New Year, Same Feces! (and Laughter)

The first episode of 2025 is here, and we’re kicking off the new year with excitement, gratitude, and some big news! We’re reflecting on our amazing first year of Feces and Laughter, sharing what’s ahead for the podcast, and celebrating milestones at Animal Care of Greenville. Plus, we’re thrilled to introduce Franklin’s All Star Club—our brand-new client loyalty program designed to give back to the incredible pet parents who trust us with their furry (and scaly!) family members. Join us for this fun and feel-good start to the year!

Stay in the loop with Dr. Olson and Amanda’s adventures beyond the mic! Join our pet-loving community online:

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Follow, share, and let the laughter continue in the digital realm! We’ll be waiting to connect with fellow pet enthusiasts like you.

Transcript

Happy New Year. Woo hoo. It's 2025. Man, I can't believe it's already here. It's been a year.

Sorry. Since we started our journey. She just had to put that punctuation mark on it. I'm so so happy that you She's contributed that. I know.

Staying in there. Felt it, and this is gonna be there the whole time. I'm glad you didn't hold into it, but you're in and out. Yeah. Wait.

That's it. You're like, see, you shouldn't have done this. Yeah. Better. In and out.

Anyhoo, okay. Before we get started, I'm Amanda. I'm doctor Olsen. And we are? Feasies and Laughter.

Why are you laughing at that? Because you got to it so fast last time. I did. I forgot. I forgot.

So it's the new year. I feel like we've got a lot of plans for 2025. Things that we're really hoping we can commit 2024, first of all. What the hell? It's gone.

It was a whirlwind. Yeah. I we sat down sometime in December and looked at each other and we're just like, well, we missed the whole year, guys. If there's one thing we accomplished in all of 2024, it was being consistent with our podcast. That's probably it.

Yeah. That's the one item. Oh, yeah. But outside of that, I feel like we had, you know, we had a lot of fun community events. We did the Mid Atlantic reptile expo that comes around every few months.

But I feel like we just had all these things on the background. We were like, this will be so much fun to do and where's the time? So I feel like we've got a really good team in place this year. We've got a lot of fun new personalities on our team, and we're hoping to be able to have some things take off for our clients and be able to give back a little bit more into into the community as well. One of the big things that we've had this for a little while, but we've added a new component to it.

So I'm super excited about that, but our Pet Desk app. Yeah. Do you have it? I recently got it. I'm like Oh.

Terrible client. Yeah. But I recently got it and have been playing around with it, and it's super cool. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Do you have all your pets pictures added in there? I added the worst pictures of them just so if anyone were to see it, they'd be like, oh. I can't wait. I have to go into the dashboard and look at them.

So we have an app. It's called PetDesk App, and it integrates into our veterinary software that we use in the hospital. And our team also has a hospital side dashboard that they utilize every day while they're in the office. I think the really cool thing about the app and for our clients that may have it and don't even realize how much it does is that there's there's so many there's so many tools for our clients to utilize. Like, I think I was so distracted on the clinic side of things that I didn't even realize it.

Just thought thought like, oh, those items are what are available, and I didn't realize how many extra items were there on the client aspect. It's really cool. I mean, they can do things like they can schedule appointments with us and and not even just requesting them. Like, they're able to go in. They can see the open appointments for all 4 of our doctors and actually plug themselves into our doctor's schedules.

They can text and call the clinic directly from the app. They can visit our website. They can visit all of our social media platforms. They can request refills through the office, but they can also, access our online pharmacy and request prescriptions through that as well. So cool.

They can also access our podcast. That is an option as well. But they can I mean, I don't know if you saw it? Did you see the the section where you can set up, like, little, like, to do's and, like, reminders for yourself? Yep.

And medication reminders, which is really nice for these pets that are on chronic meds. Mhmm. Especially, like, multiple people are giving medication to be able to know, like, this is the time that they get it and, like, not have any confusion with it. Yeah. But even outside of chronic meds, for people that are really bad about remembering monthly card prevention.

