When the cameras stop rolling, what remains? For the Pol family, the end of “The Incredible Dr. Pol” was a finale, but it was also a beginning. In this episode, hosts Dr. Stephanie Clark and Jordan Tyler sit down with Charles Pol, Dr. Pol’s son and executive producer, and longtime producer Mike Stankevich to explore how the show became the foundation for Docson Brands and the development of Incredi-Pol pet foods. Recorded live from the SUPERZOO 2025 show floor, this candid conversation reveals the philosophy that has always guided Dr. Pol’s work: affordable, accessible, common-sense care for animals and the people who love them.

Helpful Links

📺 Explore every season of “The Incredible Dr. Pol” here: https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-659aa216-5a05-4c41-b96b-d4f6ef3e5350

🐶 Learn more about Docson Brands and their portfolio of animal food and care products: https://thedrpol.com/incredi-pol-products/

📞 Learn more about Dr. Pol’s veterinary triage service, Dr. Pol CARE: https://thedrpol.com/dr-pol-care/?srsltid=AfmBOoprCOgdzz9e9-LLlfV4uQ5v_FCMWUZ_5z8Zh2RkDAKTT5kTIex5

⚕️ Read more from Mars Veterinary Health’s report, “Tackling the Veterinary Professional Shortage:” https://marsveterinary.com/tackling-the-veterinary-professional-shortage/

👀 …then, check out the American Veterinary Medical Association’s (AVMA) clap-back: https://www.avma.org/news/no-dire-shortage-veterinarians-anticipated-coming-years

🐎 More on rural veterinary shortages persisting today: https://www.avma.org/news/usda-announces-plan-address-rural-federal-veterinary-shortages

📈 Get the AVMA’s perspective on rising veterinary costs: https://www.avma.org/blog/avma-shares-insights-rising-veterinary-costs

🔍 Read the “State of the Veterinary Care Industry” from PetSmart Charities & Gallup: https://www.gallup.com/analytics/659123/gallup-petsmart-charities.aspx

🎧 Hear more about the emotional, financial, and systemic challenges facing veterinary professionals today, including unmatched levels of burnout.

Show Notes

00:00 – Inside the Episode

01:49 – Meet Charles Pol and Mike Stankevich

03:05 – Behind the Scenes of “The Incredible Dr. Pol”

08:15 – Understanding Dr. Pol’s Ethos

17:17 – Coping with Rising Pet Care Prices

19:36 – Dr. Pol CARE and the State of Veterinary Medicine

27:12 – Rethinking Veterinary Education & Practice

30:06 – An Emergency Vet’s Perspective

37:02 – Balancing Care with Compassion, For Vets and Pets

42:25 – Loving Animals Brings Us Together

44:07 – Today’s Key Takeaways

00:07

Jordan Tyler

01:00

Jordan Tyler

Not spelled like the popular dog breed, but like D-O-C-S-O-N, which is a play on words I promise you're gonna get here in just a second… But their philosophy is simple, affordability, accessibility, and quality care for every animal. Today, we're sitting down with two of the people that made the incredible Doctor Pol possible. Charles Pol, Doctor Pol's son, who served as an executive producer and became his dad's sidekick on screen. Get it? Doc-son? Anyway, he's the CEO and they produce animal food for dogs and cats as well as farm feeds for horses, goats, rabbits, poultry, game birds, and other animals. And joining him is Mike Stankevich, who spent twelve years as a producer on the show and now works in marketing and strategy for Docson Brands.

01:49

Jordan Tyler

This conversation covers the journey from reality TV to retail shelves, what it takes to build a brand with integrity, and why affordability and accessibility in veterinary care and animal nutrition is becoming increasingly important.

02:04

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast by BSM Partners. We're your hosts, Doctor Stephanie Clark—

02:11

Jordan Tyler

—and I'm Jordan Tyler.

02:14

Mike Stankevich

My name is Mike Stankevich, and I was the executive producer on “The Incredible Dr. Pol.” Started as a producer and ended up as the showrunner, and then the show ended. And then now I'm working with Charles in marketing and strategy for Docson Brands.

02:30

Charles Pol

03:05

Jordan Tyler

Do you miss production at all?

03:07

Charles Pol

No. I don't miss—no. I mean, like, my background was always in more development. As a producer, there's different types of producers. There's a producer who you think of a producer who's a is an on-set producer or a showrunner or producer, a line producer. Those types of producers are used to being on set. Right? And then there's the other type of producers who are more in the development, developing projects, pitching them, selling them, packaging them. That was kind of more, like, what I was interested in and what I was good at. So, when I sold the show about my dad, like, was kind of committed to then go on set and produce the show because it's about my family. Like, I never was supposed to be in front of the camera.

