Instant Oxygen for Pets? Find Out How!
Don't miss this episode of Vetsplanation with guest Blake Dubé, who introduces a game-changer for pet emergencies—portable oxygen kits from Pawprint Oxygen. Dive into the uses, benefits, and real-life applications of having oxygen access for pets on-the-go. Whether you're a pet owner or a veterinary professional, this episode will equip you with knowledge to better care for pets in distress.
What You’ll Learn:
The origin and development of Pawprint Oxygen, a portable oxygen solution for pets.
Various scenarios where pets may urgently need oxygen, including during transportation and emergencies.
How portable oxygen canisters work, their safety features, and ease of use compared to traditional oxygen tanks.
Specific conditions in pets that benefit from supplemental oxygen, like heart failure, collapsed trachea, and respiratory distress.
Insights into the use of oxygen therapy for both acute and chronic conditions in pets.
Practical information on how pet owners can access and use these oxygen kits, including over-the-counter options.
The additional support available for pet owners through Pawprint Oxygen’s customer service.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"Oxygen dependent means oxygen dependent, right? So even if it's 5-10 minutes if it was you and you were personally being transported, you'd be in an ambulance with oxygen on." - Blake Dubé
"These canisters are nothing like those big, heavy oxygen tanks. They're very, it's more like a can of sunscreen or shaving cream or something like that." - Blake Dubé
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Read The Transcript:
[00:00:00]
Dr. Sugerman: All right, welcome to Vetsplanation, everybody. I have a really awesome guest today, I'm very excited. We have the CEO and founder, Blake Dubé, from Pawprint Oxygen here with us today, who we've used multiple times, so I'm really excited to talk to you today.
Blake Dubé: Awesome. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, so how did you come up with this idea of being able to get pets oxygen at home for pet parents.
Blake Dubé: Yeah. Really how we came up with it is me and my business partner were actually in college and a local veterinarian approached us with this problem that they didn't have a way to transport oxygen dependent pets. And I was in engineering college, I had been working on a solution for a more portable oxygen tank.
Blake Dubé: And, we realized that maybe this could solve her problem and help, just really just get pets from the small vet hospital over to the ER. And that was the very initial thought of it. And then it just really grew from there into all of these different applications because we realized that there's [00:01:00] so many reasons pets need oxygen, but they just don't have access to it.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, we get that a lot, actually. So we are a local ER, but sometimes we have to send our pets over to specialty hospitals, so that was really big for us to be able to use those portable oxygen tanks to take them from, our ER to the specialty hospital, which is 30 minutes away with no traffic.
Blake Dubé: Yeah. And we always say oxygen dependent means oxygen dependent, right? So even if it's 5-10 minutes if it was you and you were personally being transported, you'd be in an ambulance with oxygen on. And unfortunately, just not too many pets have that option. So it's often on the pet owner to be administering that oxygen on the way.
Blake Dubé: And the really nice thing about these canisters is that they're nothing like those big, heavy oxygen tanks where, they're hard to move and you're worried about them in the car. These are very, it's more like a, a can of sunscreen or shaving cream or something like that. So it's just safe for you as a pet owner to use in your own car.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely. They're, they're pretty small. Like you said, they're like [00:02:00] really small little things. And..
Blake Dubé: Yup, and I have one here, if you can't see this, basically it's, it's the size of a water bottle and it weighs less than your phone. It's like a quarter of a pound. So it's just so simple and easy to use and then switch out if you need to use another one.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely. When, when this first came out, the first thing I thought of was our portable oxygen tanks, which are still like, I can't even compare to how big they are there, but they're big. They're not, when they say portable, they're not very portable. Like it's like portable with the dolly.
Blake Dubé: And they're heavy. Yeah. They're heavy too. And then, the scariest part about it for a lot of people is they're very high pressure. People tend to be afraid of oxygen or think it's dangerous and really the only reason it's dangerous or the main reason is because of the pressure at which it's held, right?
