My Dog Is Better Than Your Dog

About My Dog Is Better Than Your Dog

Welcome to My Dog Is Better Than Your Dog — where science meets soul as we explore what's possible when we reimagine pet care. I'm Dr. Lily Chen, integrative veterinarian and believer that our animals deserve extraordinary medicine. Each week, I talk with leading experts, pioneering vets, and devoted pet parents pushing the boundaries of animal health. Microbiome restoration, energy medicine, cancer hope, nutrition, and the mind-body-pet connection. Real science. Deep stories. A little magic. ✨ Follow IG: @dr.lilychen | @integrativepet | @the.unicorn.vet 📧 mydog@integrativepet.com

Publisher

Dr. Lily Chen

Category

kids & family

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

10 May 2024

Latest episode

4 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

112 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   4 Oct 2026

   The Part of Pet Parenthood Nobody Prepares You For w/ Dr. Jenn Roedig

   There is a moment almost every pet parent will face and almost nobody is prepared for it. You are sitting with your dog and it hits you. We are getting closer to the end. And then comes the flood. The emotions. The questions you did not know how to ask. The guilt you did not see coming. The decisions that feel impossible because you are making them for someone who cannot tell you what they want. Dr. Jenn Roedig is a licensed veterinarian and the founder of Sage Paws, a virtual practice built entirely around supporting pet parents through their animal's aging, illness, and end of life. She has guided over 500 families through this space. And two months before we recorded this conversation, she lost her own dog Luke unexpectedly the night before Easter to a ruptured splenic mass. She shares that story in this episode. It is raw and it is real. We talk about guilt, probably the most common emotion pet parents carry, and what is actually underneath it. We talk about anticipatory grief, the kind that starts weeks or months before the loss when nobody around you understands why you are already mourning. And we talk about how to know when it is time, and why you will know is not always a good enough answer. Dr. Lily also shares something personal in this one. She lost her heart dog in 2020 and still carries pieces of that ending with her. KEY INSIGHTS: ✨ Guilt is probably the most common emotion pet parents experience around end of life and it is almost never talked about openly because pet loss is grief that society does not fully recognize. Guilt loves isolation. It feeds on silence. ✨ Naming it is the first step to moving through it. Dr. Jenn calls it naming it to tame it. Once you can see what is underneath the guilt, you start to take your power back. ✨ Saying you will know when it is time is not always helpful. It depends on the disease, the pet, the family's values, and what too soon or too late means to each person. ✨ Look at good hours, not just good days. A day can be called good but if it only had four good hours and twenty bad ones, that matters. Quality of life is nuanced and individual to every pet and every family. ✨ Notice what they stop disliking, not just what they stop liking. Dr. Jenn's dog Luke used to bark at delivery drivers. She knew that if that ever stopped, something was really wrong. ✨ Anticipatory grief is real and it is disenfranchised. Nobody around you may understand why you are already grieving a pet that is still alive. You are not alone in that and you do not have to carry it alone. ✨ Journaling or voice noting your thoughts for ten minutes a day can help break the spiral. Getting it out of your head and onto paper gives it somewhere to live so it stops consuming you at 3am. ✨ The best time to have these conversations is before you need them. Families who plan ahead, even loosely, are more prepared to make meaningful decisions under pressure. ✨ Dr. Jenn's sessions are 90 minutes and completely virtual. She works with pet parents anywhere in the world. ✨ Vets are not trained for these conversations in vet school. A resource like Sage Paws does not replace the veterinarian. It fills the gap the vet does not have time to fill. RESOURCES: Sage Paws: https://www.sagepaws.com/ (https://www.sagepaws.com/) Instagram: @_sage_paws (https://www.instagram.com/_sage_paws/) Sessions: 90 minutes, virtual, available worldwide (https://www.sagepaws.com/work-with-me-1) Linktr.ee: @sagepaws (https://linktr.ee/sagepaws?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=397706e0-b63f-4375-aa1f-c24ae2b7fbb2) FOLLOW:Integrative Pet Wellness Center: https://integrativepet.com/ (https://integrativepet.com/) Instagram: @integrativepet (https://www.instagram.com/integrativepet/) Threads: @integrativepet (https://www.threads.com/@integrativepet) Sign up to our newsletter to get more holistic pet care tips (https://mydogpodcast.kit.com/newsletter) 🐶🐈⬛ Dr. Lily Chen: Instagram: @dr.lilychen (https://www.instagram.com/dr.lilychen/) @the.unicorn.vet (https://www.instagram.com/the.unicorn.vet/) Threads: @the.unicorn.vet (https://www.threads.com/@the.unicorn.vet) LinkedIn: Lily Chen, DVM, CVA (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-chen-dvm-cva-a385705/)

2. 

