Почему ветеринария стала дорогой: интервью о роли частного капитала

Joe thank you for doing this I don't think I've ever probably have I don't remember I don't think I've ever interviewed an advertiser and so I just want to be clear about why I'm doing this interview so I called you several months ago to ask you if you wanted to advertise on our show because you have a pet related company I love dogs I've got a dog right there and we had this conversation that was like so unbelievably interesting so interesting that I haven't stopped thinking about it so that's I just want to be fully transparent about why I asked you to come thank you for for doing it so here's here's my real question veterinary care anyone who owns a dog or cat knows a lot about it there's no backstop there's no health insurance whatever and you'll pay anything because it's your pet right it's a member of your family and it's getting really really expensive so can you just give us the overview why is it so expensive to say bring your dog in for his shots like how does this system work yep just to put a pin in that veterinary care has grown 2x the rate of inflation so we talk about inflation the cost of yeah so the inflation is already high yeah veterinary inflation is double it's like 2x that's how crazy it is so something that was 50 is literally 100 a year later what why there's a number of factors one there's been a lot of private equity consolidation in the space follow the money so you know that just means less supply and the demand's only growing that's one big factor the other factor is because it's a cash pay industry there's really no insurance right veterinarians and you'll read this in trade magazines they build their business on production which is basically selling you more stuff yes so a third of their revenue is dependent on you getting a blood exam getting x-ray etc and i think to be clear like the rank and file veterinarians are doing this only because they love pets i think what's happening is it's the few business owners and ultimately like i said private equity that are simply raising prices for something that you're going to pay for no matter what yes and it's scaring people we so at dutch my company 50 percent of our customers say they haven't been to a vet in three years or more oh i bet people are scared that the moment they enter a vet's office they have a 500 bill or more literally so can let's just back up and go through these one by one so the first is private equity what so private equity buys the model in general buys small businesses independent businesses links them together for efficiencies for cost savings right this is the idea this is what they tell you yes so how many do you have any sense of how many vets are owned by private equity now i think it's like almost it's like a third two a half probably wow okay so they've been scooping them up oh massively in fact this there's been there's like two major companies that are doing it that there was a lawsuit uh that they're creating monopoly uh that that's good that's that was going around so they'll go to owners of of brick and more mom and pop yeah mom and pops and they'll just they'll and they're doing this with dentists as well and hvac and like basically every small business in america and and they'll buy just a whole bunch of them exactly yeah and then become like regional yep and then they'll just raise the prices does the care get better no the care gets worse because you're no longer bringing the they're doing nothing i don't want to like say nothing but there's really no like modernization of equipment or faster care it's the same thing they just literally raise the price huh um and when it sucks it's like super unfair no well i mean i you know i'm willing to believe there are examples of private equity doing what it says it does which is you know to come in and make the business better better for its customers better for its owners better for its employees i've never seen that no ever in any sector but i i believe there must be some time where that happened my old veterinarian i switched to and i asked for my um which is owned by private equity and i asked for my medical records it was 50 pages of pdf with scribble notes i mean there's no way that there's anything you could ever find what's there so i don't believe i've not seen any sort of better care for pets as a result at all yeah um but greater returns for the investors in private for the yep yeah totally so um okay so how do they can you be specific about how they raise the prices you suggested there's an incentive for veterinary offices to hike the price of annual exams and shots annual exams but they'll sell you more stuff too so they'll say you know what your dog needs teeth cleaning and so we need to put him under anesthesia and that's going to be like a five thousand dollar bill for teeth cleaning which five thousand dollars yes i've had a lot of dogs dozens and dozens of dogs i've got five at my house right now and i don't think i've ever had a dog's teeth cleaned yeah exactly my dogs live a long time exactly 14 exactly and the thing is you're there and you feel horrible because you only want to do what's best for your pet but what happens is they have a list of all the services they want to sell to you and that's going to be one of them um and you feel horrible that you even have to think about the decision of course but you're and but it's like that's a lot of money and not i mean most people don't have five thousand dollars lying around the house putting your dog under anesthesia is not a small thing i mean dogs die people die you're suspending life in a living thing totally yeah so i think what happens is it's the list of services that they'll try to sell you and make you feel horrible