Blake Dubé: If you put anything under that super high pressure, you're gonna have to be careful. So what we did is we just made our canisters a lot lower pressure. So they're about 1/10th of the pressure, which means you can feel safe bringing them around in the car and things like that. And that also makes [00:03:00] them a lot lighter because you don't need that big, heavy tank to contain all that pressure.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely. That's amazing. So when we talk about like these needing oxygen, we talked about transporting pets, but what are some of the things that you see pets needing oxygen for at home?
Blake Dubé: Yeah, that's a great point. So like you said, the transport was our initial thought and we thought, this is all it will be used for and things like that. And then we started getting a lot more calls once we put this online. And once we started talking to vets and vets were telling us, hey, we're sending this home with pet parents that, have pets that might just go into this respiratory distress.
Blake Dubé: And it can happen for so many different reasons. Some very common ones, one of our biggest conditions we help with is heart failure or congestive heart failure. That's an example of condition, it affects 10 percent of all dogs. It's very common, especially among those small breeds that we know and love so much.
Blake Dubé: And what can happen is those pets can decompensate and just run into immediate trouble at home, right? Where you need to get them right back to the vet, [00:04:00] but you need to put them on oxygen to do that. So heart failure is one of them. Some of these conditions we can actually manage at home. And get over that cycle of distress and get you back to normal.
Blake Dubé: So you have these collapsed trachea dogs, where their trachea starts to collapse and they start to have issues where it's, I like to describe it as the milkshake straw, right? If you, If you suck too hard on a milkshake straw, it completely closes, and that's what these dogs run into, and that extra oxygen can help them regulate again, right?
Blake Dubé: To list some of the conditions, you have that heart failure, that collapsed trachea, we have laryngeal paralysis, which is a somewhat similar mechanism to that collapse trachea. And then, now we've served thousands and thousands of customers, so we've seen kind of everything.
Blake Dubé: So it's in use for, for all sorts of things, common ones include the heat stroke. Even things as simple as anxiety from thunderstorms. We do a lot of pulmonary hypertension. That kind of shows you there's so [00:05:00] many different conditions and physiologies that ultimately lead to, you need oxygen or you have respiratory distress, right? And that's where we help.
Dr. Sugerman: And I also send them home with, or I talk to people about it when they have dogs who have really flat faces, brachycephalic syndrome. I talk them constantly about that, I'm like your dog is going to have a problem during the summer and you really need to make sure that you have something you can quickly give them.
Dr. Sugerman: And so this is a great way to just have something available.
Blake Dubé: Yeah, we do see a lot of the brachycephalic dogs because as you said, especially in the summer, even a short walk or even when you come home and they get excited because you're home now, that's the best part of their day. They can get into that, that vicious spiral as we call it, where it's harder for them to breathe and they can't catch up.
Blake Dubé: So a lot of times now, this product is actually available over the counter now. Whereas it used to require a prescription. So now it's a lot easier if you just want to prepare for the summer to just have a kit on hand. Hopefully you never have to use [00:06:00] it, but if you have it, you have something to bring them back to normal and get them to professional care if necessary.
Dr. Sugerman: And you were mentioning the kits. So I know that it comes in like a mask and a tank. So can you talk about those?
Blake Dubé: Yeah, yeah. So our most commonly used product is this, what we call this portable oxygen kit. And it's a pretty small kit, probably weighs about three pounds or something like that. And it comes with a couple oxygen canisters that I was demonstrating earlier. So you might get between three and six, depending on the size of your pet.
Blake Dubé: And then you're going to get a PureVent pet oxygen mask, which I have over here as well. And we have three sizes of this. So the correct one is going to come with whatever kit you order, because it's just based on your pet's breed and size. So you get this and that comes with some oxygen tubing as well.
Blake Dubé: And then you get a little oxygen regulator that's already preset to the flow rate that's best for your pet's weight. And I say regulator and people might picture this big, clunky engineering thing [00:07:00] that you're used to with the double dials and stuff on top of a tank. This is really just this handheld little palm sized device that you just pop into the top of the oxygen canister and you twist and it immediately starts flowing oxygen.
