Health conversations, and where the line is

The line, in one sentence

You advise on food. You do not advise on illness.

Almost every health conversation sorts into one of three buckets, and the first thing to do is work out which one you're in.

Yours	A healthy dog. Coat, weight, itching with no diagnosis, digestion, age. This is nutrition, and it's what you've been trained on.
Route it	A diagnosis, a medication, a prescription diet, or anything getting worse. Take the details and pass it on.
Vet now	Anything acute or frightening. Not a conversation, a direction — see them to the door.

If you can't tell which bucket you're in, you're in the second one. Route it.

"I don't know" is the right answer, not a failure

The thing that makes a staff member guess is feeling that not knowing looks bad. It doesn't. Guessing looks bad. Guessing about a sick dog is the single worst thing that can happen in your store, and it is entirely avoidable.

A customer who is told "that's beyond what I can advise on, but here's who can" feels looked after. A customer who is given a confident wrong answer feels looked after too — right up until it goes wrong, and then it's your store they remember.

"I'd rather not guess on that one — it's a bit outside what I can help with. Let me point you at someone who actually can."

That sentence costs you nothing and protects everyone.

What you can help with

These are nutritional conversations. They're yours, and they're where the value is.

Itchy skin and suspected allergies

This is the most common health-adjacent conversation you'll have, and the easiest one to overpromise on.

Raw feeding does not cure allergies. Nothing does. What raw feeding can do is make it much easier to find and remove the trigger, because you control exactly what goes in the bowl.

That's what Pure is for — a single protein, nothing else, so you can run a proper elimination. Start on a protein the dog has never had, feed nothing else at all for several weeks — no treats, no chews, no table scraps — and see what happens.

"Raw won't cure an allergy, but it makes it a lot easier to find what's causing it. With a single protein you know exactly what's going in, so you can work it out by elimination rather than guessing."

⚠ Route it if: the dog is on allergy medication, has a diagnosis from a vet, or the skin is broken, weeping or infected. Infected skin is a vet conversation, not a food conversation.

Weight management

Straightforwardly nutritional, and something you can genuinely help with.

Feed to the dog's ideal weight, not its current weight. From the usual 2–2.5% of body weight per day:

• To lose weight — adjust down toward 1.5%
• To gain weight — adjust up toward 3%

Move gradually, and tell them to re-weigh in three to four weeks and adjust again rather than expecting one change to do it. Treats and chews count toward the daily total, and that's very often where the extra weight is actually coming from.

⚠ Route it if: the weight change was sudden, unexplained, or the dog is losing weight while eating normally. That's not a feeding question.

Seniors

Older dogs generally need slightly less food and slightly more joint support. Module 1 Lesson 3 covers the detail. A healthy senior is an ordinary nutrition conversation.

⚠ Route it if: there's a diagnosed age-related condition — kidney, heart, arthritis on medication. The word "diagnosed" is the tell.

Anal glands and firm stools

Customers often mention this, and there is a legitimate nutritional point: raw-fed dogs pass firmer, bonier stools, and firmer stools naturally express the glands. It's reasonable to say that.

⚠ Route it if: the glands are recurrently impacted, infected, or the dog is in pain. That's a vet job and always has been.

What you always route

No judgment call needed on any of these. If you hear one, you're routing.

• A named diagnosis. Pancreatitis, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, cancer, IBD, thyroid — anything with a name a vet gave it.
• A dog on medication. Food and supplements can interact with drugs. This is not somewhere to improvise.
• A prescription diet. Never advise someone to come off one. That's a conversation between them and their vet.
• Anything getting worse. A problem that is progressing is not a feeding problem.
• A puppy or a pregnant or nursing dog with any complication. The healthy versions are covered in Module 1; the complicated versions are not yours.
• "What should I feed my dog with X?" — where X is a condition. However reasonable the question sounds, formulating for disease is not a shop-floor job.

We do have detailed information on most of these conditions. It lives with Raw Performance, and it's why routing works: you're not sending them away, you're sending them somewhere better.

Vet now, not later

Some things aren't a routing conversation at all. From Lesson 4, plus the ones that matter most:

• Blood in stool or vomit
• Repeated vomiting, or vomiting with lethargy
• Straining, bloating, or obvious pain
• Collapse, disorientation, or laboured breathing
• Suspected choking or an obstruction after a bone
• A cat that has stopped eating. More than a day is a genuine emergency — cats can develop hepatic lipidosis. Never wait this one out, and never let a customer wait it out either.

Say it plainly. This is the one moment where being direct beats being tactful.

"That one I'd stop and get seen today rather than trying anything from here."

How to route without it sounding like a brush-off

The words matter. Three versions, in ascending order of how serious it is:

Passing it to us:

"That's a good question and I don't want to give you half an answer. Raw Performance have proper information on this — let me take your number, or you can call them directly on (289) 272-0454 and ask for Arianna."

Sending them to their vet:

"Because there's a diagnosis involved, that really needs to go through your vet — they know the whole picture and I only know the food. What I can do is tell you exactly what's in each of these, so you've got that for the conversation."

When their vet has already said no:

"I'm not going to try to talk you round on that — your vet knows your dog and I don't. What I can do is give you exactly what's in the food, and Raw Performance are happy to talk it through with you, or with them directly. Then it's your call."

That third one matters because "see your vet" can feel like a closed door to someone who has already been told no. You're not overriding the vet — you're handing over information and letting the customer decide what to do with it. Some of them come back a month later having had the conversation.

Whatever you route, write it down and tell us. A question you couldn't answer is useful information — it tells us what to train next.

Five things never to say

1. "Raw will fix that." It won't fix anything. It supports a healthy dog.
2. "You don't need that medication any more." Never. Not once, not as a joke.
3. "Stop the prescription diet and feed this instead." Not your call to make.
4. "It's probably just the detox." Fine for soft stools in week one. Never about a dog that seems unwell.
5. Any dose of anything, for any condition. Supplement amounts for a healthy dog are on the label. For a sick dog, they're a vet's job.

On the floor

The question that sorts almost every health conversation in one move:

"Has your vet looked at this yet?"

If yes — it's their conversation, and you support it.
If no, and it's mild — you may be able to help.
If no, and it sounds serious — that's where you point them.