that you don't care about your dog if you don't buy from this menu there's so much emotional leverage people are so intense about their animals yes not in my house we have you know critical distance you know you'd do anything you'd sell your car i mean i would and um so they they have a lot of power when they're upselling yes totally do you it seems like the incentives would produce like actually bad outcomes where your dog or cat is getting treatments they don't need and that might be counterproductive well i think what happens is people just stop going to the vet at all that i mean that's what we've seen is that there's just a whole there's tens of millions of dogs that never go to the veterinarian at dutch 50 don't go to the vet haven't been to the vet in years and it's because they don't want to they don't want to feel bad for not buying extra services for their dog that's amazing what about all the shot there are a lot of shots and they're very expensive definitely there's vaccines but even vaccines like you should i mean as we have a dutch try to kind of so telemedicine can do vaccines but there's definitely lower cost clinics that will do vaccines for 50 whereas in person it'll cost you 150 to 200 for the same thing for a shot yes how why would it cost 200 bucks for a shot well they'll say well i have to pay for rent and i have to pay for stat i mean they'll say there's like all this upkeep that that the shot you know includes yeah but it's baloney it's obvious that goes back to private equity raising prices and knowing the people there's some people who will still pay for it so the profile of the vets that i've dealt with in the past 20 years have really really changed it's a female industry now yes which i think is good just to be honest i feel like they're really a lot of dog lovers yeah not all you get hard cases among vets but most vets i know just really love animals yes christmas is here that means you're eating a lot we are it's a tough time to get on the scale because the meals keep coming and so does the weight gain but what if there was a way to eat like you want to eat without getting really fat over christmas week this is an ongoing concern in my house a snack that tastes 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and so what do they think of all of this so what's interesting is that when it comes to just dutch and telemedicine we get hundreds of applications from people who want to who want to do telemedicine and actually to this point that it's female telemedicine allows them to have a work from home flexible schedule which they love yeah the main industry association the avma has basically made these vets feel that if they do telemedicine the fbi will show up at their house what it has scared them to death from doing telemedicine to death and it's because it's again it's comprised of these self-serving financially interested individuals who run the organization but um they have completely scared veterinarians from doing telemedicine whatsoever why would the fbi show up at a vet's house what they'll say and and again like i think this is why i want your listeners to know this it's just so insane they will say that the federal law requires it requires you to have a physical exam no matter what like no matter if it's an opinion it's a rash it's a quick question they'll say that the fda website requires a physical exam which it doesn't but in every conference in every newsletter they'll say oh well we asked the fda and they said that you need a physical exam so if you violate this you might go to jail that's what they'll say at every conference for years now and they'll vilify me and dutch and they'll say this guy is gonna hurt your dog if there's telemedicine millions of dogs will die is the headline i'm starting to laugh i mean that's like obviously not true emotional blackmail yeah so one of the main so buy this book or we'll shoot this dog i mean it really yeah millions of dogs dogs they really say that yeah well again so this is what they'll say at a conference what i've been doing now is i've been working with the aspca and a huge coalition of shelter organizations because they're the ones that get the brunt of it because now millions of dogs actually also get surrendered because their owners can't care for them because they can't afford veterinary care yes come on i'm telling you people abandon their dog yes oh man it i know it gives me chills yeah it so the only way this can change is at the state level and we've been working so in florida it took us four legislative sessions to allow telemedicine and and all it does is all the law will say is that the veterinarian can use their judgment to make a decision but may i just ask you a foundational question why is the state involved in what kind of medical care you give your dog just because health care is regulated at the state level this is veterinary care and that i mean and then but you have dominion over your dog i mean right it's so weird that they feel like some state legislator feels like he has more power over your dog who sleeps in your base your dog than you do like what is that that that's the system we live in but actually i will tell you this most legislators once we tell them that this is a law that you need to help us with they're most of them are completely on board they don't they're like we have human health care and this is like a lot of them will say i didn't even know this wasn't it like you said i didn't even know this was an issue this is dumb so where it doesn't work is when the avma or a lot of these state uh lobby groups who have hundreds of millions of dollars in annual budgets if they've lined a politician's pocket then that's where we will have trouble in those states taking money from the veterinary lobby