I was at the VMX (Veterinary Meeting & Expo) earlier this week, and today I’m sharing some of the highlights of what I saw there.

Big Appetites

Appetites were definitely big news this year at VMX!

Weight Loss

For cats with too-big appetites, there is a new cat feeder to help them slim down. The PortionPro RX will feed cats small portions of kibble six times a day, and it uses collar tags to detect the correct pet to allow to eat at the feeder. It closes if another cat in the house wearing a tag that identifies it as a food thief tries to sneak in, too.

I like that it encourages frequent, small meals, which is what we know is what cats are biologically designed to eat. I also liked that although the unit itself is made of plastic, the bowl portion where the food rests and the cat eats is ceramic. As an advocate of more moisture in a cat’s food, I’m not thrilled that the device encourages an all-kibble diet, but if a cat is already eating an all-kibble diet, it will help them eat it at a pace that encourages their metabolism to work it off.

The PortionPro RX is available by prescription from veterinarians only and ships directly to you. I’m also curious to know whether the device will be covered under any of the common pet insurance carriers, since it is a prescription-only item.

Appetite Stimulants

There’s a new appetite stimulant out for dogs. I rarely mention dogs-only products, but this one is already in the testing pipeline for cats with initial studies published last year. Named Entyce, it works by acting like the “hunger hormone” ghrelin. The medication is detected by certain receptors that send signals to the hypothalamus, which in turn signals hunger. It’s a different way to stimulate the appetite than we have seen in the past, and I think we’ll be hearing a lot about it for cats in the very near future.

In the meantime, a lot of vets turn to mirtazapine when a cat needs an appetite stimulant. Mirtazapine, which works through a cat’s serotonin receptors, is only FDA-approved for use in humans. All use in cats is off-label. One of the interesting developments I heard about was there is a mirtazapine transdermal ointment, Mirataz, under FDA review right now. The company hopes to have Mirataz on the market by first or second quarter of the year. I’m sure some of you are thinking that you already get a mirtazapine ointment, what’s the big deal? If you use an ointment now, it comes from a compounding pharmacy. Once this is available, you should be able to get this directly from your vet’s office, without having to go to a third party to mix it up for you.

Pain Relief

You probably already heard about the Assisi Loop. It is a device that generates a target pulsed electromagnetic field to stimulate the body’s healing mechanisms, reducing pain and swelling. It is used for cats with pain caused by inflammation, such as arthritis, pancreatitis, post-surgical swelling, etc. The makers of the Assisi Loop have partnered with our friends at Sleepypod. At VMX, they previewed a Sleepypod mobile pet bed that had an Assisi Loop bed tucked away in the bottom of it, creating a mobile treatment bed. This special Sleepypod was redesigned to have no metal in it so it didn’t interfere with the function of the Assisi Loop, but it is still crash-safe like the regular Sleepypod mobile pet bed. Sleepypod is known for their beautiful designs, and the Assisi Loop Sleepypod is a beautiful, dark gray color.

Other Noteworthy Trends

There were more trends apparent at VMX, too:

• Things that were new technology a couple years ago are becoming more convenient and accessible. The IDEXX SDMA test which can detect declining kidney function much earlier than other tests previously required sending bloodwork away to a lab. It is now available as an in-house test that your vet can perform. It requires extra hardware, so this probably won’t be available at your vet tomorrow.
• The Fear Free movement is spreading. While there were plenty of booths selling muzzles and restraints, there was a lot more thoughtful focus on the emotional health and comfort of veterinary patients. I think this will pay off in the long run, since you can’t get help for your cat at the vet if your cat is so traumatized by the experience that you don’t want to put your cat — or yourself — through it.
• Consolidation continues in the veterinary industry. Individually-owned and operated clinics being bought up by larger corporations is a hot button issue that causes a lot of debate among both veterinarians and pet lovers. There is a new company, WellHaven, whose social media presence only goes back to November 2017 but has already bought over 25 practices. I should note that my cats’ vet is not owner operated, so I’m not against this model. It’s an interesting trend to watch.

Those were some quick highlights from VMX that may interest families with cats today. I learned lots more I plan to share in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned!

I attended Global Pet Expo last week. This pet products trade show is huge, over 3,000 booths covering the space of about 6 football fields.

There were new products for everything from cats and dogs to fish and hamsters. Even chickens!

Most of the show signage and even attendee badges featured an image of a very smart-looking cat wearing glasses. I often complain that cats are second-class citizens in the pet product world, so it was fun to see everywhere throughout the conference center.

Trends

At least year’s expo, there were lots of companies making the egg-shaped felted wool cat beds. This year, companies were taking it to a whole new level with creative shapes.

Not only are these cute, but many companies are sourcing them from interesting places, like Nepal, rather than making them in China.

There seemed to be a lot more seasonal items for pets this year, especially beds.

There are always Christmas items at the expo, but this year there were a lot more autumn and Halloween-themed products, too.

When cat beds aren’t seasonally-themed, there is a lot more effort being made to make them into an attractive part of your household decor. Maybe the days of brown and beige beds are behind us at last! Attractive beds mean you won’t hide them away, so that’s a big win for your cat have a private space in any room of the house.

Another big trend is cute stuff designed specifically to generate cute photos of your cat you can share on social media. Who wouldn’t want to tell all of Instagram that your cat lives in a pineapple under the sea?

The category of items that people will buy because they will look cute on social media is especially strong in toys, with lots of novelty-shaped toys.

Where you used to find toys sold individually, these cute, themed toys are very often packaged in thematic sets of two.

Beds and toys weren’t the only things that seemed to be made for social sharing. These cat carriers, intended to be worn as backpacks, seem to be designed to be viral sensations, too.