Blake Dubé: So this was truly designed that, if you get it and you don't teach yourself or train at all, you can figure it out on the spot in about five seconds. So you have that canister, the regulator and the mask essentially, and that is what you'll use for these, I would say, short episodes of distress, which is more common.
Dr. Sugerman: And how long do those canisters last for?
Blake Dubé: So each canister will last up to 30 minutes. Now it depends on the weight of your pet. We'll give you a higher flow rates, the oxygen will come out faster for a bigger pet, so they could go as low as 5 to 10 minutes. But typically you're getting a kit that's gonna last you the whole thing between 30 and 90 minutes. And that's generally more than sufficient for a lot of [00:08:00] these conditions we're dealing with because fortunately pets don't get these kind of this chronic need this long term need for oxygen quite as much as humans do, right? For humans, you might be used to seeing, if grandma maybe has an oxygen tank.
Blake Dubé: That she needs that supplementation 24/7 or something like that. Luckily that's less common in pets. But what's more common is this kind of quick need for oxygen. It's acute need, and that's why, we do have options for the long term. These oxygen chambers that you would put your pet in.
Blake Dubé: That's actually less common, and most of the time you just need this kind of like little boost. It's almost like a rescue inhaler type of use case, and that's what most pets need.
Dr. Sugerman: What about the, the oxygen chambers? So I've actually talked to people who breed brachycephalic dogs, again, so flat faced dogs. That they use it for their, their little babies, the neonates.
Blake Dubé: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That would be a good example of when you might need, let's say, hours of [00:09:00] oxygen compared to minutes, and that's how we differentiate these. So some other use cases for that is sometimes we'll get a dog with pneumonia that is doing well, at the hospital and they don't necessarily need the 24/7 attention vet care, but they do need, let's say, 40 percent oxygen for the next two weeks or so, and that can get really difficult as a burden, both on the hospital and for the pet owner, because that's very expensive.
Blake Dubé: So for certain conditions where you don't need the 24/7 care, but you really just need longer term oxygen. We will actually sell and/or rent an oxygen chamber which kind of looks like a crate for a dog, but it's meant to set at a certain oxygen level, just like you would in the clinic.
Blake Dubé: And then we supply that with an oxygen concentrator or generator. And that is very similar to something you might see grandma use at home, right? So we still don't deal with any of those high pressure tanks. We stay away from that, but these oxygen generators, what they [00:10:00] do is they take your room air and they concentrate it and purify it so that 99 percent oxygen, about, is coming out and we'll fill the cage up with that up to the recommended percentage that your vet recommends.
Blake Dubé: And then you can potentially give some home oxygen care to your pet instead of keeping them in the vet clinic for days and weeks.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. And that's amazing. We have lots of pets like that who have like pneumonia, I think is the most common one where they need it for, for days. But if we keep that pet in oxygen, that means the next pet who needs oxygen, we don't have a tank for them so I think that's a fantastic thing to be able to offer to them at home.
Blake Dubé: Yeah, I think it's helped a lot of.. It's helped a lot of pet parents get more comfortable with their pets treatment. And sometimes, sometimes it is a pet's time, right? For palliative care and things like that, that's another use case that, it's sometimes hard to talk about, but we've, we've helped a lot of pet parents that, they're in the hospital, they're forced to make this really difficult decision.
Blake Dubé: They haven't gotten to say [00:11:00] goodbye. Maybe they haven't had the kids in to say goodbye or something like that. And we're bridging that gap for the veterinarian and the pet owner, to say, okay, how long would you like this a week or two weeks? And, then they're able to bring their pet home with a reasonable quality of life.
Blake Dubé: And I don't think anyone would argue that we want a pet living in the oxygen chamber for months on end or anything like that. They either get better after a couple weeks or something like that, and then, then you're out and you're good to go, or it's that bridge to get comfortable and say goodbye.