yeah there are a lot of dark lobbies we only pay attention to a couple of them but there are so many yeah so can you just quickly tell me how that works so the avma is the american veterinary medicine association yeah medical association medical association what and why do they have an interest in preventing telehealth for animals there's one reason that they'll say and then there's one reason that they'll say behind closed doors so what they'll say in public is that they'll say telemedicine is gonna is gonna harm dogs lead to millions of dogs dying but what they'll say at the hearing behind closed doors it's purely financial they think that it's an either or choice that if you have telemedicine people will no longer go to the vet and their brick and mortar business is gonna die that's not true oh so they're just preserving the monopoly yeah they're preserving the monopoly it's just like always most regulation exists to preserve existing monopolies yes exactly that's true in tech it's true in manufacturing it's true in the nicotine business it's true in veterinary care wow i should have known that duh oh you're right millions of dogs dogs will die like who has died no one well so if people aren't even bringing their dogs to the vet because it's too expensive how is that good exactly get dogs are getting zero care and you will have these people say that they will prefer that then they'll they'll prefer the status quo that the industry association will say they'll prefer the status quo then allow telemedicine and by the way it's not an either or choice it's not like oh i have a video call and now i no longer get vaccines at the vet you know you like we have again human health care we still go to our brick and mortar annual checkup whatever and then if we have a issue at night we we don't have to go to emergency quills in your dog's throat or you know cuts his leg on barbed wire you have to go to to a surgeon that's right but if he has a rash that and you just want to know like is this like what is this why do you have to go to urgent care when you can just show again the dogs in the comfort of their home and you use your phone and show a video of their paw right like why do you have to drag that well and that's right and for example we get porcupine quills on our dogs all the time a lot and i wish i could say my dogs are smart enough not to try and eat porcupines but they're not and every year i have to take the quills out which is takes like four hours but i do it myself because well because i know how but also because my dogs don't like to go to the vet at all and it smells like death and they can smell it yeah mind you too dogs are euthanized there they know that and um so we do everything we can to prevent physical visits because it the dogs are panicked and i think most people with dogs know this yes and i think cats feel the same way cats are even worse yes because to corral a cat difficult difficult difficult so anything as someone if you love animals you want to you want care for them of course but you want to keep them out of the physical space if you can yep they're in the comfort of their home exactly um one of the things we see a lot is behavior and anxiety cases and that's even more so why they should be treated from home because the dog is in their natural environment exactly you're only making their situation worse by forcing them to this place they don't like and then a lot of the behavior modification that happens telemedicine is perfect for that because you can have these regular conversations and for a fraction of the price just to give you context by the way so dutch it's a less than a hundred dollars for a year of care if you went every month you'd pay a hundred bucks a month you'd pay like over a thousand dollars to treat your dog and oftentimes when you have anxiety you kind of need to have those regular check-ins and we had a story recently of of this guy who had an aggressive dog he's been on dutch for two years and the dog went from crazy aggressive to now he has two buddies like his life has changed yes and there's no way in the world this uh owner could have had the money or the time if dutch wasn't around to change this dog's life amazing yeah and if you have a dog who bites i've had a few uh it's very disruptive and you know the dog can get killed by the way you know dogs like that either get put down by the state or can be killed in a fight whatever you don't want that at all it's a big it's a big problem actually we're talking about this morning at breakfast you don't need to be an economist to see what's happening the dollar is in trouble it's getting weaker it's sad but we're not in charge of it so we have to respond appropriately in ways to protect our families when paper money dies it's going to be replaced by programmable digital currency or gold gold survives the same americans who think they're protecting themselves with gold are the ones getting ripped off by big gold dealers after we left corporate media we got offered tens of millions of dollars to promote gold companies how do they get the money to spend that much on marketing because they're scamming their customers we didn't want anything to do with that so we sought an honest broker and together we formed a precious metals company that you can actually trust it's called battalion metals at battalion metals dot com we publish actual spot prices we're totally transparent about the vig what we take and we treat everyone with honesty so if you've been watching what's happening you know it's not just about money it's about sovereignty and holding something that endures and cannot be manipulated or taken from you so if you've been waiting for the right time to act this is it visit battalion metals dot com so how does it work