03:49

Charles Pol

I was always a behind the camera member of the show as a producer. And during the first season, we kind of I think it was one day in. You know, my dad's riding by himself, and, you know, he's dealing with clients, but there's just really not a lot of interaction besides with the clients. You know, what is he? He's just driving the car by himself. Right? Like, there's nobody to talk to. So, they're like, well, we really want, like, an interaction, like, somebody that he can bounce off. Like, you know, Batman needs Robin. Yeah. Without Robin, there's no Batman. Right? And so, they it was determined that the best way I could help the show was being my dad's sidekick. So, it was a role that, like, I never planned to take, so I kind of stepped back into my childhood.

04:38

Charles Pol

It was really cool because when I was a kid, I didn't really like veterinary medicine. I had to go out on the road with my dad and, you know, I was interested in TV and I wanted to watch TV and watch movies and play video games and I had to ride with my dad all day. So it was like this thing that was always in my life but didn't have an appreciation for it. And then, you know, I went off and did my thing in entertainment and did that, and then it brought me full circle back to my dad and being able to ride with him. But then he learned my business, too, of entertainment. So, we both, like, developed this real deep appreciation for what the other person was doing and understanding, and it really was this thing that, like, I treasure.

05:26

Charles Pol

And it was one of the reasons why I don't miss entertainment because there's nothing I can do that will ever equal that. I've climbed the mountain, I've done that, so this is a new mountain, this is a new adventure to climb and learn and kind of struggle through, so I'm really excited about being doing this.

05:47

Jordan Tyler

I love that.

05:48

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I was gonna say, that is an awesome story. Yeah.

05:50

Mike Stankevich

Well, I can say that I do miss production, but in the Dr. Pol world. Working on that show, starting at it's like a field producer, and I'm just following Dr. Pol all day and getting to know him and then living there, and I got married. And just my wife worked on the show, and we created this thing together. And when the season finale was done, I'm not a podcast person to be on or camera, I'm like behind a bunch of people just and then when they did the season finale after the last one, was very difficult because I'm interviewing Dr. Pol for the last time.

06:34

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Mhmm.

06:34

Mike Stankevich

And it's been twelve years working with Charles and Dr. Pol. And so asking these questions and then putting me on the show, was like, I'm not interested in any of that. But what you see is, like, a relationship that I built with him and mutual respect, and then Charles' brand, Docson Brands, and working with Dr. Pol and these all these licensees, he was telling me about it. And it took me a year to, like, not think about working in television anymore, and switching to this side is very exciting. It's a different thing, and it's like a new challenge. And so, I don't miss production, but I do still hang on to, like, man, like, following Dr. Paul is something else. Like, once in a lifetime opportunity. Because he's just an interesting person.

07:30

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah. And you said 12 years?

07:32

Mike Stankevich

07:35

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Wow. You felt like you can—

07:37

Mike Stankevich

Started on it.

07:37

Dr. Stephanie Clark

You're a vet now? No. I'm kidding, but…

07:39

Mike Stankevich

Well, have to unlearn stuff, so keep asking the same questions. Oh. Like, “Doc, what's… can you tell me about prolapse?” He's like, “I've said that a 100 times.” Like, I'm like, “Yeah, but we… new, always new viewers. For the kids, for the kids.” Yeah.

07:54

Jordan Tyler

Oh, that’s incredible.

07:55

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But like, “I never thought I would ask about prolapse so many times in my future.”

08:00

Mike Stankevich

Yeah, you learn quite a bit. But it's interesting about Dr. Pol is his whole overarching ethos of just affordability and accessibility and seeing that now transfer over to the brand is it's like a scene it's very interesting.

08:15

Charles Pol

Yeah, I mean, that was really the philosophy, you know, when we started talking about this. Well, you know, backing up about the show that just to say, like, I think what was really unique about this show, was that Mike's situation of being there for twelve years was not unique. I mean, almost the entire group of core camera operators, audio engineers were around for almost since season two. Our DP, our director of photography, was around, he was in the first season. That's unheard of. Usually, shows have a churn of people, but I think one of the secrets, the secret sauce to our success was this core group of people that kept coming back year after year. Everybody took a lot of pride in that and the pride in the relationship. It was I always talked about it as summer camp.

09:12

Charles Pol

Everybody has a great time, but then by the end of the summer camp, you're like ready for everyone to go home, and then you go home. And in our case, was a hiatus. We never really shut down over 12 years, we never really shut down production more than like a month. But you would have a hiatus so everyone could go home to their families.

09:30

Mike Stankevich

But there's nothing like watching a live calf being pulled. Like, your front row seat, and then you're there's times where we're very polite and cautious with all the farmers, like, ask permission to be on the property. Can we film this? And sometimes people will film with all the time. They're like, can we pass on this one? This is, like, really intense. And so and then it was all-hands-on-deck, and I'm pulling a cow pulling a calf with Charles. And it's like two weeks into my first job.

10:02

Jordan Tyler

And you're like…

10:03

Mike Stankevich

Working on the show.