Yeah. It's got it where you can set that up. And then I think one of my favorite aspects of the app for our clients, Vaccine reminders. Yes. I knew you were gonna my gosh.

It's so cool. Like, I I don't have any active pets on mine anymore, but I it was one thing that I used to love to pull up on the app and show to clients where you can actually go into it, open up the pet that you let's say let's say, Roadie. You wanted to take Roadie to the groomer. Mhmm. And you're out of town.

And maybe you're on the West Coast, and you're outside of our I'm I'm taking this into a hole. Do it, girl. You're on the West Coast. You're not even in our time zone anymore, and you're going to a groomer. And you can't get up with our hospital.

You can actually go into the app, click on Roadie, and pull up all of his vaccine reminders, and either show it to them on your phone or email them a PDF copy. Yeah. So you don't even have to rely on waiting on the clinic Yeah. To get that information. It's right at your fingertips, and it's it's the information that you're gonna need when you're out and about.

You know, it's I know it's not your full medical records and maybe if you're going somewhere else, you might need that. But, I think for the most basic things that are Yeah. For grooming, for boarding, just having it with you and just so that you know and to reference because it's really easy to miss other reminders. So, like, to have that always active on your phone and be like, what is coming up? What do I need to prepare for for my pet Yeah.

Is so, so helpful. So I think that that's probably, like I said, next to what we're launching or what we've already launched. It's just been kind of in the the working through mode. But, I think next to this, it's it's probably one of my favorite aspects of the app. But, what we really wanted to talk about today, what I think I'm most excited about is what we've, I think me and you have talked about doing something like this for our clients for years.

Yeah. And we never knew how to get it off the ground. And Yeah. We started little things like our sighted point and some punch card type things like Silencio. What a loyalty program.

Yes. I feel like we have I don't even feel like I know. We have clients that are here whether it be routinely for chronic things, whether or whether it just be to come in for their every 6 to 12 month visits, getting those vaccines, doing the recommended blood work, staying on top of their heartworm preventatives and things. We've always just wanted a way to give back to them, and PetDesk actually has a layer to their software where they have a built in loyalty program right inside of our app. Yeah.

And when we found out about that a few months ago, I was immediately digging. So cool. I was immediately digging, talking to people, trying to figure out if this was something that would actually be beneficial for our clients and something that made sense to offer. And after sitting down and really talking to them a couple of months ago, I was just like, this is it. We gotta do it.

You're gonna love it. And then came the prep work, the background stuff. I think the hardest part for us was figuring out a name. It took our team a while. It did.

I put it out to our team and told them and, oh my god, it took them so long. I think pretty early on, they definitely kind of majority wanted Franklin involved. Uh-huh. But we still didn't. I think you had to end up nailing it down for us.

I did. I did. They they had a couple, and I was just like, okay. So, like, all of these sound good. But then we need the we need the name of our loyalty program to also kind of be able to incorporate what we're gonna call our point system.

And so it just it made it a little bit easier for me. But our loyalty program is called Franklin's All Star Club. So cute. Which I think is amazing because our clients and patients are all stars, and it's Franklin. So I just love it.

And then they're as they're accumulating points, those points are actually referred to as stars. It's so cute. I love it. I really like it. I like the way it all came together.

But I don't know. I'm super excited to see how our clients hopefully benefit from this. I think exactly what you said. Like, we've it's hard to in the moment because we're busy. We're just trying to get by to think of ways to reward people and just show our appreciation in general.

And we've that's something we've always struggled with. Like, we have these clients that have chosen us year after year, and, like, we we appreciate so much, but don't always have a way to show them. Yeah. And so I'm really excited to have something that goes to them. I think the nice thing about it, is that when they first sign up so, obviously, in order to be a like, to participate in the loyalty program, they have to start by downloading the app.

Yeah. So they can Walk us through that, tech wizard. That's so easy. I know. And we can help.

