind up, we like to ask a little bit more of a fun question. So, Audrey, you've been kind of quiet. We'll start with you. What's the oldest or the most interesting item either sitting on your desk or tucked away in a drawer? And if you have it, feel free to show it to us.
SPEAKER_03:Um, I'm not able to show it to you, but I actually have two magic eight balls in my office because sometimes science is not enough, and we just need to go out and just ask, ask for the ask for the answer from somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01:Have you ever done a study to say, like, if I ask this eight ball, eight ball, what do you say? Do you go and ask the other one and do they agree?
SPEAKER_03:I have a favorite magic eight ball that seems to be more accurate than the other one. So I am going to try to test this in a really scientific perspective and it's see if I'm act if I am accurate in that.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. I don't have an eight ball, but I do have an old lava lamp that my son gave me at least a decade ago. And I love to have that thing like bubbling around, just some old nostalgia. It's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_04:It's so nostalgic. Janice, how about you? So the thing that I like to keep on my desk is actually um a challenge coin. So in the military, um, we have these things called challenge coins that people will get for particular events, but I am a member of the Millennium Cohort study. And I keep the challenge coin that says that I'm a member of the Millennium Cohort study, which is studying service members and their health over time. Um, and it means a lot to me to be a member of a cohort and then to also be a researcher doing research on a cohort of dogs. And I'm a member of a human cohort myself.
SPEAKER_01:Fantastic. Congratulations. That's really cool. We haven't had I've never heard that before. How about one more? Audrey, what do you think is the most beautiful animal and why? The dog.
SPEAKER_03:I think because of their loyalty, their open-heartedness, and just their ability for an infinite capacity of joy.
SPEAKER_01:All right. So that's an inside beauty. Janice, how about you?
SPEAKER_04:Gotta love the dogs and beautiful, beautiful on the inside, but also there are some really, really gorgeous dog colors that just really can be striking.
SPEAKER_01:Very good.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. When you see like a really pretty golden retriever that's like just think room, their coat's all shiny, and you're like, that's a good looking golden. Well, JS, Audrey, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you being here with us today.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks so much for having us back.
SPEAKER_02:It's great to see you both.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:And for our listeners, you could read their full article on AJBR. I'm Sarah Wright here with Lisa Fournier. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Veterinary Vertex. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review on FL Podcast or wherever you listen.