10:03

Dr. Stephanie Clark

You didn't leave. You didn't realize—

10:04

Mike Stankevich

—and it's like the electricity when you pull a live calf. Oh, yeah. And Doc's like, he's got his coveralls just down around his waist, and he's just covered in… amniotic, was it, fluid?

10:17

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yep. Yep. Yep.

10:18

Mike Stankevich

And it's like, this is really remarkable. Like, yeah. I haven't seen this on television before.

10:25

Dr. Stephanie Clark

You literally helped bring life into this world.

10:27

Mike Stankevich

Yeah. And there's something in there. Like, you could feel it.

10:30

Jordan Tyler

Yeah. Yeah.

10:31

Dr. Stephanie Clark

That's awesome.

10:32

Jordan Tyler

Well, you guys obviously have something really special, you know, in Dr. Pol as it existed historically, and it's really followed you, it sounds like, through to where, you know—

10:42

Charles Pol

The brand.

10:42

Jordan Tyler

—the brand, where the brand is now.

10:44

Charles Pol

Yeah, it's really, you know, the people that you surround yourself to grow a business is almost as important as a strategic direction. Yeah. You know, and that's really something we learned. And going back to that, just reiterating that, like, you know, the secret sauce to our show was, like, how close everyone was in making it. Like, it was a team. We were a team. We were all in it together. We were all going through, like, combat together because production is combat, right? And we're all going it together as a band of brothers, like, going into war together every day, fighting the elements and the sometimes the animals, you know, whatever.

11:24

Mike Stankevich

Well, you're spending so much time in the car.

11:27

Charles Pol

Yeah, we spend so much time together.

11:30

Mike Stankevich

Yeah.

11:30

Charles Pol

Just throughout the day.

11:32

Mike Stankevich

Exactly. And I think he misses all of us crawling around his property and.

11:38

Charles Pol

They do, did miss—I mean, we kind of carried that forward to the brand.

11:42

Mike Stankevich

Yeah.

11:42

Charles Pol

Exactly. You know, a lot of the ideologies, too. Like, I have to give a lot of credit to my wife, because she was the one who really, I was very focused on the show, you know, and doing that job. And then when we got married, she gave up her career to move up, to be with me, and she was looking for something to do. We were talking about what she wanted to do. And she said, “Well, I really think we could build a brand out of the ideology.” And so, the conversations began to happen about what that brand was, you know? And the one big thing that we didn't want to do, one thing that I didn't want to do that so many shows do is they just label slap, right?

12:24

Charles Pol

Like it's capitalizing on the fame, right, or capitalizing on the success of a show. But that, I always told Black, I said, That's radioactive. It degrades. Every year, it's gonna get less and less and less. Right? It's you're degrading your own brand by doing that, so I don't wanna do that. I wanna sell something that improves, that actually means something, that builds a brand that is around. Right? And I you know, when I go in and I talk to retailers about what Dr. Pol, the brand, stands for. I said, you know, Dr. Scholes was a real guy.

12:58

Jordan Tyler

Mhmm.

12:59

Charles Pol

We don't realize, you know, now that he was a real guy. You know? Colonel Sanders was a real guy.

13:04

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah.

13:05

Charles Pol

You know, Kellogg's, which is funny because they're getting out of the cereal business, but Kellogg was a real guy, who developed this, and those brands lasted generations or are still going on. Right? And it's because they built something, they built a brand that outlived them. And that's really was my goal, is to build something. And how do you do that? You have to have a product that you can sell that people want. And then it's, okay, they want it, they'll take a chance on it because it's got Dr. Pol on the label, but if not any good, if it doesn't have the value Yeah. They won't buy it again. And so, to build a brand that sustains, the first thing we had to do is like, okay, we need to make something that's quality.

13:50

Charles Pol

We have to sell something that is good that actually delivers. And then the second thing is, like, affordability and then balancing those two things. Right?

14:00

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Mhmm.

14:00

Charles Pol

And especially within the dog food because, I mean, that's you know, our brand is very diverse, but it is the engine that drives our brand is the dog food because it's it is one of the biggest selling animal products out there.

14:14

Jordan Tyler

Mhmm.

14:14

Charles Pol

And, you know, people always had a lot of questions about dog food, so it was finding a partner. And we found a great partner who had a lot of experience in manufacturing but not really their own brand. They did a lot of white label. And they were really interested in developing a brand. So, they made a great partnership because we understood the brand, we understood where we wanted to be, we understood the strategic direction, and they understood the manufacturing. And then Doctor. Pol got together with their animal nutritionist, and it was really a discussion like, “Well, this is what I see, this is what I think, this is what my experience has taught me about animals.”

14:54

Charles Pol

15:38

Charles Pol

You know, and our launch strategy was, especially with the large animal feed, and our whole strategy was based on this cool display, this pallet display idea that where we had Dr. Pol in the display and had the food built around it and we launch in the stores and COVID happens and they shut down the stores and nobody could see our display, right? And so, it became a problem. We were doing pretty good sales, but it really became a volume issue. Yeah. You know? It's like they're moving massive volumes at that time. Like, food was selling gangbusters. Like, you know, people everybody couldn't keep it in stock. So it was, like, a little bit of a step back because of COVID, and then COVID passes, we launched again.