Blake Dubé: And that's been one of the hardest, but really the most rewarding parts of this business is seeing how much we can affect. And, and improve that kind of palliative and end of life experience for, for a certain patient population. This is by no means everyone we, we deal with, but it's, it's definitely been nice to be able to help out.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, absolutely. My last patient that I had rent one of the masks from you guys, it unfortunately was a end of life palliative care, type case, and she was very anemic, meaning she [00:12:00] didn't have a lot of red blood cells. So she just needed a little bit of extra time for them to decide whether this was going to be the right choice for them or not.
Dr. Sugerman: And so that definitely helped give them an extra two to three weeks.
Blake Dubé: Yeah. And sometimes we're, we're really pleasantly surprised by how much better a pet might do at home without the anxiety of the veterinary clinic and things like that. And, that, that type of product, the oxygen chamber and the oxygen generator that is on a prescription. So what we'll do is if you're interested in that you come to us and we actually work with your vet to say, is this right for your pet?
Blake Dubé: Can they come out of 24/7 care? What's the oxygen level they're doing well at in the hospital and can we replicate that at home? So it is very much a like holding your hand throughout the whole process to make sure. We're getting the best result because, your vet knows your pet the best and they need to be advising on that.
Blake Dubé: Oftentimes, we're, we're mostly dealing with these oxygen kits that are getting you over those, those scary humps or something like that. But, we deal with the whole spectrum. So we say, when you [00:13:00] need oxygen, come to us and we will find the right thing for you.
Dr. Sugerman: And so just to clarify, the mask, you don't necessarily, and the smaller canisters, you don't necessarily need to have a prescription for. The generator, or the oxygen concentrators, and the tanks are usually the ones you do need a prescription for. Is that correct?
Blake Dubé: That's correct. Yep. Yep, exactly. So yeah, the kits can just be purchased right on our website. And it's pretty easy to do and a lot of times veterinarians will have them in their clinic as well because they want to have them ready for it. Sometimes when you need oxygen, you need it, you know, yesterday. Right?
Blake Dubé: Yeah, you're like, we need this right now. So it helps when veterinarians have this, so they're ready to send you out to the ER or oftentimes they will have them and, be able to sell them to you as the client and say, Hey, take this home. But if they don't yet have them in their clinic, you can always come to us and order it.
Blake Dubé: And then the oxygen chamber and oxygen generator, as you said, that, that is on a prescription. And a lot of times, once veterinarians use us once, they're familiar with our service. We're their teammate in this. So [00:14:00] they'll even recommend us to other pet owners. The goal is that it's not all on you as a pet owner, as a pet parent to figure out your options.
Blake Dubé: Cause that can be really stressful. It often happens at 2 a.m. on a Saturday too. It's always very stressful. So our goal is, we're always working with vets to say, we're here and you can help your pet parents out by recommending us.
Dr. Sugerman: I know we've talked a lot about dogs so far. This works for dogs, cats, could work for small mammals, everybody, right?
Blake Dubé: Exactly. We, we do, I would say like smaller, smaller dogs are most common because they tend to be the ones with some of those conditions I mentioned. The heart failure, the collapsed trachea, and things like that. So we do mostly service small dogs, but we have quite a lot of cats, probably 10 percent of the pets we help out are cats and feline asthma is probably the..
Dr. Sugerman: Yes.
Blake Dubé: biggest um, or I should say feline upper airway disease often mischaracterized as feline asthma.
Blake Dubé: But [00:15:00] we help a lot, a lot of cats. And the first question we get is, how would a cat ever tolerate
Dr. Sugerman: It's amazing they do.
Blake Dubé: And they do, right? So it's funny if they don't need oxygen and you try to put this on, they're not going to want to have anything to do with it. But they do have this response where they understand something from that mask.
Blake Dubé: It's helping them. And it's often used in tandem with an inhaler. So if you have that feline asthma cat, you can open up the airway with that inhaler and then they can accept the oxygen better. So we use them both. But we always do an end of year wrap up where we show just all the diverse species that we've helped out because it's, it's a lot of dogs and cats, but we have had goats, we've had a Gila monster. A lot of pocket pets, right? Lots of pocket pets. We've had a common pigeon that someone had rescued.