exactly i don't understand the term so it's a hundred bucks like tell me the how yeah yeah yeah what's the alternative so with dutch you go to dutch.com you sign up it's a membership service it's a hundred dollars for a year of care so for a year you can call a vet for up to five pets and we have vets available same day so you know most of appointments by the way are happening at night when the even if you have a vet the vets closed yeah and so you have a video call most calls happen on people's phones you talk to a local vet in your state and they'll you know you're talking to a professional and so they'll die you're talking to a veterinarian yeah talking about you always talk to a veterinarian a human being and 90 of the time and we've been doing this now for five years 90 of the time they're able to address the issue uh over video amazing and so does that include vaccines or what does that include it includes the cost so vaccines you have to do in person and we'll recommend a local clinic if that's what you need uh but if you if you need medication we have pharmacy partners who can ship that to you you can also go to a pharmacy of your choice you don't care um but it includes kind of any of the follow-up messages chats with a vet so you don't feel like you're nickel and dimed if i have another question or if i have to follow up a week later um the other thing that's cool about digital first is that that everything is documented so we know automatically when we should follow up for each condition or we know that a veterinary needs to respond like we have um goals a veterinary needs to respond within a matter of hours um back to the patient if there's a message during the business day so we can also like really monitor quality metrics to make sure that customers are having a good experience is this nationwide it's nationwide but there are about 20 states that don't allow telemedicine for animals for animals yeah what really yep because of lobbying because of laws exactly so that's why big states any of the big states um some of the biggest ones like texas which is crazy because california allows it but texas does not and uh we actually had a huge bill this year that literally got killed um by the avma and and it's all because of money that's wild yep so it's you are not not allowed to do so is there like an underground telehealth like why don't you just ignore the law and do it anyway sorry kind of well so there's actually on in texas there's a a court case that is now at the supreme court where the veterinarian said well i'm it's freedom of speech yeah i'm just like telling people what like how their pets you know um this is my freedom of speech so the fifth circuit which is texas louisiana missouri has ruled in his favor but the attorney general has filed this um as an appeal at the supreme court currently seriously yeah what's his name greg forget his name that's so interesting running for senate so right now it is illegal for anyone in texas to call a vet on the phone and just get health care on the phone yep according to them now there's always so there's two paths in texas there's any state allows emerge has an emergency provision if it's a life or death situation and then in texas again there's this fifth circuit decision that's currently so there's like there's sort of this competing situation in texas where on the one hand the fifth circuit says telemedicine is allowed but the state regulations still say that it's not allowed i'm pretty sure i could just call up and get like very serious drugs prescribed through telehealth as an adult that's like very seriously fully addictive benzodiazepines for example you can die from going off them i mean this is like way more way more addictive than heroin you can't die going off heroin you can die going off xanax so it's all about the money but that's totally fine to get that from telehealth yes or amphetamines no problem it's like tijuana you know you get whatever you want now but your dog can't get treatment yeah that's not it's it's definitely unfair well it's deranged um is that changing are you making progress we're making good progress so we've changed the laws in florida arizona ohio in a number of states and um this upcoming legislative session we're lobbying in 12 different states but definitely there's a lot of states i'm sure your listeners live in a lot of those states and uh one of the things we did is we launched this website called savepuppies.com and if you go to savepuppies.com i love your marketing i mean if they're saying millions of dogs will die you should you know you're fighting back with savepuppies.com that wasn't taken i know right yeah it wasn't taken and so you know you can go there and uh send a letter to your local legislator that's the only way that things will change is at the grassroots level because we don't have the crazy budget that these trade groups have can i ask you what is the avma think of private equity scooping up all the independent businesses they're associate i think they're associated with it they've got no problem with that i don't think so prices going up care declining that they're totally fine with that but they're against options what uh so i think again there's two things what they'll say publicly versus what happens behind closed doors and i've read art i mean it's like we live in two different worlds because what they'll say is like for example one reason prices are going up is there's also massive vet shortages because the veterinary profession has one of the biggest dropout rates oh yeah of anyone and they'll say and this is just it's this is just factually like true if you follow uh bls by bureau of labor statistics but they'll say there's no shortage or you'll say you know prices are going up and there's like