Why do I say outlandish cover stories because I was told that the office assistant just graduated from vet school and took a new job. Well, since I know for a fact that she did not just graduate from vet school because she was at my graduate ceremony getting her degree in business administration, what the hell? Come to find out she did get another job at a vet office, in the field she wants to practice and gave her two weeks notice but the doc told her to just leave.  Now I understand staff comes and goes but its the manner in which staff comes and goes that defines a practice. If each year, your staff is replaced with a new staff – then something is odd. If your staff is replaced monthly, something is wrong. Is it you perhaps?

Your most valuable asset is your staff, happy employees don’t leave happy places to work. Employees don’t leave bad companies – they leave bad bosses and if your patients keep seeing different people come and go, even if its over the course of a couple of years, they will leave too because the vibe in the office seems different. Its no longer a happy stress-free place, its got internal turmoil usually at the helm. If you are a bad boss, not only do you employees feel stressed, your patients or clients can feel it too.

Although I now understand where my weird vibe was coming from every single time I go into that office, it doesn’t work for me, it hasn’t really worked for since they moved to a bizarre location that’s a traffic nightmare, its time to move on.

I started using dogpile to search through the various search engine but dogpile scans through google and bing which brings back the useless crap that I don’t need or want to see. I want to be able to search by keywords and that seems to be missing in Google, Bing and even Dogpile now

So how does one get rid of the useless search results and start finding the information that is needed in the cloud? I want to be able to type in keywords and get what I’m looking for and not have to be really specific in my word search, is that too much to ask?

Well, you can still use google but go to http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all to use the original Google search engine or try

Altavista.com http://www.altavista.com

Yahoo.com http://www.yahoo.com/

Lycos.com http://search.lycos.com

Search.com http://www.search.com (which still searches through Bing and Google but at least you get a little more definite keyword search results)

But recently, one of my neighbors kids scaled the fence, rosebushes and all to come get their little dog that wandered off. These weren’t little kids, the youngest looked alot older than his 10 years and the older one looked like a full-grown man, they didn’t announced themselves, they slying came into my backyard and walked right into my house to get their little dog. Scared the crap out of me, two men in my backyard while I was standing there naked getting dressed. I didn’t know who they were, I had no defense. I was visibily shaken and when I went to tell my neighbor that her kids were in my backyard and in my house while I was naked, she smiled and said “oh, I told them to go back there and get the dog”  – no real apology for scaring me.  What if I had a gun? How come they didn’t announce themselves? How come they thought it was ok to come into my house? Who taught them their manners?

The gates are locked for a reason. If I don’t answer the door, maybe I’m out back or in the shower but either way that does not give a neighbor the right to violate my privacy or my security.

Now I can’t do anything illegal like putting wire or broken glass on the fences that would hurt anyone coming over because apparently my privacy rights aren’t legal if I hurt someone in their attempt to violate my rights. But I can put harmless fence spikes on top of the fences that won’t damage you but will hurt like hell. I wouldn’t want to hurt the animals anyways and I’m pretty sure the animals will just go through the kitty door. 

I’ve also learned a valuable lesson, my gates and fences are quite as secure as I thought they were and I need to bolt the gates from inside and also make the gate doors a little stronger. And my cell phone should always be within reach.

Maybe my neighbor didn’t mean anything by it but why didn’t her kids say something when they were in the yard, why be all sneaky?

I have to admit, sometimes I’m horrible about following up especially if you catch me off-guard and give me a phone number to call – kind of reminds of when I was an IT person and everyone would stop me in the hall to tell me their problem, at some point, you kind of start to tune them out or sometimes between me writing down a phone number and remembering where I put it or what piece of paper I wrote it on, I forget to do it and then I feel weird about calling someone I probably should have called 3 weeks ago (by now that person has found an accountant)
        – emailing me is the best way to contact me hands down, its there in print and I’ve got it, texting would probably work too, calling me, not so much.

But there is also negative word of mouth which just rubs me the wrong way, when you push the concept of selling yourself on people. I’ve said it before: making your clients work for you to get you work  and constantly selling yourself must be exhausting and its a real buzz-kill. Would you want a slimy salesman harrassing you all the time? And if perhaps, that getting your customers to tell their friends by ramming it down their throats on a constant basis is your idea of advertising, what do I get out of telling my friends?

For example, isn’t it great that you can come in anytime and get wellness care, tell your friends about us. Lets see I pay to come and get help anytime, I’m pretty sure you don’t see me for free and yes its great but stop being a car salesman, its kind of slimy. 