Dr. Sugerman: Aww.
Blake Dubé: And they were, yeah, and we've actually been used in the national aviary here in Pittsburgh. They've used it during their field checks, right?
Blake Dubé: Cause when, when birds have respiratory distress, it's a very serious event. So they're using [00:16:00] this to make sure they don't get too stressed.
Dr. Sugerman: That's amazing. I feel like this can be used in so many aspects too, like zoo medicine and all sorts of things.
Blake Dubé: Oh, and it speaks to really how we started it and how we've grown since then, because we just made it for the one use case. It was transporting dogs and cats from one hospital to the other. And it was really the veterinarians. Once you put it in their hands, they are realizing all of these different places they can use it.
Blake Dubé: So we get calls all the time of, I sent it home with this patient and it did really, really well, or I was using it for this. So it's really by us being ingrained with the veterinary community and, and meeting all these vets at these conferences, it's helped us stay in touch there and really learn like just the true scope of what oxygen is needed for in vet medicine, which is a lot.
Dr. Sugerman: A lot. Yeah, exactly. You were mentioning about the mask too with cats. When they have asthma, a lot of times they're already getting an inhaler that's given through a mask. So a lot of those cats already, been conditioned to having a [00:17:00] mask on them luckily. And even then, like we talk a lot about how to help condition them when they aren't used to that by putting catnip in it or treats or something that smells really good in it too.
Blake Dubé: Yeah, that's a great point. We have a lot of tips on treat training and things like that. Sometimes it's as simple as, especially for dogs, you know pulling the mask out when you get it and putting it near your face like this is safe for me so it's safe for you. And then we go into some treat training tips and stuff like that because of course we occasionally have dogs that are a little more sensitive to things around their face, but really we've been amazed with just like how great the compliance has been with this.
Blake Dubé: We thought it would be the hardest thing. So sometimes that's why people think, maybe I'll get an oxygen chamber because I'm not sure my dog or cat will accept a mask. And that's a great option. But often we say, hey, try the oxygen kit first. We're never trying to sell you something you don't need, right?
Blake Dubé: It's just what your [00:18:00] pet needs. And we often have a lot of great results there too.
Dr. Sugerman: For your oxygen chambers, how do you do with the humidity in there when they're in there?
Blake Dubé: That's a great question. So we find that, yeah, the heat, the humidity and then the carbon dioxide that your pet is exhaling are all things that could become a potential problem. And that's why whenever someone says I'm going to just take a storage container and pump oxygen into it, like a box, we'd say, no, no, no, no, you're doing, you're doing more harm than good.
Blake Dubé: So how our, how our oxygen chamber works is it has something called this Venturi system that the oxygen goes through to get into the cage. And what that does is it basically as the oxygen goes through it, it sucks in extra room air. In order to dilute the oxygen concentration, because your vet is probably going to recommend, 40 to 60 percent oxygen in the chamber.
Blake Dubé: What you don't want is 100 percent oxygen for that long of a duration, right? That can be dangerous in [00:19:00] itself. You could be looking at oxygen toxicity there. So how we do that is we dilute the incoming oxygen stream with extra room air to get down to that, let's say, 40%. And what that does is multiply the overall airflow.
Blake Dubé: So you're having a lot of air exchange in that cage. So to answer your question, it's essentially air exchange. We're making sure that a lot of air is coming in and out of that cage, which is going to deal with the CO2, the heat and the humidity, and that's going to be really hard to do with any other kind of box or crate or something like that.
Blake Dubé: That, that's why your oxygen chamber at the vet can be very, very expensive because it's actually a very complicated piece of machinery.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, we used to so long, long time ago when I was a technician, we didn't really have oxygen cages and we would just put saran wrap around the cage doors, yes. But that was terrible because one, we couldn't get a lot of oxygen in, but two, it also just heated up that, that metal cage [00:20:00] so quickly.
