The AAVN E-News is now being distributed to all of our friends and contacts.

Learn More About AAVN Membership Here

The AAVN's 24th Annual Clinical Nutrition and Research Symposium will take place on Tuesday, June 4 and Wednesday, June 5 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, MN.  

Join us for 1.5 days of programming, including lectures, oral and poster abstract presentations, student meetings and networking opportunities. 

This program will be submitted to RACE for 3.5 CE credits.

All registered attendees receive a 15% discount on registration for the ACVIM Forum (promo code is provided in registration confirmation).

The Symposium will be an in-person event, however recordings of the four lectures and all abstract presentations will be available to registered attendees and AAVN members for a limited time after the live event.

A full schedule is available here. 

What to Do in the Twin CIties

Do you need activities to fill up your free time? Or, does your family need to keep busy while you fill up on continuing education? 

Check out this list of popular attractions in the Twin Cities, prepared by Dr. Laura Gaylord.

Congratulations 2024 Oral Abstract Presenters!

Presentations will be made at the

24th Annual Clinical Nutrition & Research Symposium

Robert C. Backus, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Nutrition)

Associate Professor and Director of the Nestlé Purina Endowed Program in Small Animal Nutrition, University of Missouri

Validity of Vitamin D Status Assessment of Kittens from Plasma Vitamin D Metabolites

M. Katherine Tolbert, DVM, PhD, DACVIM-SAIM

Clinical Associate Professor, Texas A&M University

Effect of Cholestyramine on the Fecal Dysbiosis Index and Conjugated and Unconjugated Canine Bile Acids

Chih-Fan Chiang, DVM, MPVM, DACVIM (Nutrition)

Staff Veterinarian, Nutrition Service

UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

Diurnal Variation Of Serum Phosphorus Concentrations In Adult Cats

Taryn K. Pestalozzi, DVM

Fellow, Nutrition Service, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

Mineral Analysis of Canine and Feline Dietary Supplements Marketed in the United States

Kaylee A. Slade, Class of 2025

University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine

Dietary Advanced Glycation End-Products in Cooked Homemade Diets Using Different Protein Processing Methods 

Andressa R. Amaral, MVS

PhD Candidate, University of Sao Paolo, Brazil

Hypoallergenic Hydrolyzed Diet is Not a Risk Factor for Pancreatitis Due to Hypertriglyceridemia in Dogs

Congratulations to Kaylee Slade, University of Georgia

2024 Richard R. Weiss Memorial Award recipient 

Kaylee will receive $500, and her mentor, Dr. Jackie Parr will receive $2,500.

Join Us for Breakfast & A Tour at General Mills World HQ

We are excited to partner with Blue Buffalo to offer breakfast and a tour of General Mills World HQ to all Symposium attendees on Tuesday, June 4 at 10 am. This event is FREE, but registration is required. If you are interested in participating, please complete this google form by Thursday, May 23.

Please note that the General Mills HQ is located approximately 15-20 minutes away from downtown Minneapolis. 

New! Transportation will be provided by bus.

Free Pet Pawtraits at Symposium

AAVN Symposium attendees are invited to bring a photo of their pet(s) to this event.  Cindy Berglund, a local artist specializing in caricatures, will be onsite to create quick, fun custom caricature drawings of your furry family member(s) - at no charge. 

Please note that due to time constraints we may not be able to accommodate all requests.

We are Throwing a Party Again this Year!

AAVN Party in Minneapolis

Tuesday, June 4, 7 pm - 9 pm

Hell's Kitchen, Underground Room, 90 South 9th Street

(just 0.4 miles from the Convention Center)



Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit student travel fund for the

2025 AAVN Symposium.

Tickets are just $25 for Symposium attendees - the promo code will be included in your registration confirmation- and include 2 drink tickets and entry in a drawing for a Backyard Prize Pack - a Traeger Pellet Grill and an RTIC hard-sided cooler (52 qt) from the ultra-light series.

Guests are welcome, additional event tickets are just $35. 

For more details and to purchase tickets, click here.

All AAVN student members are invited to join us for dinner on Tuesday, June 4 at 6 pm at Hell’s Kitchen, located at 80 S. 9^th Street (just ½ mile from the Convention Center).  

This event is FREE, but RSVP is required. 

Let us know if you are planning to attend via email. 

