Certified Pet Nutrition Coach, Certified Dog Trainer, Certified Vet Assistant and Certified Pet First Aid & CPR Instructor
Desiree Zizzo works where feeding meets health. She is a certified pet nutrition coach and dog trainer, a certified veterinary assistant, and a certified pet first aid and CPR instructor. She runs a pet care business in Illinois and teaches free dog health and nutrition classes at her local public library.
H3: Key Takeaways
- Desiree Zizzo is a certified pet nutrition coach, dog trainer and veterinary assistant.
- She is also a certified pet first aid and CPR instructor and an AKC evaluator.
- Nutrition and feeding are the subjects she writes on for PawChamp.
- She teaches free dog health and nutrition classes through a public library.
- Her consistent position is that a feeding problem is a health question until proven otherwise.
Background
Desiree's route into nutrition ran through retail and animal care rather than a clinic. She spent time advising customers on choosing the right diet for their animals, and handling and feeding cats, ferrets, fish, reptiles and other small animals, alongside ongoing education in animal care and health. She has also worked in a cat adoption programme.
She now runs her own insured pet care business in Illinois, covering sitting, walking and training, and tailors each visit to the individual animal. Alongside that she teaches dog health and nutrition classes at a local public library, which is unusual: most nutrition advice reaches owners through a product they are being sold rather than a free class at the library.
Areas Of Specialism
Desiree's writing covers the decisions owners make at the food bowl, and the health questions hiding behind them.
- Choosing a food, and reading past the marketing on the bag.
- Sensitive stomachs and digestive problems.
- Supplements: which do something and which do not.
- Appetite loss, fussy eating and refusing food.
- Pet first aid and knowing when something is an emergency.
When A Dog Stops Eating
The question Desiree gets asked most is how long a dog can safely go without food, and her answer starts by refusing the question. She wants to know why the dog stopped, because a fussy eater and a dog with dental pain look identical at the bowl and need completely different responses.
Her guide to how long a dog can go without eating sets out the safe timeframes, what changes with age, size and health, and the point at which troubleshooting stops and a vet visit starts.
Choosing The Right Food
Pet food marketing is designed to be difficult to read, and Desiree writes against that. Her position is that the label matters but does not tell you the quality of what went into it, and that a bag can be technically accurate and still misleading. Ingredient lists are ordered by weight before cooking, which is why a food can lead with meat and still be built mostly on something else once the water has gone. Splitting is the other trick worth knowing: the same ingredient listed three ways drops each entry down the order without reducing how much of it is in the bag.
💡 Tip:
She covers how to choose a grain-free food properly for the dogs that genuinely need one, working through when the format helps and when it is simply a more expensive way to feed the same animal. True grain allergies are far rarer than the shelf space suggests, and protein is the more common culprit when a dog reacts to its food at all.
Digestive trouble is the other half of the same subject. A dog with loose stools, frequent vomiting or persistent gas is often on a food that does not suit it, and the fix is rarely the most expensive bag on the shelf. It is also rarely instant, since a gut that has been irritated for weeks does not settle in two days on something new.
Her guide to food for a sensitive stomach works through the ingredients that commonly cause trouble, how to transition without making things worse, and the symptoms that mean the problem is medical rather than dietary.
Supplements And Nutritional Support
Supplements are the part of the pet market with the least oversight and the most confident claims, which makes a nutrition coach who will say plainly that most dogs on a complete diet do not need them genuinely useful. The category sells on worry rather than evidence, and the packaging rarely distinguishes between a supplement with clinical support behind it and one with a good story. Dosing is the other gap, since a bottle sized for a Labrador and a bottle sized for a terrier are frequently the same bottle with a different scoop.
🤔 Think about:
Her guide to dog supplements and vitamins goes through where supplementation has a real case, joint support and skin and coat among them, and where the evidence thins out. It is written to be read before buying rather than after, which is the opposite of how most supplement content is timed. The dogs who benefit most are usually the ones with a specific diagnosed need rather than the ones whose owners are worried in general.
Certifications and Qualifications
- Certified Pet Nutrition Coach.
- Certified Dog Trainer.
- Certified Veterinary Assistant.
- Certified Fear Free Veterinary Assistant.
- Certified Pet First Aid and CPR Instructor.
- Certified AKC Evaluator.
- Certified Pet Sitter.
Why PawChamp Works With Desiree
Nutrition is the area of pet care where the loudest voices usually have something to sell, and where an owner asking a straightforward question gets an answer shaped by a product line. Desiree writes without that pressure, and the difference shows in how often she concludes that nothing needs changing at all. Owners come to the subject anxious and are met almost everywhere by someone whose answer happens to be a purchase.
- She treats feeding as a health question. Her veterinary assistant and first aid training mean she reaches for the medical explanation early, which is why her writing about a dog refusing food spends as much time on dental pain and nausea as on picky eating.
- She teaches this for free. Running dog health and nutrition classes at a public library is not a marketing channel. It is the clearest signal available that the advice is not downstream of a sale.
- She is comfortable saying no. Most supplement writing exists to sell supplements. Hers is willing to conclude that a dog on a complete diet does not need one, which is the answer owners are least likely to be given elsewhere.
PawChamp trains and feeds on the same principle: work out what is actually happening before changing anything. On the food bowl, that is Desiree's whole method.
🔍 Fun fact:
A note on veterinary care. Desiree is a certified pet nutrition coach and holds veterinary assistant certification, but she is not a veterinarian. Diet changes for a dog with a diagnosed condition, and any sudden loss of appetite, belong with a vet. PawChamp does not diagnose or treat medical conditions.
Bottom Line
Desiree Zizzo brings nutrition, training, veterinary assistant and first aid certification to her writing for PawChamp, and covers the decisions owners make at the food bowl. Her consistent argument is that a dog who stops eating or reacts badly to a food is telling you something, and that the useful move is finding out what before switching brands.