Blake Dubé: Yeah. It's amazing to see how hot it will get in there without the proper oxygen flow rate or something like that. We even have, ice packs you can put in and things like that. But basically what we say is, if you're following our recommendations and you get the right size chamber and you put the right flow rate of oxygen in, it's going to be totally safe.
Blake Dubé: We make it so it's very easy to do at home. But you just have to have the right equipment to, to do it.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely.
Blake Dubé: Yeah, we've had a lot of good results though with it. And it's been, like I said, really, that's been a rewarding part where you, that's just a pet in an oxygen chamber is stressful for both your veterinarian and your pet parent.
Blake Dubé: So if we can, if we can have a patient where it's appropriate to do that at home, it's really a win win situation.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely. Yeah. Like I said, we, we use it all the time at our clinic. We use, I talk to people about it all the time just because we want to make sure that they're as comfortable as possible. Especially if that means that they're at home.
Blake Dubé: Exactly.
Dr. Sugerman: Is there anything else that you wanted to share with us [00:21:00] Blake?
Blake Dubé: Yeah, so actually one thing that kind of also speaks to just like the diversity of how this is used is we actually just went to a firefighter conference because we, we had realized how many of our oxygen masks were being bought and shipped right to fire departments.
Blake Dubé: And, yeah, so basically what happens is a lot, a lot more pets are rescued from house fires than people because there's a person you just walk out or maybe you're at work and the fire happens while you're at work, pet gets scared and goes to their hiding place or they can't get out of the house.
Blake Dubé: And they're more susceptible to smoke inhalation because they're smaller. We're really working on equipping these fire departments with the right tools to give oxygen and save these pets. And the response has been just really, really great. These are now in the hands of a couple thousand fire departments and it's helped save a lot of pets lives.
Dr. Sugerman: That's amazing. We actually do have a lot of people or a lot of firefighters that do bring pets into our clinic as well. And, [00:22:00] but I usually see them just with a regular mask on the pet, which is, definitely very difficult to get that. Like it just, it just doesn't fit.
Blake Dubé: Exactly. Yeah. And they're like trying to make something work or they're, taking a mask that should be for another person and using for that. So yeah, and the response has just been great because fire departments, these, these firefighters are often, they're the first responders. They need to be equipped to do this. And so we've been doing a lot of trainings on that, too.
Dr. Sugerman: Very cool. With that little canister that you have right there, is that full?
Blake Dubé: Yeah. It is. Yep.
Dr. Sugerman: So I saw you very easily take off the concentrator on it, which I thought was amazing, because you can tell, obviously lots of people, again, like you said, get very nervous about it. It just snaps on, snaps off.
Dr. Sugerman: There's no sound to it after you took it off.
Blake Dubé: Yep, exactly. And that that is truly it's either. That's why the flow rate is already set on this little regulator. And so you're just going to get the right one. It's going to work out of the box. And we say it's either in [00:23:00] and it's working. You can hear it coming out or it's off, and it's not working, right?
Blake Dubé: And there's a little gauge on here also that just shows you as it's emptying, when it gets to red, it's empty. And if you ever forgot any instructions when you get it, all of them are right on the back of the canister as well. Because there's really only three instructions, right? How to put this in and twist and start the flow.
Blake Dubé: Really made it so that, when you're having an event like this, it will be stressful, right? No matter how much you prep for something, you're just, it's going to be a little harebrained and you're going to be very stressed. So we don't want this to be part of your stress, right? It's just going to work right out of the box.
Blake Dubé: And then these are actually really nice. These just get recycled, the canisters just get recycled in your home recycling bin when they're empty. So then if you need more, once you run out, you can always call us and we'll send you more. But it just means you don't have to worry about sending something back to get refilled or returning it to your vet.
Blake Dubé: It's just very easy.
Dr. Sugerman: That's amazing. You're talking about contacting you [00:24:00] guys as well. I know I, I found before in the past, it's super easy to call you and email you. It seems like you guys are so quick to respond.
