Vetcetera Pet health sites set the Web on fire...or do they?

August 15th, 2008  

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I prefer PetDoc.com. Of course, I work for PetDoc.com, so I'm a little biased. But in all seriousness, we would love to hear comments on our site. What works, what doesn't... as well as what pet information is lacking.

Jonathan August 15th, 2008 12:46:00 PM

So I guess I'm not the only one who can't really tell them apart ;-)
My vet tends to recommend VeterinaryPartner to his clients, while I tend to find the best info in sites not mentioned in the list:
* For feline crf, http://felinecrf.org/ has been the best site I have found (with a wonderful mailing list).
* For general pet health info, http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/pets/ is excellent.
* On occasion, I have found some great articles at http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/vetmed/static... (their article about Kidney transplant in cats was great)

Xslf August 15th, 2008 02:25:00 PM

Thank you for going back to simple links instead of the javascript that wasn't working.

By the way, the email address listed on your contact page (postmaster@doolittler.com) is bouncing emails, as is (postmaster@dolittler.com)

zandperl August 15th, 2008 05:10:00 PM

Zandperl: Grrrrrr....you have no idea how ready I am for my Dolittler rewrite. In case anyone's wondering about having their site written in ColdFusion...don't do it! By next month it'll be fixed. In the meantime contact me at khulyp@bellsouth.net.

Dr. Patty Khuly August 16th, 2008 07:38:00 AM

My faves are:

Feline Diabetes
http://felinediabetes.com/

Feline Asthma
http://www.fritzthebrave.com/

Feline Nutrition
http://catinfo.org/
http://www.catnutrition.org/index.php

General Feline Health
http://felineoutreach.org/Default.asp
*disclaimer-I am involved with the Feline Outreach organization

Heather August 16th, 2008 08:40:00 PM

You know there have been sooo many sites that for a while I bookmarked every one I found…and now I have accumulated a stupid number of sites that I have "just in case". (everything from DNA breed testing to cremation services!)

Maybe with the list you posted above I can narrow things down focus better, but as of right now this is the only site I come to half-way regularly.

Larry August 17th, 2008 12:54:00 AM

Larry: Hadn't heard from you for a while. Welcome back to the fold.

Dr. Patty Khuly August 17th, 2008 11:07:00 AM

I do research on dog health and nutrition on a daily basis, but have to admit I've never heard of any of the six sites Embrace Pet Insurance listed. I do rely on VeterinaryPartner and PetPlace, as well as the vetmed.wsu.edu site mentioned by Xslf. I also like VetInfo4Dogs and PetEducation.

I'm writing an article on pancreatitis, so I thought I'd use that topic as a way to get a quick feel for the information on the sites you listed. I can't say that I was impressed with any of them. One doesn't even have a search function; another is primarily about human health (no way to search only in the pet section). Two did not have articles on pancreatitis, and the two that did were very cursory and had no useful information. Not sites I'll be bookmarking for future use, that's for sure.

Mary Straus August 18th, 2008 03:52:00 PM

Mary: I think these sites are young--very young (some are even in their beta versions). I expect that their teams of energetic pet writers are trying to find out exactly what people like you want to read.

Problem is, the older sites already have excellent content out there. It's hard for the newbies to compete when it takes time to build a cache of critically important articles--like on the pretty basic topic of pancreatitis. You'd think they might try to license content to give them a leg up. Reinventing the wheel can be a long process.

Dr. Patty Khuly August 19th, 2008 09:13:00 AM

Patty - I think you have a very valid point about the sites, they are young and they are looking for (mostly) the same audience. I don't know that they can acquire the the content for their sites by licensing because of search engines - in a nutshell, Google penalizes duplicate content.

It's my opinion that pet health info portals lag around 10 years behind their human equivalents. A lot of these sites lack a "rockstar" type veterinarian who can carry the torch, so to speak, like Mehmet Oz (yay, another Wharton MBA!) can for WebMD. Getting someone like Marty Becker on board would be a good start.

Also, in the back of my mind, I can't help wondering if the content on the pet portals is aimed at the right type of pet owner. There might be 60 million households with pets but that doesn't mean all of them, or even many of them, take a deep interest in their cat's flea problems or their dog's wobbly back legs. And for many people, a trip to the vet is the way to go, it never occurs to them to go online and research - yet.

I think these portals need to raise their visibility and move closer to top of mind when people are researching illness, disease, or anything else pet-related. How they will get there is anybody's guess.

Alex August 19th, 2008 09:58:00 AM

Alex: I was thinking they'd want to license some of the vast stores of pet health content not yet online...or consider partnering with sites whose vetted content is excellent but "underperforming," for whatever reason.

I agree on your intimation of a latent demand in this market. Most pet owners haven't gotten around to researching pet health online...yet. It's this audience I suspect they're jockeying for in advance of their arrival.

Oh...and I think Dr. Becker's "taken." ;-)

Dr. Patty Khuly August 19th, 2008 11:19:00 AM

Mary: Thanks for taking the time to test us out! I think we were one of the sites without an article on pancreatitis. As Patty eluded to, we are indeed brand-spanking new. We're in a beta phase right now to fix issues exactly like this. I've added pancreatitis to our future topic list as well. If you encounter anything else that you'd like to see or don't currently see, please let me know.

Alex: You raise some excellent points. This whole "pet health portal" is a new idea compared to human health portals. And while there are some scattered places for pet health information, no one (including ourselves) has yet to prove that they are worthy of the "WebMD for pets" status. We obviously drew a lot of inspiration from human portals for our beta version, but the needs of humans searching for themselves and humans searching for their pets are distinct. We're hoping to take the concept even further in coming months.

Jonathan August 19th, 2008 12:26:00 PM

This site is THE WebMD for pets! A to Z library, Health, Travel, Drugs, and much more...

Tina September 18th, 2008 08:26:00 AM

There are many many more sites on the web now:

whydoesmycat.com
whydoesmypet.com

... Just to name 2!

I think the sites are fine as long as they make it clear that people need to take their animals to the vet if there are health issues (or even behavior issues!)

anne October 6th, 2008 05:16:00 PM

.. wasn't finished posting....

<a href="http://whydoesmycat.com">Why Does My Cat</a> is neat because it focuses on cats alone. It is more focused on humor than a substitute veterinarian site (which I think is often an issue with the pet sites on the web today.

The other site is focused on all pets, and I belive it is actual veterinarians answering the questions.

anne October 6th, 2008 05:19:00 PM

HI ALL THANK YOU شبكة ومنتديات التاكسي فساتين

miss ksa December 15th, 2008 09:59:54 AM

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