Six disciplines, one question: what helps pets age well?

Nutrition is one of the few daily interventions that touches nearly every system involved in aging: body composition, inflammation, gut health, immune resilience, metabolism, skin, muscle, and cognition. It is also where many chronic problems quietly begin.

The clinical question is how minimally processed diets, fresh and home-prepared formats, and carefully balanced commercial alternatives affect long-term health markers. I write, lecture, and consult on diet formulation, at-home preparation done safely, and the practical translation of nutrition research into what owners can actually do at the food bowl.

Mobility is not just an orthopedic issue. In dogs, it is one of the clearest expressions of healthy aging. A dog's ability to move, play, climb stairs, and recover well often determines whether extra years are truly good years.

Working dogs, canine athletes, and aging pets are shaped by many of the same principles that govern human sports medicine. Board certification in ACVSMR informs how I approach rehab, conditioning, return-to-function, and the longer arc of keeping dogs moving well across a full lifespan.

There is no shortage of pet supplements. There is a shortage of products with named active ingredients, meaningful doses, transparent sourcing, and evidence beyond testimonials.

My formulation work is built around a simple discipline: name the active ingredient, name the dose, name the evidence. If we cannot do that, it should not go in the product. Used carefully, supplements can be one part of a broader strategy for healthy aging - not a substitute for diet, movement, or veterinary care.

Long before integrative pet health became a consumer category, the work was building clinical programs that combined conventional veterinary medicine with nutrition, rehabilitation, acupuncture, and evidence-informed complementary therapies.

Integrative medicine, done well, is not a rejection of conventional care. It is the disciplined addition of approaches where the evidence supports them. My work in this space, both at UF and in consulting practice, focuses on protocols that hold up to clinical scrutiny and meaningfully change outcomes for patients with chronic disease.

An ongoing consulting area with the UF infectious disease service, focused on cases where atypical presentations, immune dysregulation, or geographic exposures complicate diagnosis and management. Specific areas of research include improved diagnostic and treatment options for pythiosis, lagenidiosus, and rare fungal infections.