Yes. And that's what I was gonna say is that if it's if it feels daunting, if you wanna make sure you're getting the right app on your phone, our team can actually send you an invitation to download the right app. It's gonna put you right where you need to be, but you can also just go into your app store on either your iPhone or your Android. Oh, wow. I oh, yeah.

I almost did not call it that. But Green phone. Yeah. But you could go on either of the those two platforms, and it's you if you type in PetDesk, it will pull it up. It's a cute little, like, blue and purple, multicolored app.

I made that oh, there is purple. It's purple, blue, and green. It is a really cute app. It is. It's like a little calendar or something.

Yeah. It looks like a calendar. And then I think the biggest part of signing up for your account on the PetDesk app is to make sure you're utilizing the same email address you have in our system. Yeah. Which I think will get a lot of you.

So I hope you're listening. Use the same email that you used to sign up. I have had clients I shit you not. I've had clients come to me, and when I'm confirming their email address and asking them, is this one that I can email you on? They will tell me to my face.

Mind you, this email address has been in our software for years. Oh, that's actually my spam email. I don't check that. I'm like, I'm a little offended that you set us up with your spam email. It's like the equivalent of, like, a girl being out and giving out a fake phone number.

Like, what is that? You're so sad. I'm so sad. So, yeah, make sure whatever email it is that you can access it and that we have the correct one in our system. You're gonna use that email address to sign up for an account on the PetDesk app.

And then from there, you can go in, you can view all of your pets, you can add your pictures in. And on the home screen, you'll see an option to sign up for the loyalty program. And so once you get into the loyalty program, you'll automatically get welcome stars just for joining. And so that's exciting. But then the other thing that I really like about the way that PetDesk runs this loyalty program is that they will backdate for the very beginning.

So let's say you come in today, we do your whole visit, and you leave, and then next week you think about it, you're just like, oh my gosh. I'm gonna sign up for the loyalty program. I think it's up to 2 to 3 weeks, maybe. It might even be up to a month, but I have to double check that. But they do backdate at least a few weeks, and they will pull your invoices from those weeks and upload your stars.

And so that's I thought that that was really cool Yeah. So that people are probably finding out about it while they're here and, going from there. But then, as you accumulate stars, you can use them to unlock different types of rewards. We have some that are as simple as getting, 5, 10, or $25 off your visit. That's always nice.

You can get a free nail trim. And as of right now, upwards of getting, like, a free dose of your flea and tick prevention or even a free exam. Nice. So, exciting things. This was just to get started.

I was racking my brain. I was just like, I don't know what our clients are gonna find Yeah. Valuable. Our clients you need to share because we don't know these things I know. And we want to.

I think this is a good starting point. Yeah. As we see the program flourish and we see our our clients actually get signed up and start utilizing it, I'm hoping we can get some feedback from those people and figure out what speaks to them and how we can kind of tweak the program and add on things that get them a little jazzed up. We did have one client. A request.

We did we did have a request. It's only been one person. So maybe if we have at least one other person who thinks this would be a fun time, then maybe we will add it on. I don't know. But somebody told us, one of our regulars, said, you know what?

You should add drinks with Lou and Amanda. Okay. Yeah. Twist our arms. Yeah.

I mean, don't back me into a corner or anything, but I think it sounds like a fantastic idea. I think that is fun, and that's cute that that's something that they would wanna do. I know. I mean, I'd like to have drinks with us. I'd like to have drinks with her too.

I think it'd be great. Yeah. Yeah. She would be a lot of fun to have drinks with. So, anyhow, we're just throwing that out there.

If anybody's interested, let us know. But, yeah, I think that's I think that's about it. I think the last biggest thing, when it comes to the app is just making sure that you have the right hospital, hon. Because I think that can be that's, I think, where we've seen some confusion Mhmm. With clients is, like, scheduling appointment under the wrong hospital or something like that.