16:17

Charles Pol

And at that time, we had, developed our OPP, opening price point line, Incredi-Pol. And we looked at developing again, like, you know, the limited line is a great food, but not everyone can afford a premium product. So, we wanted something that was cheaper, but we, again, balancing that quality. So, we took, like, a step down, you know, just a little bit of step down where we could balance that quality in there. So, we launched the Incredi-Pol, and then we built success and success, you know, opportunities. And now we're in a lot of brick-and-mortar retail, and we've seen a lot of success. But that's on partnership, that's on philosophy, understanding the core tenets of our brand and what we are. You know, Dr. Pol stands for affordability, accessibility, and then balancing that with quality. But the two things for him are really affordability and accessibility.

17:17

Jordan Tyler

And I want to come back really quickly to the affordability piece. This is something that our consumer strategy expert, Michael Johnson, kind of it's like one of his shticks right now, is the pet industry is kind of like at a like a race to like the top price point right now. Everything's super premium, everything's ultra-premium and the price point to show for it And we're like kind of ignoring this huge swath of the market that would, you know, they either can't afford to buy such expensive pet food, they have either too many pets or they just don't have enough income. And there's like so many consumers in this space that care deeply about the health and wellness of their pet, of their animal, and wanna do the best by them.

18:02

Jordan Tyler

And so having like a high quality, high integrity brand like what you guys are doing at a more accessible price point, I think, is, like, that's it doesn't sound like it might be innovation, but that's innovative in today's industry.

18:16

Charles Pol

It's difficult. Right? And it really has to do with the consumer trends of online shopping and I'm not knocking online shopping because I know that it's where it's going, right? But in online shopping, if you want to be on Amazon, you need a margin of 50% because of the fees and the cost and the bag shipping and the packing and there's so many things behind the scenes that go into that. So, you need like this huge margin, right? So, to support online sales, you need a premium product or a super-premium product like a high price point product so you can have enough margin to make a profit. Right? So, when you look at, like, an affordable product, you know, when you look at there's two ways to do it. Right?

18:56

Charles Pol

And, like, some manufacturers, and I'm like, I'll call anybody out, but they'll decrease their cost by substituting or putting in cheap ingredients. That's one strategy. Or you can try to do a more quality product and just shave those margins, right, and say, okay, well, we'll take 8% margin instead of a 10% margin and we're gonna work a little bit with a tighter margin and try to do more volume, right? Because then there's the volume play. Yep. Which is like, you know, kind of, I would say, the Walmart strategy, right? Exactly. Like low prices, high volume. Yeah. Right? That's the other way you do it. So it's difficult, it's been challenging, that's been one of, I think, our most challenging things is figuring out how to do Amazon.

19:36

Charles Pol

We're slowly figuring it out, trying to figure out how to strategically reduce those fees to make everything more efficient, to cut the costs, and that requires a lot of learning and sometimes the hard knocks, but you begin to learn how to do it. That's what the brand is starting, and we're really excited about a new initiative into that for affordability and accessibility that we're starting, it's called Doctorable Care. And it's a vet triage service, a subscription vet triage service that we're offering, advice triage, basically for $8.95 or $90 a year. We're selling a subscription service for 24/7 access to a veterinarian in a matter of minutes. You can get online and chat to a veterinarian and that's been something that really has grown out of, again, philosophy, Dr. Pol.

20:28

Mike Stankevich

Well, he can't take all the calls.

20:30

Charles Pol

He can't take all the calls. But there's a shortage of veterinarians in this country.

20:34

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yes. Yeah.

20:34

Charles Pol

There's a shortage of vets because there's not enough vets graduating. There's limited space in vet schools. There's not enough vet schools. Demand for veterinarians higher.

20:44

Jordan Tyler

21:34

Jordan Tyler

22:31

Jordan Tyler

And beef cattle has been identified as the species with the greatest need for veterinary care. So, while there's definitely been debate, there are shortages somewhere, especially in Dr. Pol's neck of the woods. And there is at least one other piece of this puzzle.

22:47

Charles Pol

And then there's a second price, is the cost of veterinary medicine keeps going up because and I'm not blaming any vets on this. Like, everyone wants to make a living, right? But it's like everyone wants a better living. They are graduating with more college debt, and it's getting more expensive, so they need higher salaries. And, again, like, there's two ways to do business is volume and price. Right? And I would say 99.9% of all veterinary offices decide to do the price. They increase their prices in order to do that. There are very few that will say, okay, we're going to do more volume because that means more work.

23:25

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yep.

23:26

Charles Pol

Right? Like working harder, working faster to be able to get through clients and see more clients. My dad has always been a volume person, he wants accessibility and affordability.

23:36

Mike Stankevich

Mhmm. Interesting too, like 90% of the calls that Dr. Pol gets, he triages instead of come on in and discharging an emergency fee.

