The accounts of the veterinarians echo each other and stretch back as long as seven years: Marc Ching, founder of a Hollywood-backed animal rescue charity, persuaded their clients to abandon a prescribed treatment regimen and instead give their ailing dogs and cats products he sells at his for-profit pet food store in Sherman Oaks.
More than a dozen Los Angeles-area veterinarians and others who care for animals told The Times that Ching’s actions threatened to harm — and in several cases did harm — pets they were treating for conditions such as kidney disease, heart failure and cancer.
Five of the care providers said they complained about Ching to the California Veterinary Medical Board, alleging he was practicing veterinary medicine at his store without a license. Ching, who describes himself as a fourth-generation herbalist and nutritionist, is not a veterinarian. The vets said the board either immediately rebuffed them or took no action.
Emilie Chaplow, a Studio City veterinarian, said she complained to the board after a client told her that Ching recommended giving a diabetic dog a steroid medication that could have killed the animal.
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