 interview at Fetch Long Beach, Peter Weinstein, DVM, MBA, speaks from decades of practice management experience about how to run better staff meetings, build repeatable processes your whole team owns, measure whether changes are working, and bring people on board without top-down friction. He explains the benefits of explicitly scheduling time to strategically plan for your practice as a business, a concept he calls WONJI (Working On, Not Just In).

 Q&A has been lightly edited and consolidated from a verbal interview to better fit a written format while retaining the substance of the original conversation.

WONJI stands for “[Working] On, Not Just In.” We get so embedded in day-to-day operations that we forget the bigger picture. If you don’t program the GPS for your practice [vision, mission, values, standards of care], you won’t get where you want to go. Schedule time away—at the beach, on a mountain, even in your car—to think, plan, and set direction. If you don't schedule it, it won't happen.

Everyone hates staff meetings. How do we make them useful?

Stop using staff meetings for public flogging. Make them short, focused, and agenda-driven. Assign time limits to agenda items and use meetings as a classroom. Teach something clinical or managerial, celebrate wins, and revisit your mission/"why" at the start of every meeting. Forward-looking is better than rehashing mistakes.

You talk about process improvement. What are the small changes that make a big difference?

Create recipes, [or] step-by-step processes, so tasks don’t depend on a single person. Scripts and written procedures aren’t about making people robotic; they’re about consistent, high-quality output in everyday tasks like phone answering, presenting invoices, prepping surgical packs, and cleaning cages. Do it right the first time so you don’t have to apologize later.

After you change a process, how do you know it’s working?

Look for objective and subjective measures. Subjectively, staff will feel more prepared and satisfied. Objectively, track staff retention, client retention, reduced waste, and profitability. Consistent client and patient experiences are measurable and will show whether your process is delivering.

Change is hard. How do you get people on board?

Don’t force change [from the] top down. Ask your team where the pain points are and invite suggestions. Let the people who do the work build the process. For example, video a team member doing the task, add audio, transcribe it, and create a written “recipe.” That staff-driven approach creates buy-in because the team owns the improvement.

Treat your team as the practice’s greatest asset. Veterinary medicine is a team sport; we can’t do the work without our people and our clients. Leaders should be positive, respectful, and invest in the team.

To read more news and view expert insights from Fetch Long Beach, visit 

’s dedicated site for conference coverage at 

https://www.dvm360.com/conference/fetch-long-beach

Articles

Discover effective strategies for staff meetings and process improvement in veterinary practice management with insights from Peter Weinstein, DVM, MBA.

Create consistency to increase patient satisfaction and turn processes into profit

Annie Valuska, PhD, discusses one of the most common ways for dogs to convey emotions.

Interpreting canine behaviors (Part 1)

How should canine behaviors be interpreted? In a 

 interview, Annie Valuska, PhD, principal scientist or the pet behavior team at Purina, discussed common behaviors that dog owners may typically see and what they can mean. The interview also discussed feline behaviors as well as which companion animal behaviors sometimes lead to pets being surrendered by their owners or euthanized.

In this video, Valuska discusses one of the most common canine behaviors: tail wagging. Although tail wagging may convey expressions of happiness, it can also show other emotions including those that signal a dog’s need for space. Valuska shares signs seen in tail wagging including other movements that accompany it, that can be interpreted. 

 of this video discusses other canine behaviors that warrant interpretation.

The following is a transcript of the video:

There are a lot of canine behaviors that are frequently misinterpreted. The big one that I'm always telling people about is a wagging tail. A lot of people assume that if the dog's tail is wagging, it means it's a happy dog, and that really could not be further from the truth. When you see a wagging tail, really, all that means is that something has the dog's attention, and you have to look at what that wag looks like and other body language cues to figure out how the dog feels about whatever has its attention.

So if you see a low, sweeping, loose, wiggly wag with lots of happy body language. You know, the ears are in a neutral posture, the mouth is nice and relaxed. They might even have that nice smile going, and that whole body is kind of wiggling. That's generally a happy dog. But as the tail starts to get a little stiffer, that wag gets a little tighter, maybe that tail becomes elevated over the back, and often you'll see other body language indicating that the dog is feeling some tension. They'll be standing much stiffer and still. Those ears might be perked forward; the mouth will often be in a hard line. All of that can be accompanying a wagging tail, but that kind of Tail Wagon body language is certainly not indicative of a happy, friendly dog.

Crossley KC, Valuska A. Interpreting canine behaviors (Part 2). 

. December 15, 2025. Accessed December 19, 2025. https://www.dvm360.com/view/interpreting-canine-behaviors-part-2-

Videos

Annie Valuska, PhD, principal scientist for the pet behavior team at Purina, discusses one of the most common ways for dogs to convey emotions.