   20 Sept 2026

   Your Dog's Tongue Is Trying to Tell You Something w/ Carol Bramson

   Your Dog's Tongue Is Trying to Tell You Something w/ Carol Bramson The next time your dog is lying next to you totally relaxed, look at their tongue. Is it pale pink or a deep angry red? Dry or moist? Purple around the edges? To most of us that is just a tongue. But in a tradition practiced for thousands of years it is your dog communicating with you about what is happening inside their body. Carol Bramson is the founder of Side by Side Pet, a whole food pet nutrition company built on Eastern food therapy. She grew up in a household where food was health, spent years visiting over 3,000 food ingredient suppliers across the US and Europe, and then got her first dog, Wrigley, was handed a bag of kibble, and thought this does not look like food. Wrigley is 11 now and everyone who meets him thinks he is about two. We get into the energetics of food, warming cooling and neutral, why gut health has to come first before food can even do its job, why seizures and hot spots so often trace back to what is in the bowl, and why the answer to changing pet health is collaboration not competition. KEY INSIGHTS: ✨ Food has energetic properties understood for thousands of years in Eastern medicine. Warming foods support a body running cold. Cooling foods calm a body running hot. Matching the food to the dog can change everything. ✨ The tongue tells you what is happening inside. Side by Side built an AI balance indicator that analyzes a photo of your dog's tongue and recommends which food type their body needs right now. ✨ Gut health has to come first. A dog on kibble for years may not have the microorganisms needed to absorb nutrients from whole food. Rebuilding the microbiome before or alongside the transition matters. ✨ Dr. Lily tested kibble-fed dogs and found high levels of glyphosate and mycotoxins. A major pet food company told her the levels were within acceptable range for humans. Pets are not small people. ✨ Seizures in dogs correlate strongly with toxic load. Dr. Lily has seen seizure frequency decrease significantly when toxins are cleared and diet changes. We reach for drugs before we ask what is driving the problem. ✨ Whole food nutrients cannot be replicated by synthetic supplements. The structural combination of fiber, vitamins, and minerals in a whole food is what the body is designed to absorb. Your doctor tells you to eat broccoli, not broccoli powder. ✨ Feeding the same food every single day for years is not variety. Rotating proteins and adding fresh toppers even in small amounts builds microbial diversity and signals to the body that it is safe to adapt. ✨ The pet food industry changes when consumers change where they spend their money. Even the largest kibble companies are launching fresh food lines because that is where demand is going. ✨ Side by Side's Giving Fund provides whole food nutrition to dogs in need with a special focus on service, therapy, and care dogs. ✨ There are not enough pets eating well. Every brand, vet, and pet parent working toward that goal is on the same side. RESOURCES: Side by Side Pet: https://www.sidebysidepet.com (https://sidebysidepet.com/collections/all) Instagram: @sidebysidepet (https://www.instagram.com/sidebysidepet/) Facebook: @sidebysidepet (https://www.facebook.com/sidebysidepet) Tiktok: @sidebysidepet (https://www.tiktok.com/@sidebysidepet) Available on: sidebysidepet.com (https://sidebysidepet.com/collections/shop-by-category), Amazon, Chewy and independent boutique pet stores (https://sidebysidepet.com/pages/store-locator) FOLLOW: Integrative Pet Wellness Center: https://integrativepet.com (https://integrativepet.com/) Instagram: @integrativepet (https://www.instagram.com/integrativepet/) Threads: @integrativepet (https://www.threads.com/@integrativepet) Sign up to our newsletter (https://mydogpodcast.kit.com/newsletter) to get more holistic pet care tips 🐶🐈⬛ Dr. Lily Chen: Instagram: @dr.lilychen (https://www.instagram.com/dr.lilychen/) @the.unicorn.vet (https://www.instagram.com/the.unicorn.vet/) Threads: @the.unicorn.vet (https://www.threads.com/@the.unicorn.vet) LinkedIn: Lily Chen, DVM, CVA (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-chen-dvm-cva-a385705) & The Unicorn Vet (https://www.linkedin.com/company/112090629/admin/page-posts/published/)

3. 