Blake Dubé: Yeah. i'm really glad you say that because that's probably One of our prouder qualities is we, we realized like right at the beginning that like, we need to, we're, we're your partner in this, and it's our job that when you call in and you get a human who cares about your pet almost as much as you do. Right outside my door, we have our customer success team, which is three wonderful people, all of whom who have worked with animals in the past. And they are literally, if you. If you don't feel comfortable with what you're looking at online, you can call them and they'll walk you through it right on the phone.
Blake Dubé: They'll do everything for you. And we just realized that's, that's an especially important part of this journey because oftentimes. When you're getting veterinary care, it is, you are in the dark sometimes through no fault of the vet, right? You're just, you want to know more, you're [00:25:00] confused.
Blake Dubé: So we can take that and we can really work with you. So I, I do encourage people, if you have questions about this, call or email in and you'll see how we work with you.
Dr. Sugerman: And a lot of times it's not even that the fact that us as veterinarians aren't able to talk to them or anything. We, there's some people just don't know about these things, they don't know about the products that are being made and all these really cool innovations that are being, that are coming out.
Blake Dubé: Oh, exactly. Yeah, I know. And, and especially the, the one, one thing that we like to try to help with, with the oxygen chambers and the oxygen generators is, that can be a really difficult situation that's happening at, let's say really late at night in the ER and your ER vet might've worked 14 hours and they might have be actually required to go home and a new vet might be required to take up your case because if they work so hard and they need, they need a break.
Blake Dubé: So hopefully we can, that's where we are there to work with them because we've probably worked with your vet before and they're familiar with us. And we can be that extension and really work you through this. So we really say we [00:26:00] are a partner to the veterinarian. So that we can help their pet parent just as much as they would.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely, and I am the overnight vet.
Blake Dubé: Oh,
Dr. Sugerman: yeah, I get that, but I, luckily so far all my cases I've been able to contact somebody during the day. I've not needed it at 2am, but,
Blake Dubé: That's yeah, you're not the one calling trying to call grandma's oxygen supplier 2 a.m. and getting laughed out of the door. It's, it's, we've heard all of those stories, right? So I'm, I'm very glad that, you know about us and you've had success working with us too.
Dr. Sugerman: yeah, absolutely. Anything else that you wanted to share with us, Blake?
Blake Dubé: No, I don't think so. I just really appreciate you having me on. We really love any opportunity to talk with our, our pet parents and our vets who have really made us, or they put us where we're at right now, especially our vets, right? We wouldn't be here if we didn't have them recommending our products and really teaching us all these amazing ways to use it.
Dr. Sugerman: Or just having that one veterinarian who asked you for a solution?
Blake Dubé: Yeah. Oh, exactly. No, [00:27:00] that's, that's huge. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: So I always ask a question at the end of my interviews here. So I want to know, do you have any pets?
Blake Dubé: Ah, that's a great question. So personally, this always shocks people. I do not have a pet right now. My business partner, Mark has Tucker, the golden retriever. And actually, I can show you, he is featured on our large dog kit.
Dr. Sugerman: Aww, cute.
Blake Dubé: Yep. Yep. Tucker is our, is our office dog, you could say, who comes in every single day.
Blake Dubé: And yeah, what I look forward to is when I don't have to travel to so many veterinary conferences, I think we'd be getting a dog. Yes.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. You should at least consider like a goldfish or a reptile or something.
Blake Dubé: Oh, that would be a, you know what? You're right. A little less, a little less care involved. That'd be awesome. Or a cat. I think.
Dr. Sugerman: Or a cat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: All right. Thank you, Blake. I appreciate this so much that you've come on to talk to us. I hope that this will help a lot more pet parents to be able to find you guys.
Blake Dubé: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so [00:28:00] much. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Sugerman: Absolutely, and thank you everybody for tuning in, make sure to keep your pets happy, healthy, and safe. Thanks guys.