23:47

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

23:48

Mike Stankevich

And so we're hoping with this service, it could save people money to help even if your dog or cat or something has an emergency, you can talk to a licensed vet, their five years of experience, they and can walk you through it.

24:02

Jordan Tyler

Yeah. I think it's really cool and just built on the, again, affordability, accessibility, like, tenants that you guys have built really everything around.

24:09

Charles Pol

Everything around.

24:10

Mike Stankevich

It. Yeah. That's all people money too, like Yeah.

24:13

Charles Pol

Saving people money. I mean, like, you know, and there's a two factor, and we talked about this, Mike, just the other day. There's two factors. If you if your animal is sick, if you're home and your dog starts having bloody diarrhea... You're gonna freak out.

24:28

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Oh, yeah. Right? Yep. And I—

24:30

Charles Pol

You're going want to take that vet you're going want to take them to the vet. And you're probably going to call your emergency vet office and be like, you're going to go in there. Well, most likely, you're fine. You could wait until tomorrow. Like, it happens, right? Let's see it tomorrow. You're going to cost yourself an emergency vet visit, which, let's say, like, let's be generous and say $200.

24:56

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah.

24:56

Charles Pol

Probably more, but let's say $200.

24:59

Jordan Tyler

Yeah, it's pretty generous.

24:59

Charles Pol

And you don't necessarily need that, right? Just walk in the door. Yeah, just walk in the door. But you don't really need that, right? You don't need that. You could wait and not pay that. So, we can save those people money by, you know, having that triage and having them say, you need to see a vet, but call your vet tomorrow. Don't worry about tonight or this weekend, call Monday, first thing Monday morning. And then, you know, it's check back in with me. You know, we Bold Care provides a triage assessment to every patient and there's different things like emergency, you go vet right away, like, “Call your vet tomorrow,” or, you know, whatever. And some of them are conditional and they'll always say, like, “If something changes, check back in with us because our recommendation might change.”

25:41

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah.

25:42

Charles Pol

But, like, with that, though, those people who would run to the vet, it's not just about saving them money, it's about the fact that emergency clinics only have so much capacity.

25:53

Jordan Tyler

So.

25:54

Charles Pol

If you're in that emergency clinic because your dog ate pot and you're freaked out about it, you're taking it's not an emergency, there's nothing they can do, they'll just tell you go home right and let it sleep it off.

26:06

Mike Stankevich

Yeah, write it off. But.

26:10

Charles Pol

Not only are you taking, you know, costing yourself money, you're taking an appointment slot away from somebody who may need it.

26:16

Dr. Stephanie Clark

That is a great point.

26:17

Charles Pol

So, if somebody comes in that place with a hit by a car, might have to wait and that could be the difference between life and death. So, I think that, you know, you we're actually helping the emergency vet industry, we're not taking business away from them, we're helping them by actually giving them the clientele that actually needs them.

26:35

Mike Stankevich

It's also interesting, there's a big part of people that never go to vets.

26:40

Charles Pol

And because they're priced out.

26:42

Mike Stankevich

Either priced out or just—

26:44

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Distance, yeah, availability. Whatever the reasons are.

26:47

Jordan Tyler

Yeah, there was a study that came out recently that was like seven out of ten pet owners these days have, like, forego veterinary care, like routine veterinary care. And you put that up against like the whole, you know, trend toward preventive care, and we wanna, like, do the best by our animals so that they don't, like, have X, Y, and Z later in life. We wanna try to prevent that as much as possible. There's a disconnect there, and it's rooted, I think, in price.

27:12

Charles Pol

Yeah. It's rooted in price a 100%. It's rooted in, you know, I really, I think there needs to be more vets. It bugs me that even the vets that are coming out of school, and I know tons of great ones that are coming out of school, right? Like, you hear people, they're not getting the hands-on experience that they really should have in school anymore. Like, this is just my opinion and it's maybe controversial but in my opinion.

27:42

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I like spicy.

27:42

Charles Pol

Vet schools should be no different than barber colleges, right? It's like, if you're going to vet school and you have a clinic at your vet school, which all of them do at the hospital, you like, the students should be working on the vets. And I know some schools have hands on, right? But too often, like, I've talked to vet students who are graduating, I've seen things, documentaries on vet schools, I've gone to vet schools and it's the professor who's seen it and all the students are walking behind and they're watching the professor. Why? Because veterinary universities, the vet college and the hospital, the research, they make money for the university. Yeah. Yeah. And that shouldn't be their principal. It should be cheap.

28:28

Charles Pol

It should be $8 to go to the university to go get your pet scene because they're gonna have a student work on it. And then the students will have more hands-on experience and graduate knowing more, right? How many vets have come out of college or out of university degrees? How many have we seen? I can't even tell you who are like, I've done a spay. I've done a spay.

28:51

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah. Good luck.