Environmental consciousness continues to grow in the pet products industry. There has been a slow move for a while toward waste that recycles or breaks down in landfills. This year, several companies were being especially innovative about ways to approach environmental issues. One especially clever one turns the Asian carp, an invasive species, into dog and cat treats.

Another trend is luxury products. This seems to be a slowly growing market full of impressive bling, like this bed covered in sparkling crystals.

Other Sights

The Lucy Pet Foundation’s spay and neuter bus was on hand, and open for tours. This mobile clinic has performed over 16,000 spay and neuter surgeries for free for low income families and senior citizens.

Their feline mascot, Ricky the Rescue was also on hand, looking remarkably calm in the busy convention hall.

Tiki Pets had adorable tiki animal decorations. While I’m not excited about their new kibble, I will be looking into their newer non-fish offerings in cans.

One way to make convention attendees stop at your booth is with kittens, and Precise Pet Products had kittens on hand from The Way Home, a local rescue organization. I liked hearing that not only was the rescue there with cats, the company was supporting them with a partnership to help feed their foster cats. Partnerships like that are so much harder for small rescues to get.

The Catit booth also featured kittens from the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando, many of them playing hard with the large display of toys and food dispensers. This little one was all worn out after romping with the other tabbies.

Some booths that didn’t have real cats on hand found creative ways to use cardboard cutouts for maximum eye-catching, too.

We’ll be taking a closer look at more of the products we saw at the expo in the upcoming year, so stay tuned!

I spent last week at the North American Veterinary Conference. It’s huge, with over 10,000 veterinarians, vet technicians, vet students, practice managers, and support staff all come together to learn the latest in their field and see the latest in products to help them help their patients feel well.

Today, I’ll touch on some of the trends and newsworthy items I saw and heard around the conference.

Trends

There are a lot of companies selling veterinary diets now, and those diets often address the same things. For instance, for chronic kidney disease, your vet has choices from Hill’s, Royal Canin, Iams, Purina, and Blue Buffalo. To try to differentiate themselves in the market, Blue upped the game by adding mobility support to their kidney diet. This week, I saw that not only is Hills matching that, but they are introducing food with more palatability to encourage cats to eat their formula. This is going to be an advantage in the market if their food gets the reputation for the one that those often-queasy CKD cats will eat readily. It’s interesting to see these giants of the pet food industry pushing each other to innovate, and I’m sure the trend will continue.

Another trend I saw continuing was industry consolidation. This has gone on in the pet food industry for years, with fewer and fewer large companies holding most of the established consumer brands. The news that Mars, Inc.  is buying VCA Hospitals is still fresh from last month, so they are under the same corporate ownership as Banfield and Pet Partners.  And the news of the recently closed deal to bring Merial (manufacturer of Frontline and Heartgard) and Boehringer Ingelheim (manufacturer of Metacam and Prozinc) was prominent during the convention last week.

Other Tidbits of News

This may not be news to everyone, but I learned that pheromone sprays like Feliway aren’t instant but take about 10 minutes to work once a cat starts to smell them. I never thought about this, but it’s something to consider when spraying it in a cat carrier and putting a cat inside. The cat’s stress level may not be helped by the spray for a while. By that time, will they be too stressed out for it to have an effect? Spraying it on a blanket your cat rests on beforehand, then putting that blanket in the carrier might be a better solution.

The Morris Animal Foundation announced at the conference that one of their grants had funded research that may lead to an early diagnostic test for feline asthma. Researchers did breath tests on cats, examining the condensate from cats with and without asthma to identify biomarkers that identified asthmatic cats from the contents of their breath. Early detection before lung damage develops could be really exciting, so I’ll be watching for more from these researchers.

One of the most interesting products I heard about during the conference is actually not for cats (yet). Entyce is about to come to the veterinary market to treat dogs for inappetence. It mimics gherlin, the “hunger hormone.” Gherlin works by binding to the receptors in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls hunger. There is no date yet for the feline version of this new product, but the possibility of having something like this available for encouraging reluctant cats to eat is really intriguing.

Speaking of eating, there’s a shift starting to happen in the belief that your cat needs to go without food entirely before surgery. This shift in thinking started in human health a few years ago, but there’s an upcoming study about this for veterinary surgery, too. I wasn’t able to get further details yet, but since keeping a cat fully hydrated can be tough when the kitty has access to water 24 hours a day, this seems like it could help keep cats hydrated before and during surgeries.

The Catalyst Council had exciting news to share at the convention: The Catalyst Connection program has a trial running in Denver where before a cat (or dog) leaves a shelter, they have a recommendation for a local veterinarian. They want to make sure that every pet has a vet to turn to for their health needs. I think this is a great idea, especially for shelter cats who might end up relinquished back to the shelter if adopters don’t know where to turn for help.

I saw a statistic about cats last week that really surprised me: 24% of cats in Canada are over 10 years old. Nearly a quarter of the population of cats are seniors!  With the knowledge and care we give our cats these days, they’re living longer than ever, and that means that they’re living a bigger part of their lives with senior cat ailments. Don’t you think that should change the way we think about cat care?

One of the interesting discussions I heard was about something near to the hearts of nearly everyone in animal rescue, the prevalence of FIV. The current prevalence of FIV is 3.6%, according to IDEXX Canada, and it has been rising. I didn’t realize that there was some debate about how much it is actually rising. Veterinary recommendations to test for FIV may mean that it appears to be rising faster than it is since it was already higher in the population to begin with. Either way, we know more about taking better care of cats with FIV so they have long, healthy lives with us.

Of course, there’s so much more I learned in the course of the week, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with all of you here in the upcoming months!