Another example if the form letters requesting you recommend at least 3 people that might benefit for your wonderful experience by sending the person requesting it their information. Kind of slimy in my opinion, I’m not giving out my friends and family’s personal information. If they’re interested in whatever I’ve been doing, they can read about it here and call themselves. I don’t give out personal information.

Now on the other hand, sending out a word of mouth advertising email campaign is great, it gets all the people on your list (the key word here is “your list” of contacts) to know about something you’ve done or if you have a new merchandise etc. There are also other forms of word of mouth advertising beyond just service, its that special touch you do for a client, like come help them with their bills every month or an interesting slogan or name of a company, its about architectural, kinetic, generous means of advertising.  Twitter is definetly a form of word of mouth advertising, get yourself on there and talk about something related to your business, get other people to follow you by being unique (and no, I don’t have a unique approach yet – working on it). A much better way to encourage your clients to spread the word is to have them write testitmonals for you, share their opinions on facebook or yelp.

Do something extraordinary, give away things, you can always make up for it in your pricing structure, for example, every once in awhile, I have freebie Mondays (more or less, that means I probably forgot to write down how long I did something for you and you got that for advice or discussion for free). Write a thank you note to a client, tell them how wonderful they are just because, be geniune, treat your clients and vendors like you want to be treated.

What I really like about him and apparently a few other people feel the same way because they were talking in the waiting area was that he always had time to talk to you about any new issues or concerns, he wasn’t running from patient to patient and he didn’t always try to upsell you on services. He actually seem to care. I looked forward to my visits with him and it didn’t hurt that he was good-looking, had a geninue smile for everyone. I felt like I had gotten to know him a little, what his favorite band was, what his sense of humor was, what he liked to do in his spare time, the typing with one hand and eating doughnuts was an interesting fact about him (i know quirky but I like quirky and smart) …. and he really did seem to care, he always ask me how long it had been – trying to get me to quit smoking, how long since my last cigarette, or that he would love me no matter what, if I quit or not. I was actually looking forward to telling him I was on my way to quitting, going longer and longer without smoking, he said he would keep bugging me until I quit and now, he’s gone, so what does it matter really, who’s going to bug me and care that much? Maybe he was just my doctor but how often do you feel like your doctor actually cares and you’re not just a number or money to them? He always had time and treated you  like you were the only person that matter at that moment he was doing the adjustment, not the 5 other people waiting for their turns. And he listened, if I said I was having a problem with a specific area, he checked it.

I think Dr Stephanie cares about you but the upselling, seriously give it a break, can you just talk to me once without selling me your business model. I do not have any friends that would be interested, 90% of my friend have no idea where the hell Concord is nor do they live in the area, they’re not interested, stop trying to upsell your product. I know how great is it but I’m starting to wonder why all your assistant doctors leave, what is it about you, that makes them leave your practice?  You had a great one before Dr. John but she left too. You start to feel a connection with someone and then poof, they are just gone with no goodbyes, like they never existed. And the newest one, he might be a great guy but I doubt I’ll let myself open up to him, he’ll be gone sooner or later.

There’s a review on yelp that I actually agree with the car salesman pitch, sometimes it seems like its all about the money, the more patient you initially bring in, the more money you make, its not the wellness clients that bring in money, its the ones that need immediate care and can afford it. The wellness clients means you are doing something right and have gotten us out of pain but we don’t bring in the big bucks.

I’m a small business just like you and I completely believe in word of mouth advertising but I don’t force it on my clients, if they think I’m spectacular, they will refer me. If they don’t, I suppose they wont and they won’t continue to see me either.  Word of mouth is great but making your clients work for you to get you work – something seems a little odd about that, you’re not doing something right. Maybe you’re too busy to see that you have a great bunch of clients that keep coming back. Constantly selling yourself must be exhausting and its a real buzz-kill.

So poof, he’s gone like he never existed. When I mentioned he had been helping me with my wrist issue, she ignored my comment about him and tried to upsell me on the wellness care and I should tell my friends, really? seriously?

It almost makes one think, that he really didn’t care about anyone, how callous can someone be not saying goodbye, was it all an act? Which I don’t believe for a second but maybe he wasn’t allowed to say goodbye, which also makes me wonder why he left.

I’m very sad, it sucks that he’s gone, you get to know someone for two years and then they’re gone (which honestly in my opinion, makes it hard to trust people and get to know them, if they just leave all the time)

Poof, he never existed, all traces of him have just disappeared.

