55% of Pet Parents Ask AI About Food...Here’s My Take

If you’ve spent any time online lately, you’ve probably noticed that artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over almost every conversation. Some people absolutely love it and use it to write emails, plan meals, or organize their entire week. Others hear the word “AI” and immediately want to run for the hills.

I understand both sides and am not here to tell you how to feel one way or the other. What I do want to do, is ensure if you decide to use AI when it comes to your pet, that you're using it as safely and efficiently as possible.

As with any technology, we can get good results and bad results and the last thing we want is for pet parents to trust AI and implement bad advice when we didn't know it was bad.

At the end of the day, your pet's health is what matters most to us but we know lots of pet parents are turning to AI for everyday advice, nutrition advice or even just trying to gain a better understanding of what certain things mean to our pets from the AI's perspective. So if AI is a tool you're going to use with your pet, we want to make sure you get good advice and we absolutely want to ensure you know when AI is NOT the tool you need to keep your pet happy and healthy.

No matter where you fall on the AI spectrum, there’s a new trend happening in the pet world that really caught my eye, a significant amount of pet parents are turning to AI for answers about their pets.

In fact, a recent survey revealed that 55% of pet owners have asked AI for pet nutrition advice, and 54% use it to look up symptoms or illness. Nearly half of pet owners even admit to asking AI offbeat questions like, "Do dogs know they're dogs?" or "Can my pet see ghosts?" 👻

When I first read those numbers, I had to stop and think about it. Is using AI for our pets a good thing? Or are we opening up a whole new can of worms?

Here’s my honest take: AI can actually be a great tool, BUT it has some major limitations.

If you choose to use it, you need a strategy so you get helpful info instead of generic, recycled marketing hype.

🎙️ If you'd prefer to listen to this blog, you can find it here anywhere you love listening to podcasts! Look for S1 E42: "55% of Pet Parents Ask AI About Food...Here’s My Take".

The "Garbage In, Garbage Out" Rule of AI

AI doesn't actually "know" your dog or cat. It’s essentially a massive data-sorter scanning the internet. If you ask it a vague question without context, it’s going to spit back standard, generic advice pulled straight from big-budget corporate pet food marketing.

So what does that actually mean? When I first discovered AI, I approached it like a Google search, what I didn't know was that how I was asking it for information, provided absolutely no context for the AI model. Another way to look at this is like so: if I saw you walking down the street and I yelled "Carly", you'd likely think I had lost my mind! But...if I saw you walking down the street and said, "Hi, my name is Carly." I just provided context. Yelling my own name does not provide you with any context, framing it with "Hi, my name is..." just gave you all the context you need to understand why I'm saying my own name. AI is the same.

To get anything useful out of AI, the prompt you give it makes all the difference:

❌ Poor Prompt Without Context: "What is the best dog food?"

What you’ll get: A generic list of mass-market brands or big-box store favorites that spend millions to dominate search engine results.

✅ Good Prompt: "What is a premium dry dog food made in Canada that contains no unnamed animal by-products, no controversial ingredients, and uses fresh, whole food protein sources?"

What you’ll get: A filtered, specific list of higher-standard, biologically appropriate foods that actually respect your pet's body.

When we ask better questions, we get better tools to do our research. When we provide context, we're telling AI exactly what we're looking for rather than just telling it to crawl the web and bring back whatever information it finds from sites that pay the most to advertise. We actually want to tell it how to think and how to conduct the research that could ultimately benefit our pets. Here are a few more examples of how not to prompt AI and what we should be asking instead.

Scenario 1: Decoding an Ingredient Label

❌ Bad Prompt: "Is this dog food good?"
- Why it fails: AI will skim for general brand popularity and give you a generic stamp of approval based on corporate fluff.
✅ Good Prompt: "Act as a holistic pet nutritionist. I am pasting the ingredients of my dog's food below. Identify any ingredient splitting, unnamed animal by-products, artificial preservatives, any by-products, or controversial fillers, and explain how they impact my animal's health."

Scenario 2: Addressing "Itchy Skin" or Allergies

❌ Bad Prompt: "What can I give my dog for itchy paws?"
- Why it fails: It defaults to over-the-counter quick fixes, medicated shampoos, or synthetic antihistamines without addressing the root cause.
✅ Good Prompt: "My 3-year-old dog has red, itchy paws in the spring. I currently feed a dry kibble with chicken. What are some single-ingredient, fresh food toppers or Omega-3 additions I can add to their bowl to support their skin barrier and manage systemic inflammation naturally?"

