What’s Going On Inside Your Pet?

Ever wonder the best way to feed your pet? Teaching Assistant Professor Kimberly Ange-van Heugten has a website for you.

As part of her new online Advanced Canine and Feline Nutrition class, Teaching Assistant Professor Kimberly Ange-van Heugten spent a year working on a website that leads you through the ins and outs of the gastrointestinal tract before diving in to the nutrition classics: how carbs, proteins, vitamins and fat work together inside your companion animal.

Thanks to a grant from NC State’s Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications, Ange-Van Heugten worked with New Media Lead Donnie Wrights, Instructional Design Lead Daniel Davis and graduate student Tarra Freel to develop the colorful, comprehensive site. Material on the website makes up about one-third of the class’s curriculum.

Since its launch in fall 2017, the full online class has been a success, attracting students from as far from campus as The Philippines. It’s the Department of Animal Science’s (and NC State’s)  first graduate-level course on nutrition for companion animals, a topic much-requested by students, Ange-van Heugten said.

And even for non-students, she said, there’s a lot of helpful information.

“By providing access to the website, we’re trying to help pet owners educate themselves so that they can become better pet parents — whether interested in graduate school, veterinary school or just proper pet care,” Ange-van Heugton said.

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This post was originally published in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences News.