What I’ve been reading so far and I’m not sure why I have to research this and why my vet can’t get me options to the prescribed diet unless he’s getting a kickback for selling it and doesn’t want to give options which is most likely the case.  Anyways, what the problem is that cats shouldn’t be eating dry food, its not natural and doesn’t provide a high-enough moisture content for cats like a rat would. Cats are carinvores, they eat meat. Another thing is alot of cheap dry food has grain, rice, wheat, corn and fillers which drys out the content and isn’t natural either, when’s the last time you saw a cat bring back grain to you?  Cheap dry food also has by-products – when’s the last time you saw a cat eat the tail or a beak? Usually that’s the part left behind..I know gross, but its true. Why would you want to feed your cat food that has that included?

Now naturally you should start your cat on good wet food and not dry food but if you didn’t know when you first started having cats in your life and your cats have always eaten dry food, then switching them to only wet food mid-life probably won’t work. My cats get a combination of dry and wet food daily which has only been a recent thing in the last couple of years when I was hiding medicine in one’s wet food, the others had to get wet food too and now its a daily thing except the cat with CRF doesn’t really like wet food all that much, we’re in trial and error phase, she likes some but not all of it.

From what I’m reading cats with CRF and all cats in general should be eating grain-free, high-moisture content, no by-products cat food preferably wet food better is human grade wet food and the best option would be a raw diet. 

Now here’s an interesting part, my vet said that all my cats (they range from ages 1-15) can eat the modifed renal low-protein diet and it wouldn’t hurt them. Huh? That doesn’t make any sense. Cats aren’t like people and there seems to be a lot of controvesary surrounding the idea of giving cats a low protein diet especially in the early stages and even more so when they are healthy. A low protein diet will not prevent chronic renal failure or any of the other diseases of advancing age. So there is no medical reason to put your senior cat on a low protein diet. (source: http://www.ehow.com/facts_4896669_low-protein-diet-cats.html)

At no time did my vet suggest that having my cats on a dry food diet only cause some of these problems such as my cat with early stage chronic renal failure or my cat that just had major surgery for kidney problem and crystals or the one that had asthma might have been caused by grains (I thinking maybe its time to find a different vet).

If I could have the reader of this webpage take away just one word from this discussion, it would be “water”.  If your cat is on a properly hydrated diet of 100% canned food – and no dry food – Always keep in mind that water flowing through the urinary tract system is the most important factor in keeping it healthy. Note that I said “water” – not “crystals” or “urine pH” – or any of the expensive prescription diets often recommended by veterinarians. A cat’s normal prey is ~70% water.  Canned food is ~78% water. Dry food is ~5-10% water.  Cats have a low thirst drive and do not make up the deficit at the water bowl.  They are designed to get water with their food. (source http://www.catinfo.org/feline_urinary_tract_health.htm)

Now my cats are used to eating dry food so once again switching them to an all wet food diet probably isn’t a good tactic to do all at once + one kitty just doesn’t like wet food all that much, although she does drink alot of water, she seems to love it, she’ll also sit in the rain. I’ve started becoming one of those strange cat people that reads the labels before I buy their cat food, I’m looking for high-moisture content, no grain and definetly no by-products. I have found that the following products seem to have all the right ratio of carbs, protein and moisture that a cats needs, I choose to site moisture content but cats are designed to eat a high protein (~50% of calories, or more), moderate fat (~40% of calories), and very low carbohydrate (well below 10% of calories) diet (source: http://www.catinfo.org/commercialcannedfoods.htm)

• Wellness Salmon, Salmon Meal and Deboned Turkey Dry Food has 11% moisture and no rice.
• Wellness Core dry food is grain-free and has 8% moisture content.
• Wellness Wet food has between 78% and 82% moisture content and they all seem to like Wellness food.
•  WeRuVa wet cat food is human grade and they seem to love it, most of them do anyways and it has 85% moisture content
• BFF (Best Friends Food) wet cat food has a 82% moisture content and again they love this, even my picky one likes some of the flavors

There is alot of information to read about this subject and this site is great it breaks down alot of the information about what cats should be eating and the different types of food: FEEDING YOUR CAT: KNOW THE BASICS OF FELINE NUTRITION

Another thing about some of these prescription diets is that they have BHA/BHT and Ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin is a pestcide – would you eat it?

So overall, I think I’ll stick with the food I know is better for them, start looking for ones with high-moisture content, maybe we’ll make the transistion to a raw food diet at some point and find another vet.