The experts behind the advice
Vets, behaviourists, trainers and breeders who work with pets every day. Every guide on HowPets is written or reviewed by one of them, and their name sits on the page. If you want to know who is telling you to do something, this is where you find out.
Charles Shirazi
Head of Product
Charles Shirazi studied veterinary medicine at the Royal Veterinary College, where he built an award-winning diagnostic tool for pet owners. He is Head of Product at Doubtless Pet Insurance UK & Europe, where he designs pet insurance products across several brands and partners.
View profile
David Cavill
Animal Care Industry Consultant and Championship Judge
David Cavill has worked with dogs since the 1960s. He is an animal care industry consultant and a Kennel Club Championship-level judge across almost forty breeds. He founded the Animal Care College. He also spent eleven years running Battersea’s country kennels with his wife Angela. He can argue both sides of the rescue-or-breeder question from experience rather than from principle.
View profile
Dr Alex Crow
Veterinary Surgeon
Dr Alex Crow BVetMed MRCVS has been a small animal vet for seven years, with a particular interest in nutrition and in dermatology and allergies. He is Chief Veterinary Officer at The Net Vet and Official Vet for Pooch & Mutt, and reaches around 200,000 followers with pet education content.
View profile
Dr Jen Hipwell
Head of Veterinary Services
Dr Jen Hipwell is a veterinary surgeon who worked in small animal practice. A good part of her week was new puppies and kittens coming in for their first appointments. She is now Head of Veterinary Services at Animal Friends Insurance. That combination is a rare one. She reads the clinical picture and the claims data side by side, giving her insight into a wider range of challenges and problems that some pups encounter during their early years.
View profile
Dr Samantha Webster
Chief Veterinary Officer
Dr Samantha Webster qualified from the Royal Veterinary College in London in 2012 and spent seven years in practice before moving into digital veterinary care. She is Chief Veterinary Officer at Vet-AI, the company behind Joii Pet Care.
View profile
Layla Beakhouse
Feline Specialist
Layla Beakhouse is a feline specialist who has spent more than a decade rescuing and rehabilitating cats with complex behavioural, welfare and medical needs. She holds diplomas in feline behaviour, feline psychology, and cat anxiety and stress.
View profile
Louise Rees
Registered Veterinary Nurse
Louise Rees is a Registered Veterinary Nurse who helped set up a specialist referral hospital and spent three years there, training across referral work and specialising in feline and canine dentistry and orthodontics. She is now a Veterinary Technical Advisor at Doubtless Pet Care Group.
View profile
Steve Mann
Dog Trainer & Behaviourist
Steve Mann has been a dog trainer since 1987 and is the founder of the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers. He is the author of Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy, the UK's best-selling dog training book, and presents the BBC Maestro course Dog Training with Steve Mann.
View profile
How our advice gets made
Our guides are built with the vets, nurses, trainers and the specialists on this page. The expert panel have seen it all and usually more than once.
They bring the know-how and the HowPets team bring the questions, focusing on what new and existing pet owners actually ask and turning their answers into plain English.
Nothing goes live until it's been checked and signed off by an expert, with every guide showing who wrote it and who reviewed it, so you always know whose advice you're reading.
