Nutrition Services
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There are two ways for pet owners to benefit from the expertise of our two Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionists:
Current Patients at Henry and Lois Foster Hospital for Small Animals
If your pet is currently hospitalized at or under the care of a veterinarian at Foster Hospital for Small Animals ask them if a nutrition consult might benefit your pet.
All Other Patients
The Nutrition Service is prioritizing current patients of Foster Hospital for Small Animals and no longer offers remote consultations or nutrition appointments for non-Tufts patients, with the exception of pets with heart disease as their primary problem (see below). To help your pet get seen as soon as possible to address their nutrition needs, there is a directory of Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist here that allows you to search by location or by veterinary nutritionists who offer remote consultations with pet owners.
Visit the many online tools and resources here including the Petfoodology blog where we have covered many pet nutrition topics and pet food myths ranging from how to select the best food for your pet to supplements and more.
For Dogs and Cats with Heart Disease
If heart disease is your pet’s primary medical issue and you are willing to feed commercial diets (we have many tricks to tempt finicky pets with heart failure to eat), you can complete a Request for Consultation with Dr. Lisa Freeman. A completed Nutrition Consultation Request does not guarantee a consultation but will provide Dr. Freeman with the information necessary to assess the best options for your pet. Please note that we will require a separate Veterinarian Nutrition Consultation Request form from one of your pet’s veterinarians. We will also require records from both your primary care veterinarian and cardiologist. We cannot schedule a consultation without this input from your veterinarians. Our nutrition consultations for pets with heart disease are $350.
Dr. Freeman does accept emails from veterinarians (vetnutrition@tufts.edu) for brief nutrition questions regarding patients with heart disease.
We also encourage you to visit our resources on heart disease on the HeartSmart page.
Referring Veterinarians
We do accept emails and phone calls from veterinarians for brief nutrition questions, although for full consultations and home-cooked diet formulation, we recommend referring your client to the directory of Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionists that allows you to search by location or by veterinary nutritionists who offer remote consultations with pet owners and referring veterinarians.