   6 Sept 2026

   The Vet Episode Nobody Taught You in Vet School w/ Dr. Judy Jasek

   This one is for every veterinarian who has ever felt like an island. But it is also for every pet parent who has ever wondered what it actually takes for a vet to practice medicine on their own terms, and why so many of the best ones end up building something from scratch. Dr. Judy Jasek never wanted to own a business. She became an entrepreneur because it was the only way she could practice the medicine she believed in. She bought a conventional practice, stopped doing as many vaccines because she believed they were harming her patients, and watched her revenue plummet. Then she built a full integrative hospital, burned out under the weight of it, sold it, sat through a three year non-compete, and rebuilt from the front room of her house. No debt. No bank loan. Just a mat on the floor and a willingness to see what happened. It thrived. Dr. Lily started the same way. House calls, then 500 square feet, a mat and a desk, no X-ray machine, no surgery suite. The only piece of equipment she needs to plug in today is her ozone machine. This conversation also goes into the loss of empathy in the veterinary profession since COVID, what drove it, and why both Dr. Judy and Dr. Lily believe that healing is an art that is at risk of being lost. KEY INSIGHTS: ✨ Most holistic vets become entrepreneurs by necessity, not choice. The only way to practice authentically is often to build something yourself. ✨ You do not need a big loan, a big space, or all the equipment. Dr. Judy rebuilt from her front room. Dr. Lily started with house calls and 500 square feet. Both practices thrived. ✨ Avoiding debt is one of the most important decisions you can make when starting a practice. When you own debt, you feel trapped. When you own nothing, you are free to practice the way you want. ✨ Find the modality that is uniquely yours and go all in on that. You do not have to do everything. Every other clinic is already doing everything. Your niche eliminates your competition. ✨ The curbside drop-off era during COVID did profound damage to the veterinarian-client bond. The loss of empathy in the profession since that time is something both Dr. Judy and Dr. Lily are seeing firsthand. ✨ Corporate practice appointments run every 10 to 15 minutes. There is not enough time to sit on the floor, listen to the family, explore options, or practice medicine that feels like medicine. ✨ Informed consent is how veterinarians are supposed to practice. Explaining the risks, the whys, the regulations, and letting the family make the choice. Not badgering, not enforcing, not checking boxes. ✨ Clients follow doctors, not clinics. When you practice from the heart, people are drawn to that energy. The right clients will find you. ✨ Healing is an art. Every veterinarian has unique gifts. The world needs those gifts, not another clinic that does the same things as the 10 clinics around it. ✨ If you feel like an island in this profession, you are not alone. There are more of us than you think. RESOURCES: Animal Healing Arts: https://ahavet.com (https://ahavet.com) Instagram: @judyjasek (https://www.instagram.com/judyjasek/#) Facebook: @Animal Healing Arts (https://www.facebook.com/animalhealingartsco/) Substack: https://judyjasekdvm.substack.com (https://judyjasekdvm.substack.com/) Membership (free to join): https://ahavet.com/membership (https://ahavet.com/membership-agreement/) FOLLOW: Integrative Pet Wellness Center: https://integrativepet.com (https://integrativepet.com/) Instagram: @integrativepet (https://www.instagram.com/integrativepet/) Threads: @integrativepet (https://www.threads.com/@integrativepet) Sign up to our newsletter to get more holistic pet care tips (https://mydogpodcast.kit.com/newsletter)🐶🐈⬛ Dr. Lily Chen: Instagram: @dr.lilychen (https://www.instagram.com/dr.lilychen/) @the.unicorn.vet (https://www.instagram.com/the.unicorn.vet/) Threads: @the.unicorn.vet (https://www.threads.com/@the.unicorn.vet) LinkedIn: Lily Chen, DVM, CVA (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-chen-dvm-cva-a385705/) & The Unicorn Vet (https://www.linkedin.com/company/112090629/admin/dashboard/)

Who has been a guest on My Dog Is Better Than Your Dog

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Shari
• Dr Lily Chen
• Dr Tina Hansen
• Dr Edward Bassingthwaighte
• Suzanne Cannon

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

11 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

29 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 49 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

55

Social presence

94

YouTube

0

Engagement

60