28:52

Charles Pol

Yeah. And it's like, okay, well, so now they're coming out of college and they're going to these hospitals and they need to be trained. I think they're being too relied on being a diagnostician, too much reliance on machines and technology. It'd be like, okay, your dog has this. Okay, I'm going to run this test. We're going to give him an x-ray. We're going to do an ultrasound. All these things. You're running up the bill, doing all these and then you're like, okay, well, turns out it's this. Why don't you come up with a diagnosis based on the symptoms, based on a physical examination, and then run a test to confirm if you need to? Or how about just treat and see if the animal gets better? More people go see a vet. Yeah, much more people would see it.

29:39

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah, I mean, it's like the same thing with diarrhea. Like, most of the time, if you just let it run its course for a couple of days, it goes away. And it's like, no, no, got to give antibiotics and then you're causing more issues, but I won't go down that.

29:52

Mike Stankevich

But if have a relationship with you, they would just call you. Yeah. Like clients would call, hey check back, let me check back in and then he'd have these conversations, and then these the vet bills were.

30:04

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Much more manageable. Yeah.

30:06

Jordan Tyler

Let's pause here for a second to take a closer look. Why are veterinary costs going up? And more importantly, what's driving the gap between what veterinarians want to provide and what pet owners can actually afford? Going back to the AVMA, they say it's not as simple as vets are just price gouging us. But Charles is right in that there are legitimate systemic and economic issues with today's veterinary profession. The AVMA has a few theories, so let's kinda go through those. First, supply and demand. Small independent practices, kind of like the one that Doctor. Pol runs, have been struggling for the last several years to compete with corporate veterinary groups when it comes to hiring new graduates from schools. Corporations that are buying up veterinary clinics can offer massive signing bonuses, comprehensive benefits packages that usually go beyond what small practices can offer.

31:01

Jordan Tyler

The list of perks goes on. And all of that sounds really great for vets, of course. But it comes at a cost, ultimately and often to the pet owner. Then there's the education piece. As veterinary care has advanced dramatically over the last few decades, the quality of medicine available today is light years beyond what was available even twenty years ago, which again is incredible for vets. It's incredible for animals. But it also means a higher cost to deliver that level of care. Now where it gets especially complicated is that newer veterinarians aren't always being taught how to scale the care they provide based on what the client can afford. So, in other words, we're not teaching this newer generation of vets that care can be tailored to the economic situation of that client and that incremental approaches aren't animal abuse.

31:52

Jordan Tyler

Charles has a really great story to illustrate this point here in just a minute, so stick around for that. Finally, though, there is the corporatization and the consolidation of the veterinary space, and that's something Charles admitted he's deeply concerned about. As more independent practices get bought up by corporate groups, the focus shifts to predetermined profit margins. And to hit those numbers, corporate owned practices often cut lower paid personnel. So, vet techs, assistants, and support staff that make the practice run smoothly, those get cut first. And this creates really overwhelming workloads for remaining staff or the DVMs, making it harder for them to do their jobs effectively. And many burn out and leave the profession entirely.

32:38

Jordan Tyler

So when Charles and Mike talk about seeing people pull out high interest credit cards to pay for veterinary care or when criticizing the test first, diagnose later approach, he's pointing to real systemic issues that are making vet care less accessible for millions of pet owners. But let's talk about what that looks like from the other side of the clinic.

33:00

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah. I was always the bad guy. I worked at an emergency hospital when I was going through school, and I was the bad guy that had to come in with the bill. And, okay, here's the estimate of everything, and they just look at you know, they're at a vulnerable, desperate time, you know, I'm from the Midwest outside of St. Louis, so, you know, my dog ran through a window because it's all a bird or a deer, you know, it got ran over by a four wheeler. Like, these are actual, like, cases I've seen, and you're coming in and you're like, okay, so $3,000 later, and we don't know if your dog is gonna be okay because it may have some neuro issues. But, you know, I would just sit down with him. I'm like, okay.

33:38

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Like, look, your dog, you know, got ran over by a four wheeler. You know, do you need an echo? No. Let's start. Let's see what's going on, you know? Any bones broken? Any pain? Any you know? Let's get our hands on them. So yeah. Absolutely. Unfortunately, yeah, I was that person for a long time, so I definitely feel like and, I mean, this was, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. But yeah, and that was when things were cheaper.

34:08

Mike Stankevich

Do you think that style will have make a comeback? That kind of treatment? Like we're hitting a mass critical mass of like so expensive, do you think it will turn?

34:20

Jordan Tyler

Something's got to change, right?

34:22

Mike Stankevich

Right? Yeah. Like, I'm an optimist.

34:23

Charles Pol

Somebody's going to step in, but there's also a group of veterinarians. I think the affordability within veterinarians is starting to get to come on, like, my dad was out there kind of on an island by himself for a long time, like, screaming from the mountains, taking arrows all over the place about wanting to just say, like, let's be affordable, let's use common sense, let's, you know, like, where possible, we can turn back and look at older techniques that may be cheaper to give them to people who can't afford modern techniques or an echo or whatever, you know. It really comes down to, like, there's a story my dad tells. There's a client of his, a horse that had a twisted stomach. And the outlook on a twisted stomach is not very good.