Scenario 3: Upgrading a Bowl on a Budget

❌ Bad Prompt: "What's the cheapest healthy pet food?"
- Why it fails: "Healthy" means nothing to a general algorithm, so it will simply return the lowest-cost grocery store brands with heavy marketing budgets.
✅ Good Prompt: "I want to boost the nutritional density of my pet's current kibble without spending a fortune. What are three accessible, whole-food additions (like canned sardines in water, goat milk, or eggs) I can buy at the grocery store, and what are the exact safe serving sizes for a 30-lb dog?"

When we provide context and let the AI tool know we are looking for natural options, that are trusted by holistic pet professionals, we have a better chance of getting more accurate information to support the health of our pets.

Using Trusted, Purpose-Built AI Tools (Like Doctor Conor Brady's Chatbot)

Not all AI is created equal. Asking a generic AI model for pet advice is very different from using a tool trained specifically on root-cause pet health and holistic nutrition. AI is constantly learning and if we take the time, we can also train AI models to focus specifically on one thing. That's exactly what Dr. Conor Brady did! First he wrote the book Feeding Dogs (and he's writing another one as I type this) then he trained an AI model to refer only to his book when it answers questions!

That’s exactly why we integrated Dr. Conor Brady’s specialized AI chatbot right on our website. Dr. Brady is a world-renowned expert on canine nutrition, raw feeding, and holistic care. His tool is trained directly on deep, species-appropriate nutritional research, the same kind we do and share everyday in store and online, not big-box retail algorithms. Our Dr. Brady chatbot gives the same advice we do and it's a trusted source of information so when you can't reach us outside of regular store hours, we still have the means for you to get answers to your questions!

If you’re looking to research fresh feeding options, understand ingredient panels, or learn how whole food nutrition supports root-cause wellness, Dr. Brady’s tool on our site is an incredible resource to have at your fingertips 24/7.

When to Use AI...and When to See Your "Dogtor" 🩺

Even with dedicated tools, we need to draw a hard line on when AI is helpful and when it's dangerous.

✅ Use AI as a Research Tool For:

Brainstorming fresh food toppers or single-ingredient treat ideas.
Learning how to read and decode complex pet food ingredient lists.
Understanding the difference between raw, gently cooked, air-dried, and dry foods.
Prepping thoughtful, specific questions to bring to your next wellness visit.

❌ DO NOT Mess Around with AI For:

Sudden lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, or bloat: These can escalate in minutes. Do not wait for a chatbot to process a prompt. Call your vet immediately.
Diagnosing medical conditions: AI cannot perform bloodwork, check a heart sound, feel an abdomen, or run diagnostic testing.
Replacing professional medical treatment: Never alter a prescribed medication or ignore a critical veterinary diagnosis based on something a computer generated.

If you choose to use AI as a tool to help care for your pet, view it as a very eager assistant who is known to make mistakes frequently. The AI wants to please you and it wants to help, it just doesn't always give you the right answer. When it comes to your pet's health, mistakes that can negatively impact them is never the right answer, so find an AI you can trust and use AI for basic inquiries not complex medical advice.

The Best Tool You Own Is Still Your "Spidey Senses"

At the end of the day, no algorithm, no computer program, and no artificial intelligence model will EVER know your pet the way you do.

In that same survey we talked about to start, 89% of pet owners agreed that AI can never replace a pet parent's intuition. I couldn't agree more!

You know the subtle shift in your dog's eyes when they aren't feeling well. You know their normal energy, their daily routine, and their little quirks better than anyone on earth. That bond and your pet-parent "spidey senses" will always be the most reliable defense you have when it comes to protecting their health.

Think of AI as just one extra tool in your toolkit, a digital sounding board to help you ask better questions and do deeper research. But when it comes to keeping your furry family thriving, trust your gut, do the research, and rely on the people who truly care about your pet's root-cause health.

If you ever want to skip the internet rabbit hole altogether and talk through your pet's bowl with real humans who scrutinize every ingredient, you know where to find us!

Bee, boop, bop, bop, beep......

Carly, Zaner (the authentic intelligence covered in fur), and the House of Paws Team 🐾