data that shows that they'll say no prices are not going up so a lot of times when you talk to them the surveys they put out make are completely nonsensical right and there's this bottleneck in veterinary school totally so that's another thing the avma it's really weird in this industry and i think i just again i'm here because like you shine a light on things and i think a lot of people well i care about this topic because i think the relationship between people and animals is just so essential i know it sucks what they're doing so they the avma controls accreditation for veterinary colleges okay like this happens in no other like law schools don't have a trade association decide like who gets to have a law school yeah in this industry the avma controls what is deemed a vet school and they have chokehold that completely so private equity decides whether you get to be a vet or not i mean in effect if private equity is the single biggest player in this industry that's bonkers why i mean it goes back to money it goes back to when you have less supply you can charge more and because people are willing to pay more for it so they have an incentive to reduce the number of new veterinarians coming out of school every year it's like i hate to draw that line but i think that's that's well if it's about money then it's supply and demand because that's yeah that's what the market is yeah and so the fewer vets you have the higher the prices yeah it it like makes i've you know and again i'm i think i'm a curious person and i try to like understand like could it be something else is there another reason like why would this if you have high attrition you have prices going up you would think that the way to solve that is to have more yes yes of course and that's just not what they're doing they've like literally i at this point know several vet schools that have just stopped developments you know gave up because the avma basically told them that they're not gonna get a license i've no i'm not sure i'm not sure because there are very relatively few colleges that turn out veterinarians oh there's totally like just think i can tell you this statistic there's about one veterinarian for every 3 000 pets in america for context the ratio in human health care is one to 20 no way the disparity is so huge and the amount of vet schools is so little like we can we can have a you know dozens of vet schools pop up and it would still maybe not be enough in the next decade and like i said this trader organization is refusing to launch any new schools well i mean that's a cartel that's cartel behavior it's very much cartel behavior and what's crazy is i feel like then this gaslighting happens where i'm painted as the bad guy and they'll say this guy joe or dutch you know he's just self-interested he just wants you know he's the one that wants your money and i'm like how is that possible when i'm like reducing the cost like it doesn't make sense well wasn't that long ago that many americans thought they were inherently safe from the kinds of disasters you hear about all the time in third world countries a total power loss for example or people freezing to death in their own homes that could never happen here obviously it's america people are recalculating unfortunately because they have no choice the last few years have taught us that remember when the power grid in texas failed in the dead of winter yeah it happened and it could happen again so the government is not actually as reliable as you hope they would be and the truth is the future is unforeseeable and things do seem to be getting a little squirrely so if the grid does go down you need power you can trust last country supplies newest product is designed for exactly that the grid doctor is a 3300 watt battery backup system that will power full-size appliances medical devices and tools with clean reliable power it's even emp protected that means it's shielded from lightning solar flares or an actual electromagnetic pulse event there's no gasoline no noise no emissions you just plug it in charge it from the wall from your vehicle or from the included 200 watt solar panel and keep going day after day taking care of yourself and the people you love is solely up to you and the amazing thing is with these new batteries batteries we use one at home by the way is they're super easy to use there's no inverter you need to figure out on the front of it or anything like that there's like three buttons it's very easy and totally reliable highly recommended we literally use one as i said visit last country supply dot com to shop the grid doctor for power you can trust last country supply dot com how did you get into this a couple reasons so prior to dutch i was one of the co-founders of hymns and hers and so i helped start that telemedicine journey um and i would say if we back it up even more we'd have to go back to my experience coming to america and just always uh as an immigrant and having to figure things out when we my family and i immigrated from the soviet union where um to the bay area no but where in the soviet union from uzbekistan uzbekistan former uh a current separate country at this yeah but then a soviet republic yep we what was uzbekistan like you know it's um it's very it's muslim majority but it i would say secular and um everyone got along i thought quite well um and we're jewish and i actually didn't even know jews and muslims are supposed to not get along when i we went to each other's weddings there's lots of shared history and similarity um that's been true by the way i just say factually that has been true in various parts of the world over time you know not always of course there are huge problems but then other places there are no problems and that was one of them yeah so it