35:07

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah, was It's like, not.

35:09

Charles Pol

A very good outlook. But this was like a horse that they really cared about, so they took it down to a university, right? And the university looked at the horse and they decided to do surgery. So, they removed twelve feet of intestine out of the horse and put it back and stitch it together. This horse was going on for a couple more days and it had some more problems, so they went back in their necrotic tissue, removed another twelve feet of the tissue her And then they sewed back up the horse and a couple more days, the horse dies. They present the owner with a $25,000 bill and they were talking about, like, “Oh, well, were able to do this.” Like, you okay, you did it, but should you have?

35:51

Charles Pol

Like, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something, especially if it costs $20,000 and then the people end up with a dead horse and a $20,000 bill. That's nuts. And this is, like, too often more of what is happening. I think that one thing that needs to be offered in vet schools, besides more hands on education, is business training. Yeah. We need to teach vets to be businessmen, people to understand those things. I'm really worried about the corporatization of the veterinary industry. Like, I'm not saying all corporations are bad, but it's the vet clinics used to be a vet had their own practice and ran it and maybe they had associates, but you would always aspire to be a veterinary.

36:34

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Right, yeah.

36:35

Charles Pol

Go have your veterinary practices, right? But now people are graduating, just want to do it. And like businesses, they always build on efficiency and they don't allow independent thinking or independent diagnosis. They hand you it and they're like, Okay, if it's this, I need to do this. And if it's that, it's not doing that. And you're no longer practicing veterinary medicine, you're just like a machine at that point.

37:02

Jordan Tyler

Okay, I swear I'll get off my soapbox soon, but I'm just gonna make this point really quick. It is not just pet owners who are feeling the strain of rising costs. Many vets feel caught in the middle too. Take this study from PetSmart Charities and Gallup, which surveyed more than 900 practicing vets across the United States. Nearly all of them—94% of them—said that clients' financial concerns, quote, “sometimes or often” limit their ability to provide the care they would recommend. That means almost every single veterinarian you have encountered at some point has had to watch a pet leave their clinic without the care it needed because the owner couldn't afford it. On top of that, nearly half of all veterinarians, so 48% percent, say their education didn't prepare them at all for having conversations about money with clients.

37:52

Jordan Tyler

And another 32% percent say they were only minimally prepared. So, we're asking vets to navigate one of the most emotionally charged aspects of their jobs. Right? Telling someone their pet needs expensive treatment without ever really teaching them how to have those conversations. So, like, no wonder there's a disconnect there. We've talked a lot about the emotional toll on pet owners, but there's also a very real emotional toll on vets. According to this study, 73% percent say it's difficult to watch clients struggle with costs, 74% say that euthanizing a pet for financial reasons—so not medical ones, but because the owner can't afford the treatment that their pet needs—is one of the hardest parts of their jobs, and 41% percent say that happens at least sometimes in their practice.

38:42

Jordan Tyler

This is the reality both vets and pet owners are living in right now. And it's what Charles and Mike are trying to address from the pet food aisle, from the veterinary triage side, and from really any angle they can think of. The question here isn't, don't you love your pet? It's how do we build a system that actually makes that possible? Because at the end of the day, everybody here, the vets, the owners, the people working in the industry, they all want the same thing. They want for animals to get the care that they need.

39:16

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I'm really glad you guys did, like, share your story. I didn't know it. But, I mean, just talking with you guys, you can feel the passion. You can feel the care. And it definitely translates over into what you're doing, whether it's vet care or food or, you know, whatever brands. And I just I I think this is so important for pet owners to hear. Like, sometimes they think of, like, pet industry, like, oh, right. Like, you're in it for the money. You know? But, no, there are genuine people out there that truly care, that are truly doing their best. And yeah, you guys have to make a profit because things have to go and you've got to put it back into the business and keep growing it.

39:54

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But at the same time, you are considering nutrition, and is it affordable, and is it, you know, accessible, which is huge now, with all the supply chain issues. So I'm really I mean, I dare say I have goosebumps in this hot box, but, like, it really is so nice to hear people truly caring because sometimes they're just like, Yeah, this is the trend, we're gonna do it, and the owner's gonna just pay for it because this is what is hot, you know? Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah.

40:23

Charles Pol

I will just say I'm very excited about the pet industry as a whole, having been in it, and like I'm just I'm new, I'm learning the business, I'm learning about the brand, I have an idea, I have goals that I want to achieve, goals, you know, and I love being able to one of the great things about building a business, you said making a profit, and that's the important thing about making a profit is we're able to provide jobs. Absolutely. Like, I have people who now work for us. Have Mike. I have other people that work for us. Another guy who worked for us for many years on the show is a great guy, and I love having him on the company. And we have two older ladies who work for us, and they do, like, some of our shipping and stuff like that.