As as some of you might know and you might not, we do have 2 sister clinics in town. The names are very much different, so that's the big thing to just double check. Typically and I think it goes in alphabetical order, so we should pop up on the top if you're downloading it, but you'll see our hospital Animal Care of Greenville. You'll see Trinity Veterinary Hospital, and then you'll see Winterville Animal Care. And so you can select your primary provider, and then it has the option for you to kinda get rid of those other ones so that they there's no confusion.

Because like you said, we have that clientele. Click the wrong button. I mean and if you're like, I won't click the wrong button and you want them all up there, it's nice to have their contact information so handy that if we're unavailable, these are amazing hospitals in this community too. So, or if you are a listener that goes to them Yep. You know, you can access their information from the app and whatever they have offering on their, like, little links and stuff.

So it's a really cool app just to have in your pocket, literally in your pocket. It is. It is a really cool app. I really like it. Download it.

Take a look at it. And I know there are a lot of hospitals. I and, you know, I know we have listeners that aren't even just here in town and Mhmm. And clients of ours. But, PetDesk is something that's pretty popular amongst the veterinary community.

So a lot of hospitals And your hospital might have something similar even if it's not the same name. So just reach out to them and see how you can get access to yours if you're confused. Yeah. Cool. Did I did I touch on everything?

I think that's everything. Let's tell them what's coming up. Yeah. So just for January, in a in a couple of weeks, we have the Mid Atlantic Reptile Expo. Yay.

It's gonna be on Saturday. It's one of our favorites. I know. Saturday, January 18th. And so it's gonna be running from 10 AM until 5 PM.

I think kids 10 and under, maybe 13 and under. Okay. I'm not sure. Kids are free. Under 30 Kids are some age are free.

Little children. But they do have that on their website and on their Facebook pages. And we'll have posts that are gonna start popping up as we get closer because we're we're gonna be there. We're super excited. So, yeah.

Mid Atlantic Reptile Expo is gonna be here at the Greenville Convention Center. The second to the last week of January, me, doctor Olsen, and our 3 RVTs are gonna be hitting the road and going to Orlando, Florida for the annual, veterinary conference called VMX. Whoo. Super excited. Last year was pretty fun.

We were only weeks into our podcasting and That's wild. It was yeah. It was a good time. Yep. And I'm so excited to bring those 3 with and see how we can advance our care in our hospital and grow some of our leaders within the hospital and just take better care of all of your health.

They're so excited. Have you seen them in like, I've seen them in the like, powwowing around computer station, looking at lectures, and lectures. Yeah. Yeah. For those who don't know, these veterinary conferences, get people from all around the world to come speak and kind of give us updates.

What's changed? This is medicine, so we know that it's not the same as when we graduated or when they graduated tech school. We have to keep moving with the times and advancing in our equipment and in our knowledge, and I think this is one of the best ways to do that at these national conferences. Yeah. What are you most looking forward to about VMX?

Oh, I I think just improving my education and skill in still in rodent dentistry. I think that's one that is we see it so frequently, and it's something that without having a mentor right here, it's been tough. But you guys probably listened to our episode where I got to go to Avian and Exotics, in Raleigh to get more information and see some of the equipment and things that they do there just to make sure that we're kinda keeping up with everything. Yeah. So I'm pumped.

It's gonna be a good time. Yeah. I can't wait. I think our team is really excited about, like, just making sure that we're doing all we can in the, anesthesia and analgesia. So taking care of pain management, making sure we're using local blocks to our advantage to lower the amount of, like, drugs that these pets are getting during anesthesia.

So just really just making sure that we're doing the best we can for our patients. I think that's one of the things I'm most excited about. In the past years, we've only ever taken, like, one of them at a time. It's never been all of them together because as As a hospital. As a hospital and as some of you might know, our RVTs are next in line to our doctors.