Happy Friday dvm360 readers! We are SO close to the holiday season and with the holiday cheer can also come some holiday freights, from toxins to ingesting decorations, and everything in between. Be sure to continue to educate clients on the dangers decking the halls this holiday season to make sure there are no trips to the emergency room for patients, just trips from Santa from the North Pole.

While we continue to get ready for the holidays, here is what was popular this week on dvm360.com:

 that its maropitant citrate (Emeprev; Dechra), an injectable solution to prevent and treat acute vomiting in canine and feline patients has received approval from the FDA.

 of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, welcomed Derek Matthews, DVM, DACVIM (Cardiology) to provide listeners with more information and a breakdown of sirolimus delayed-release tablets (Felycin-CA1), how it works, and who it works for.

 300 cases of its Bonnihill Farms BeffiBowls Beef Recipe amid concerns that the frozen food may be contaminated with plastic following complaints the company got from consumers, according to an announcement shared by the FDA.

During Fetch Long Beach last weekend, Tannetje’ Crocker, DVM, an emergency veterinarian for Veterinary Emergency Group in Dallas, Texas; owner of Alta Vista Animal Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, 

 common emergency cases general practitioners and their teams can come across, and what to consider when taking action. 

As we continue to move closer to the holiday season, the American Veterinary Medical Association released some tips for veterinary professionals to share with clients to help keep pets healthy and happy this weekend, including one key 

: maybe think twice before giving a pet as a gift.

Wrap up: Dog food recalled following plastic contamination complaints, and other news 

Benita Altier, LVT, VTS (Dentistry), discusses the types of dentistry cases that a general practitioner might be more comfortable referring to a specialist.

Identifying dentistry cases for referral

Benita Altier, LVT, VTS (Dentistry), owner of Pawsitive Dental Education, provides professional dental instruction and consultation to veterinary practices and conferences, both in the US and internationally. Aside from being a presenting speaker at the 2025 Fetch dvm360 Conference in Long Beach, California, Altier is also president-elect for the Arizona Veterinary Technician Association and a past president for the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians.

 interview, Altier discusses different types of dental cases seen by general practitioners that might be better suited for a veterinary professional specializing in dentistry. This video is a portion of the interview that answers the question: When should a general practitioner refer a case to a veterinary dentist?

Selecting the right fit in dentistry care tools

The following is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity:

 Veterinary dentists are really going to be the ones you want to send [patients] to [for] things like endodontics, which is root canal therapy or vital pulp therapy—those kinds of things...that treat the inside of the tooth to save them. Also, things like advanced cases of oral maxillofacial surgery because of masses or mandibulectomies and maxillectomies.

Orthodontics—if there's going to be braces put on. I don't think most [general practitioner] veterinarians are really educated on doing something like that, so that's certainly something that a veterinary dentist could approach. 

Tooth movement, strategic extractions, [and] things like that would require trying to correct uncomfortable mouth closure. Things like prosthodontics, which is putting crowns on teeth...is something that we often do. If there's going to be a root canal performed, then potentially, there's going to be a crown placed. 

So...I don't think most [general practitioner] veterinarians should approach [those things] because of the fact that they take a lot of special training, material skills, and if you don't do very many of them—like if you only did 2 root canals a year—it's pretty hard to get very skilled or efficient at that particular thing. If you're a [general practitioner] veterinarian, investing in something like that might not be what you'd want to do....

To view additional coverage of the Fetch Long Beach conference from the

content team, visit the event’s dedicated news page:

An excipient system is a blend of inactive ingredients, such as fillers, binders, and flavoring agents, that are formulated along with the active ingredients in a drug. This system of inactive ingredients gives the medication its structure and allow it to be shaped, flavored and delivered as intended.

Veterinary medicine may be moving into 3D-printed drug compounding with the launch of a new excipient system made specifically for producing personalized medications for pets using 3D printing. The company behind the development, CurifyLabs, is calling the technology a “first-of-its-kind” compounding tool with the potential to streamline how customized medication is prepared.

The new excipient system, called Curablend Vet, is designed to work with CurifyLabs’ automated Compounding System Solution (CSS), an automated platform that prints the medications. Together, Curablend Vet and the CSS platform have the potential to replace many of the manual steps involved in compounding, thereby standardizing the process.

Because many medications are not manufactured in pet-specific strengths or formulations, veterinarians often rely on pharmacists to customize human drugs for pets or prepare compounded mixtures. Those preparations can involve manual steps that are time-consuming and may introduce variability, noted CurifyLabs in a press release announcing the Curablend Vet launch.