41:02

Charles Pol

And being able to provide for other people, like signing the front of a paycheck, you never you always think of how great it is to sign the back of a check, but honestly, the real reward for me is signing the front of the check knowing that I'm actually helping people and their families survive and providing a living for people. That feeling is like that drives me to the moon. So, every time I have, like, we have success, I just think about, like, how I'm able to share that success and grow the business and hire more people and provide for more people and sign more fronts of checks. So I love that. I love signing the front of the check more than I love signing the back of the check, personally.

41:38

Mike Stankevich

Walking around SUPERZOO, everyone's wonderful. It's there's It's a great industry.

41:43

Charles Pol

Yeah. I'll just say.

41:44

Dr. Stephanie Clark

That people.

41:45

Charles Pol

I mean, it's got its issues. Like, it really does Everybody have its every industry has its issues, and I you know, I have no problem calling out, you know, calling balls and strikes how I see them. Right? So, I'll be critical. But I just have to say, everybody in the pet industry, everybody here at SUPERZOO, everybody I've met, they it's great. It's they're great people because they love animals. Almost everybody loves animals. That's why they're in this business. They're passionate about animals. And that's one of the great things that I would just I'm just gonna leave you with this. So, one of the great things I learned about the show, a lot of people talk about, you know, oh, you're famous. What is it like to be famous? I remember missing my fame. I never saw fame.

42:25

Charles Pol

Like, I didn't really want to be in front of the camera. Right? My dad's 80 years old. He doesn't care for fame.

42:29

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah.

42:30

Charles Pol

But what we do love and what I do love is meeting great people. I love meeting people. We we're in 180 countries, so we have people coming to the clinic or coming visiting us. It's unbelievable. We have people come from China, people come from Italy, people come from, like, Morocco Yeah. And all these different places around the world. Right? And then you have nothing in common with somebody. There's somebody from Morocco, you can't even hardly speak to them. Right? Like, there's a love your show. What we do have in common, what brings us together, is our love from animals. Right? it's a universal thing across cultures, across religions, across things, across political spectrums. It brings people together, and it allows people to focus because you have something in common that you really are passionate about and love.

43:12

Charles Pol

And that's what I really loved about this show. That's what I love about our fan base and that's what I love about our industry is we really bond on something that can bring us together.

43:21

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Right. Absolutely. Couldn't have said it better—

43:23

Jordan Tyler

Yeah, I love that. It's a great note to end on, and this will not be our last conversation, I'm confident in that. Before we wrap up today, I want to be really clear about something because this conversation has touched on some really sensitive issues around veterinary medicine, pricing, and some of the pressures facing both pet owners and vets. So, if you are a veterinarian listening to this right now, we see you. We know you did not get into this profession to turn people away or to make impossible choices between your patients' well-being and your practice's financial situation. But the systemic pressures you're facing from student debt to the corporate consolidation to potential shortages, those are real and they're not your fault.

44:07

Jordan Tyler

Charles is really speaking from his experience as someone who's watched his father practice for decades and built a brand around making care more accessible. But we recognize this is an incredibly nuanced issue and there's no villain here. There's no silver bullet. It's a system that's broken in a lot of ways and needs fixing from multiple angles And we're going to have to work together to make that happen. And actually, if you'd like to hear more on the side of veterinary burnout and the emotional toll that this job takes on the people that are part of it, check out our previous episode linked in today's show notes. It's called “Saving Pets, Losing Ourselves.”

44:45

Jordan Tyler

And it's a little heavy, but it explores why and how we've gotten to this point and shares some interesting insights from a practicing vet on how we can move toward a more equitable veterinary industry for the professionals who support it and for the pets and people it serves. Now don't be sad—this conversation is just part one. Sometime very soon, we'll be sitting down with Dr. Pol himself (yes, the man, the myth, the legend) to pick his brain about the state of the veterinary industry today and learn more about why his brand's ethos of accessibility and affordability is so important to him and countless other animal lovers.

45:24

Jordan Tyler

You can find links to everything we discussed today in the show notes for this episode, including those Mars and AVMA reports on veterinary shortages, more information about Docson Brands and Dr. Pol Care, a link to “The Incredible Dr. Pol” on Nat Geo if you'd like to check it out, and even some supportive material around some of the veterinary and pet care topics we covered today. Happy reading!

45:46

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Barking Mad. If you want to learn more about BSM Partners, please visit us at www.bsmpartners.net. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite leading podcast platform or share it with a friend to stay current on the latest pet industry trends and conversations.

46:08

Jordan Tyler

We'd also like to thank our dedicated team: Ada-Miette Thomas, Neeley Bowden, Kait Wright, Cady Wolf, and Dr. Katy Miller. A special shout out to Lee Ann Hagerty and Michael Johnson in support of this episode, and to David Perez for our original music in the intro and outro. See you next time!