was you know we we you know i mean i i had a good childhood we left everything uh behind because my dad was uh almost thrown into a labor camp for having an illegal book which is just like a regular i'm sure it's probably maybe a book on your shelf what it's called uh exodus by leon urris no way yeah and it was huge in the 70s yeah fighting for freedom exactly i think it's a concept they didn't want you to know about yeah and we fled we fled with i had a hundred bucks uh and a red suitcase and we left lived in italy in a refugee camp for several months eventually got political asylum to come to the united states and then you know lived in low-income housing for a long time in the bay area in the bay area what was that like a couple things first my dad definitely told us and that we have to assimilate that we have to learn the language he himself he was a civil engineer and i saw him at first work in flea markets just doing manual labor and i think it showed me that he would do anything for his family to have a meal on the table and i think later in life it showed me you know no one's too good to take out the garbage that's right that is exactly right and uh and just the value of a dollar i still i think you know i want to make sure my kids have that but i still think and i think back to this business i think that's why when i see things that are so expensive for people i feel it in my bones because i still know what it's like to not have any money to make difficult decisions um when you only have so many dollars every month what did your dad wound up doing he ended up going back to being an engineer wow he um got trained um education and and he found a mentor who took him under his wing um and he became an engineer again amazing yep they really yeah so in so many ways they they inspired me and with that said there's not much that they knew about america and so i i knew that they would love me but a lot of times i had to figure everything out for myself i went to college i paid for college myself and i think all of these things taught me to be a survivor taught me to make something out of nothing um and kind of that's that's led me that led me to hymns and and ultimately that led me to dutch were were you an animal person we had animals so in the soviet union tons of animals um so i always definitely grew up with animals uh german shepherd oh great dogs had a black cat um so we had animals up until i was 10 and then we lived in apartment tiny apartments and so then we got finally when i had a family and we had a house we got so that's when we got my corgi and that's kind of how it all happened because i was coming off hymns it was starting to be a big company i always like smaller companies and when i can actually still create something yes and then we got a corgi and started to see the vet bills and then the kicker was he got into a trail mix and then we had a two thousand dollar vet bill trail mix yeah like trail mix had like a couple m&ms in it oh yeah and they're supposed to eat chocolate not supposed to eat m&ms yeah they like them though yeah i like them who does yeah right and did he get sick no but the thing is and that's the thing is then i was talking to a veterinarian friend and he said like you really didn't have to do you didn't have to like pump his stomach for like the three m&ms that he ate and i so then that's kind of how i started to look around like are there any like could i've done something else did you pump his stomach yes so can i just pause and say i love how even if they're misguided i love how devoted dog owners are to their dogs and cats i mean they just like they'll do anything yeah i'll do anything yeah yeah i'll do anything and but it and and so i think that's when i realized there's really no like other option when it comes to there's no telemedicine options that i saw and it and it goes back to that a lot of times it has to do with the laws but look i'm the guy who i figured when him started it was actually a similar situation back five years ago telemedicine wasn't legal on the human side either like we forget that because it's now so commonplace but it was also the same thing and i and i helped change those laws back then i think that's kind of why some of these groups are scared of me is because this guy comes from a place where like he has nothing to lose he's only doing i mean also i think it's because i'm doing the right thing i think they don't like that and i've done it before so i think that kind of gives me more confidence that i can do it again and i don't think that's because before this so before dutch came on the scene what the shelter groups for example that wanted telemedicine what they were doing is talking to the state veterinary boards because that's how the that's a that's a simpler way that this could all change if the veterinary board at the state they could just say if you want to do telemedicine do telemedicine if it's medically appropriate yeah it could be as simple as that and so for over 10 years they were having these conversations and so that's when i got here and i'm like this is doing nothing so we got to go the legislative route it's so revealing however i mean again i think they're probably good people with good motives up and down the line there always are in these systems but the system itself is so distorted that they don't put the welfare of animals as the top goal like that always has to be the point right what's good if if you're a veterinary board the health of animals that's why you exist totally right totally it doesn't seem like they're thinking that way well again what they'll say is we are thinking of the pets we think millions of dogs will die with telemedicine how will that happen they'll well let me tell you if some of these examples i've