According to the Finland-based company, the new excipient system seeks to address these issues by automating much of the process, providing a standardized, digitally documented 3D workflow, and helping pharmacists create “safer” and “more consistent” doses in minutes.

 Specifically, the CSS system with Curablend Vet prints soft, chewable gel pills that are customized to taste appealing to pets, potentially leading to fewer missed doses and increased owner adherence.

“Pet owners want medication time to be simple, not stressful,” Charlotta Topelius, CEO and founder of CurifyLabs, said in a company announcement.

“Curablend Vet gives pharmacists a reliable way to make pet-friendly medicines that animals actually want to eat.”

The system’s launch marks the technology’s entrance into veterinary medicine. Until now, the company’s CSS 3D-printing platform had been used only in hospitals and pharmacies serving human patients in the US and Europe.

Since its founding in 2021, CurifyLabs has worked on modernizing the drug compounding process in human pharmacies, developing the technology alongside pharmacists in prominent European markets, which include Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.

“We know how important pets are to families, and we’re proud that Curablend Vet now brings the benefits of trusted 3D-printed medicine to veterinary care,” Topelius said.

CurifyLabs launches Curablend Vet, bringing breakthrough 3D-printed, personalized medicines to pets. News release. CurifyLabs. December 9, 2025. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://news.curifylabs.com/press-releasecurifylabs-launches-curablendvet-bringing-breakthrough-3d-printed-personalized-medicines-to-pets 

A healthtech company creating solutions for personalized medicine manufacturing. CurifyLabs. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://curifylabs.com/about

The platform's developers say the automated system could help standardize how pharmacists prepare tailored medications for pets.

A new technology brings 3D-printed compounded medications to the veterinary space

With the holiday season in full swing, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) released an announcement with considerations to keep in mind for keeping pets safe this season. One key reminder: Think carefully before giving a pet as a gift.

Pets involve significant responsibility and ongoing investment, including time, planning, financial resources, and emotional commitment, the AVMA said in its announcement. With this in mind, the organization is advising against “surprising someone with a live animal.”

“Bringing a pet into someone's life is a decision that should never be made impulsively, and never without the foreknowledge of the recipient," Michael Bailey, DVM, DACVR, AAAS, president of the AVMA, said in the organization’s announcement.

 "Pets can bring immense joy, but they also require daily care, training, veterinary visits, and love for many years.”

Anyone thinking about gifting a pet to someone should consider the following:

Whether the recipient has the space for the pet, as different species and breeds have different sizes and space requirements.

Whether the recipient has the time, experience, and financial resources to train, socialize, and meet the behavioral needs of the pet, especially if the pet is young.

Who will be the primary caregiver for the pet, and whether that person will realistically be able to manage daily care once the novelty of the pet wears off.

Whether the caregiver will be able to manage the financial cost of the pet, including veterinary care, food, grooming, toys, supplies, pet sitting, and more. With certain breeds being more prone to developing medical issues and having special needs, the prospective owner of the pet should be financially equipped and willing to pay for these expenses.

Heather Berst, MA, VMD, cross brand medical lead with Zoetis, said giving pets as spontaneous gifts can lead to the animal being surrendered to a shelter once the gift recipient is no longer able to manage the cost of care or the excitement of the new pet wears off.

“This severely affects the pet’s quality of life and long-term behavior and adds to the overwhelming number of animals already in need of homes,” Berst wrote in an article published by Zoetis.

Instead of gifting a pet, Bailey suggests gifting a collar, toy, or gift certificate for a future pet, while still including the other person in the pet adoption process when the time is right for them.

 Other gift ideas can include the following:

A leash with a note offering to take the recipient to a shelter or reputable breeder

Books on pet care or breed characteristics

A donation to a local animal shelter under the recipient’s name

A pet matching service with a certified dog or cat trainer

Volunteering at an animal shelter or rescue with the recipient

Considering a foster arrangement first, when the potential gift is for a spouse or the giver’s children

The safest way to welcome a new pet is through careful planning and communication. As the gift-giving season approaches, recognizing the importance of involving future caregivers in the decision is essential. Instead of gifting a pet, alternative gifts can be considered, with the animal’s long-term well-being remaining at the forefront.

“Ultimately, pets are not gifts that should be given lightly. They are living beings that require love, time, and resources,” Berst said.

Keep pets safe and happy this holiday season: tips from the AVMA. News release. AVMA. December 10, 2025. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://www.avma.org/news/press-releases/keep-pets-safe-and-happy-holiday-season-tips-avma

Berst H. Giving pets as gifts—important considerations. Zoetis. Accessed December 11, 2025. https://www.zoetispetcare.com/blog/article/giving-pets-as-gifts

Before putting a bow on a new pet, consider whether the recipient is prepared for the commitment.