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Educational Program Sponsor

Student Travel and Student Session Sponsor

Luncheon, Student Dinner and Pet Caricature Sponsor

Party in Minneapolis Sponsors

Tuesday Refreshment Sponsor

Breakfast Sponsor

Student Swag Sponsor

Member Spotlight: Amy Farcas, DVM, MS (Nutritional Biology), DACVIM (Nutrition)

How long have you been an AAVN member?

Long enough that this is a little bit of a hard question! I’m likely approaching 20 years, as I believe I started as a student member.

What company or organization do you work at right now?

Which term do we prefer, “Self-employed” or “Unemployed”? Both have some accuracy, as I’m working to start something new but don’t quite have anything to show for it yet.

If you are retired, what was your last place of employment?

While retirement sounds lovely, that’s not why many AAVN colleagues may be surprised to hear from me. I have been "under the radar" for several years.

In 2014, my son was born and I opened a solo veterinary nutrition specialty practice. At the time, I was also serving as the owner/administrator of the veterinary dentistry and oral surgery clinic where my husband practices.

In 2020, COVID awarded me two additional roles: homeschool kindergarten teacher and elder care nurse. My nutrition practice had to close. It had grown too fast and hadn’t received the upkeep it needed to fix experimental things that didn’t work well, build better tools, hire staff, and all the things that might make such an endeavor actually sustainable. The dentistry practice grew, modernized, and excelled in professionalism and care provided to patients, clients, referring veterinarians, and team; I’ve now handed over leadership of the practice and, with family care responsibilities having shifted yet again, I have been able to find my way back to nutrition.  

What are 2 things that you really like about your current job?

I love creative problem solving. I get to use my experience in lots of different aspects of veterinary medicine and come up with solutions that are uniquely mine.  

Veterinary Clinical Nutrition is the best specialty because it’s an interesting combination of medicine, physiology, and biochemistry but also requires building relationships. I get to incorporate the stories that come from those relationships into whatever comes next.

Who has made the biggest impact on your career in animal nutrition? If comfortable, you can share why. Tim Bowers started it with his cool way of subtly highlighting (an oxymoron, but it’s truly how he operates) biochemistry in internal medicine patient care, unintentionally redirecting my interest from medicine to nutrition.

Andrea Fascetti and Jen Larsen trained me in clinical nutrition and delivered all of the expected (and some unexpected) life and professional pearls.

Sean Delaney showed me that developing incredibly useful tools is attainable and that “too detail-oriented” is a superpower, even if it can also be a headache.

Kathy Michel had enough faith in me to put me in charge of her service and has been my cheerleader on many occasions (if Kathy thinks well of me, then I can never get hard on myself, right?). Bill Porte and Nicodin Farcas (who happens to be my husband) are the clinicians who showed me, by daily example, the importance of developing great relationships with clients for a rewarding veterinary practice.

What do you hope to see as part of the future for animal nutrition?

I’m in awe of the diversity of the field of animal nutrition and the breadth of knowledge and skills it encompasses. Within my niche of companion animal clinical nutrition, I’d like to see veterinary teams accept and adapt to the fact that discussing nutrition with pet owners isn’t the same as making most other kinds of medical recommendations. Because of the degree to which “what I feed my pet” is intertwined with family dynamics, lifestyle, personal philosophy, and values; following (or not) a nutrition recommendation made by a veterinarian or veterinary team member is a different decision-making process than, “Shall I proceed with surgery or not?” or “Shall I give the medication or not?"

I see veterinary teams frustrated with lack of compliance and clients frustrated with lack of consideration. There is a frequent complaint that “veterinarians don’t know anything about nutrition”, which is unfortunate because it’s largely untrue, yet exists because, while veterinary teams generally have the knowledge base to make appropriate nutrition recommendations for most patients, the approach to communicating those recommendations is ineffective enough to leave pet owners with the impression that they haven’t received a valid recommendation.

At the same time, pet owners often expect instant gratification (in what is actually an iterative process) and answers that align with unrealistic expectations shaped by not-so-credible sources of information. Re-establishing veterinary teams as the best source for nutrition information will take changes that include a more thoughtful approach to communication, building stronger relationships, and an update in expectations from clients.

If you could work with a nutrition colleague in your practice for a week, who would you invite to join you, and why? I love hearing how colleagues' approach doing the same things I do, and what things look like when someone’s role is completely different from mine. I would be thrilled to have a parade of AAVN visitors one day, when I have an office to invite you all to.