seen they'll say like i'll say the example i used anxiety like i'll say isn't that great for telemedicine the dog is in the comfort of their home and you can shoot they'll say well what if the dog ate a nail you know if the dog ate a nail i've been in hearings where this example has happened yeah well if the dog ate a nail look maybe that he's barking because he had a nail and and he's in pain because he ate a nail and so that's why we shouldn't have it's like are there nails on your house like why um why are we going to use this crazy made-up example to deny millions of dogs from having this opportunity to use telemedicine sure and if your dog ate a nail there's still no good reason why you shouldn't start with telemedicine exactly yeah have that initial call yeah the vet will walk you through it and then you'll know do i go to er or not exactly it's not it doesn't have to be an either or right i we had a family dog who ate a pin recently uh uh a knee a needle you know a sewing needle and um you know obviously that's a brick and mortar situation yes um the dog passed it without any problems which is kind of the dog the canine digestive track is a wonder wow that's all kinds of things mops pine cones sewing needles emerge from it but um that it still would have been worth calling initially like why not totally why not it takes before dutch um there's a uh a poison hotline that's like 75 just for that first call yes and you don't even know who who you're gonna get and that's what people do because again if that's what you need to do that's what you'll do but there's definitely ways to talk to a human being veterinarian very quickly even that for much less and definitely much less than having to spend a thousand dollars in er i had a case where my dog i thought he was having a seizure and i really i mean i really freaked out and i got on dutch and the vet says he's doing uh reverse sneezing reverse reverse sneezing i never heard of that in my life and she showed me videos of reverse sneezing and it looked exactly like what he was going through and like i said i was literally about to grab him drive to er and she totally calmed me down and and made me realize it was totally right that's oh what a great example we just had a dog we've had a dog eat marijuana in the park we had a dog um eat hallucinogenic mushrooms in the woods totally the dog has been tripping ever since those four years ago the dog is still seeing trails um wonderful dog woke up with the dog this morning um but in both cases um there really was no treatment at all and in both cases those dogs were bundled up and taken to the vet which did not not again i love the vet i'm not against the vet to be clear but it didn't help at all because it's just that's right remedy right there's a time and a place for everything right and i think telemedicine is just a part of the overall experience i don't think anyone's gonna say it needs to replace the and and it won't happen because it hasn't happened in human care but i think it's another option for people to get a peace of mind and to have an option that's way more affordable and we are seeing so many dogs like i said being given up or people who are saying i don't think i can have a dog in my life yeah that sucks well that's a tragedy especially people with children need to have dogs i think totally it's been yeah for us my kids are little eddie the corgi they love him so much and it's it's the best can i also say it's really good for your immune system to be around dogs yeah i think i've seen studies that really yeah when our first child who's 31 came home from the hospital after being born both of our dogs our spaniel jumped up and licked the dog lick the child's in the mouth child's never been sick it's just a fact yeah i think it definitely i feel like i've seen stuff that really yeah that you get that immunity i'm pretty sure we've always since i was born we've always my family's always been committed to that like you've got to have a lot of dogs around and you stay healthy and everyone's been really healthy i think that matters um so again i feel a little weird interviewing you because you've advertised on our show and and all that but i just i just felt it so strongly i feel like this is such a good thing and i think there are a lot of viewers of this who would agree and so i just it was sincere i really thank you well i think when you first called me it was hey i like dogs this makes sense yeah and i think i already i was like tucker's gotta know this conspiracy that's happening because it's because it's such baloney and it's so unfair and so few people kind of like i said know how monopolistic it is and i thought that your listeners and you could help us because i think we're the goliath in this fight over the right with a david yes in this fight and it needs people to understand how crazy the situation is for both for veterinarians who like i said feel scared to do telemedicine as well as for pet owners who can't afford it and it all has to do with these trade associations who are keeping and using their monopoly power to change to keep the laws from changing so i think that whole part you had no idea what's going on i had literally no idea and again for us at this age you know i don't it's the cost is not the main barrier for us the barrier is the dog it's just so much suffering for the dogs to go to the vet and sometimes there's no choice and i get it but if we can avoid that we would just be so thankful to avoid your dogs so it's dutch.com yep d-u-t-c-h well i'm sure i'll be attacked for insider dealing but it's not i think you'd advertise with us no matter what but i just wanted you to be able to say all of that at length so i'm grateful that you did thank you yes joe specter thank you thank you