Small Animal Veterinarian Brittany Kennedy on pet diets, vaccines, end of life | Vance Crowe Podcast

About this episode

Small animal veterinarian Dr. Brittany Kennedy — a friend-of-a-friend Vance had never met before recording — talks through pet food controversy (grain-free "boutique" diets linked to a canine heart condition, versus long-established brands like Purina, Royal Canin, and Hills), pet vaccine hesitancy (paralleling human anti-vax sentiment), and the emotional toll of veterinary work, especially "compassion fatigue" and a veterinary suicide rate she says is among the highest of any profession, driven partly by crushing student debt (her cohort's average was $150,000 at ~7% interest). They also cover the anthropomorphization of pets — fur children, dog clothes, sleeping in the owner's bed — and how that shift unsettles livestock producers who fear the same lens will be turned on farm animals. After the formal interview wraps, Kennedy tries out a VR headset live on the show, then the two reopen the mic to answer a flood of listener questions crowdsourced from Twitter during her VR session, covering parvo, the veterinary shortage, pet insurance, mental health, urban pet ownership ethics, and synthetic/vegan pet food.

“And I, I mean it's an epidemic across our country. And my belief is it started in 2002 when they said you can't declare bankruptcy on your loans. Because what happened when that happened was now a bank has a risk-free borrower. So they want to pump that borrower up with as much money as they can because there's no doubt that they're gonna get paid back for it. And then the administration and all of the parts of the university say, hey, we can charge as much as we want because the banks will give them as much as they want. And so price keeps going up. The value of the education hasn't gone up.”

“I personally believe it creates political instability because you start having a lot of people that are in debt and they don't have a way to get out of the debt, even with an 80k salary. They start looking around for somebody that can help them. That's when things go sideways.”

Key moments

• Vance's intro explains the unusual format — an unplanned second half where they answer live Twitter questions after Kennedy tries VR.
• Kennedy reveals she switched into veterinary school two years into a business marketing degree after feeling "called" to it, despite advisors warning about the debt-to-income ratio.
• Grain-free "boutique" pet diets flagged by the FDA as linked to dilated cardiomyopathy in dogs; Kennedy recommends sticking with legacy brands with research behind them (Purina, Royal Canin, Hills).
• Vance and Kennedy compare pet vaccine hesitancy to the human anti-vax movement, and Vance tells the measles-booster anecdote sparked by an American-in-China YouTuber's coronavirus commentary.
• The "surfing on the edge of chaos" framing — compassion fatigue as the risk of caring enough to do the job well.
• Vance draws out the tension between anthropomorphizing pets ("fur children") and livestock producers' fear that the same logic will be turned against eating animals.
• Extended discussion of veterinary suicide rates, the "Not One More Vet" Facebook support group (~20,000 members), and the role of crushing student debt (~$150k average, 7% interest, principal often untouched) in professional burnout.
• late ~85% (post-interview segment): Kennedy tries the VR headset live; Vance predicts VR "is going to have a bigger impact on the world than email, or even Google did."
• late ~90-98%: Crowdsourced Twitter Q&A covering parvo survival odds, the nationwide veterinary shortage (<1% unemployment), pet insurance, and synthetic/vegan pet food as a possible future disruption to the meat industry.

Notable quotes

“There's a Facebook group for veterinarians called Not One More Vet... it has almost 20,000 veterinarians in it.”

“The marketing of pet food definitely got way ahead of the science... grain-free diets are causing dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart condition in dogs.”

“There's less than 1% unemployment rate for veterinarians... I have a list of 35 or 40 clinics in the St. Louis area trying to hire and can't find an associate.”

“I think it's going to have a bigger impact on the world than email, or even Google did... it will radically change society.”