So they are credentialed, they have a lot of schooling under their belt, and they are they're licensed. They are licensed, professionals in the industry. They, And they're kind of the quarterbacks of these of our team. So even that our doctors were were trying to, you know, go and see our appointments and move on, but they're kind of the brains behind the operation and keeping things flowing the way that it needs to. And so it is it was a big decision on our part to take all of these amazing humans out at the same time, but I think having them be able to brainstorm, having them to get the same information and really be able to tackle changes in the hospital together, I think will be, like, just so good for the whole year years to come that this little week will hopefully be a really fast little blip for I know.

And I know we've yeah. For our team, I know they're probably like, they're not excited about us all leaving at the same time. I I know it's gonna be fine. We've got some great people in place for while we go, but, yeah. I'm I we've got time carved out while we're at the conference to be able to sit down after classes and chat with our RVTs, maybe over dinner or whatever, and just see, like, what did you take out of the day?

What can we incorporate into our daily practices? And so Yeah. How do you get team buy in? How do you, prepare for changes and and make it so that it's as smooth as possible? So And I think the other thing I'm most excited about is just reconnecting with all the people that aren't here.

Yes. Absolutely. I think made so many friends in the industry, and we are Yeah. Gonna get to catch up with everybody. So it'll be a good time.

And then the one other big thing right now, that's going to be sometime this like, over the next couple of weeks, but we will have an episode coming out with none other than doctor Dan Johnson. So excited. He's like a legend among exotic medicine. Among us. But, yeah, we're gonna talk about prairie dogs, which was brought on by Amanda's You're bringing it up again.

Obsession. It was an obsession. Guys, I'm still obsessed. I shouldn't even be. With That's a weird thing to be upset at all.

Specifically prairie dog. Sure. Sure. Sure. Oh my god.

All know. Now you all know. But this oh my god. Now you're now I'm thinking about it again. You saw you saw a prairie dog a couple of weeks ago, and she came in because she had something going on with her teeth.

Yeah. And so you called me back there to, like, get some pictures for you and some videos so that you could do some educational things that are gonna kinda coincide with this episode with doctor Dan. And then I left, went back to my office, and a few minutes later, I get a video from doctor Whiting. Yeah. She was also obsessed with the situation back there.

Of something that looks like a sea anemone. And it was doing like a this thing. Yeah. There was a lot happening back there. There is a lot, and I can't wait for doctor Dan to talk about it.

I can't wait to ask him about it. It is normal. So you can rest assured that was not, like, some sort of alien organism coming out. I'm still not It still kinda looks it it definitely you know, I think maybe they are aliens. It looks like something off the sci fi channel.

It does. She sent me no preparation. Cannot wait. She has to tell you what the next, what's it called? Internet search engine thing.

We're crashing the Internet with prairie dog buttholes that you're they're all gonna do. If you guys need to know what I'm talking about, just look it up. I'm just assuming we have so many listeners that we will crash the Internet. I can't wait. All 5 of you look at the same name.

1st week of 2025, trending search on Google. I can't wait for the 2025 Google wrap up when they, like Yeah. Go through all the searches. See how many Yeah. It's just gonna it's gonna be a good time.

So, yeah, I'm I'm excited to get doctor Dan on. We got to harass him a couple weeks ago when we were there in Raleigh, and he's a good time. He is. It's gonna be a lot of fun. This is a unique pet to have, and I think there's a lot of information out there that can be really contradictory and confusing.

And so, again, with exotics just going to the source, somebody that's put it like, dedicated their life to take great care of these animals. I think it'll be awesome to get his opinions and his kind of husbandry care information. A good time. Yeah. Yeah.

And then the only other thing to just keep an eye out for, we will have, we'll put some feelers out there to get some ideas for topics that you guys wanna hear about throughout 2025. You guys did an amazing job last year. We were able to take those topics and kind of feed them in Yeah. To our episode lineup. Have a couple that we may not have even gotten to you, which is awesome.

So keep them coming just like you did last year. Yeah. I'm super excited and can't wait to see where this year takes us. Hey. Alright.

See you soon. You guys have a great day. Bye.