Please share something about yourself that none of your nutrition colleagues already know. I’ve only ever worked in veterinary practices. Starting at 15 years old, I have been a receptionist, a dog groomer, a kennel attendant, a veterinary assistant, a cleaner, a surgical assistant, an anesthetist, a medical record scribe, a referral coordinator, a client liaison, an intern, primary care veterinarian, emergency vet, specialist, administrator. As a practice owner, I am most of those things all over again!

Book Review:

Equine Clinical Nutrition

Prepared by S. Abood, DVM, PhD

Published in 2023, the 2nd edition of Equine Clinical Nutrition is a resource designed to fill a much-needed gap for students and equine practitioners looking for practical and current information. Dr. Rebecca Remillard is the editor of this 2nd edition and she spent more than 4 years structuring new and former material, recruiting authors, taking pictures, writing some chapters herself, and developing case-based examples. Her efforts, and those of all the authors, have paid off with an easy-to-read guide through life stage nutrition and important clinical conditions that require attention on diet and feeding management.

As a sole author, Dr. Lon Lewis wrote the first edition of Equine Clinical Nutrition in 1995, and very likely on an electric typewriter rather than a computer. His color photos of toxic plants are in the archives at Colorado State University. Since then, other textbooks on equine nutrition have been published, but those are aimed at either horse owners and enthusiasts, or researchers and residents in advanced training programs.

Dr. Remillard envisioned the 2nd edition as being a merger of basic nutrition, equine health, and clinical conditions. With 28 chapters and 3 dozen authors from around the world, there is a breadth and depth of expertise that is unsurpassed. The iterative process is demonstrated throughout the chapters covering life stage nutrition, and that is a helpful process (or structure) for thinking about how diet and environment impact each animal through different phases of the life cycle.

Chapters that are unique to the 2nd edition include equine behavior, microbiome, supplements, and regulatory issues. The appendices cover “Case in Point” answers and questions, nutrition resources, nutrition competencies of equine veterinarians, a feed glossary, list of abbreviations, and average body weights and heights of horse breeds.

When asked which chapters should be read first by the two target audiences, students and practitioners, Dr. Remillard said animal science and veterinary students should begin with “Feeding Horses: Back to Evolution” (Chapter 1). She is partial to the idea of knowing where horses came from (paying attention to what they ate when feral) and considering how their environments and diets have changed over time, as well as how they have adapted to those changes. 

For equine practitioners, Remillard suggests starting with “Feeing Adult and Senior Horses” (Chapter 17), “Feeding Athletes and Working Horses” (Chapter 18P, and “Feeding and Drinking Behaviors” (Chapter 16).

We’re glad to recognize AAVN members who have successfully published an original research article, textbook chapter, case report, or review paper. If you have something in the works and soon to be published, please let us know!

Check Your Inbox

Instructions for how to renew your AAVN membership were sent out on May 2.

If you have already renewed for 2024-2025, thank you!

Click on the pup below to start shopping at our Spreadshop.

Upcoming CE Opportunities

ACVIM On Demand Course

A Comprehensive Approach to Enteral Feeding: When, Why, How

Additional Information and Registration Available Here

European Workshop on Equine Nutrition

July 1-4, 2024

Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oslo, Norway

Additional information is available here: EWEN website.

BARK IT ON YOUR CALENDAR, IT'S HAPPENING! 

KibbleCon 2024 October 23–24, 2024

Kansas State University campus, Manhattan, Kansas

KibbleCon is a premier pet food live conference hosted by the Petfood Program at Kansas State University. KibbleCon 2024 will feature an evening welcome and networking reception, a keynote speaker, presentations on petfood industry trends and challenges by experts, an interactive panel discussion, a faculty and graduate student poster session showcase, and access to new products and capabilities available from select industry suppliers. The conference will conclude with informal dinner discussions led by several industry professionals.

For more information about KibbleCon 2024, click here

General Mills and Blue Buffalo are proud to announce we are hiring a Nutrition Services Veterinarian. In this role, you will advance BLUE Natural Veterinary Diet and retail brands while championing principles of veterinary nutrition both internally and externally.

You’ll play critical roles in education, lead the veterinary student ambassador program, drive new product development, guide clinical research, and work with leaders across the business. The role sits within the BLUE Veterinary Services and is open only to board certified or eligible veterinary nutritionists. 

Learn more at Blue Buffalo Nutrition Services Veterinarian and join the herd today!