Something I noticed while on the elliptical machine at the gym (while trying to notice anything but my heart and respiration rate): There are a lot of ads for veterinary drugs on TV!

My husband and I are some of those weirdoes who only stream movies; we don’t watch broadcast TV, so I haven’t noticed this before, but holy smokes! It seems like there are as many ads for dog drugs as there are ads for drugs for humans – but with one important distinction: The ads for the veterinary medications don’t seem to have to include the fast-talking, small-print “side effects” additions about all the potential adverse effects that the drugs might cause. Why is that? I went looking for more information on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) website, and here’s what I found:

It turns out that the drug companies are required to disclose risk information in their promotional materials – at least, the promotional materials that are presented to veterinarians. Advertising materials that are directed to pet owners – known as direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements – are judged by a slightly different standard.

The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) oversees the promotion and advertising of approved prescription drug products under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and related regulations. Animal drug companies must ensure their prescription drug information provided to veterinarians and consumers is truthful, balanced, and not misleading. But marketing materials that are advertised in veterinary trade publications or distributed directly to veterinarians (or their hospitals) must be balanced with both benefit and risk information. And the product inserts must contain warnings, precautions, and contraindications for the product’s use.

In contrast, the main criterion for DTC advertisements for prescription drugs is that the promotional message is truthful and does not mislead consumers into thinking the drug is safer or more effective than has been demonstrated. According to the FDA CVM website: “DTC advertisements are designed to prompt consumers to request more information from their veterinarians about the drug.  These advertisements can provide helpful information to consumers, increase awareness of certain conditions or diseases, and may even influence a consumer to seek veterinary help for their animal; however, the content of the advertisement must be truthful, balanced, clearly communicated, and not misleading.”

Interestingly, ads for over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are not regulated by the FDA, but by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)! The rules for OTC drugs are far less detailed. Essentially, the only real rules are that claims in advertisements must be truthful, cannot be deceptive or unfair, and must be evidence-based.

Also interesting: I couldn’t find any information about the regulations for advertising topical pesticides for dogs (such as “spot on” flea and tick pesticides). The products themselves are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, but I couldn’t find advertising regulations anywhere. If I had to guess, I would bet that the ads for these products are governed by the FTC, too.

Personally, I’d love to see the ads for all veterinary products, whether prescription or OTC, pesticide or medication, to have to list the potential side effects, just like the human drug ads. I think this would demystify the products, and help make it clear that anything you give to or put on your dog might have a deleterious effect.

What do you think?

I read the headline with disbelief – “Karen Pryor turns 90 this week!” How can that be possible? It seems like it was just yesterday when I read Don’t Shoot the Dog and began my journey to the right way to train and live with dogs (and all my other animal companions). It was in fact the early 1990s when I first read it; it was originally published in 1984 and is still required reading for all my academy students. (If you haven’t read it… do!)

In addition to Don’t Shoot the Dog, Karen Pryor is the author of many other outstanding books on science-based behavior and training, including Lads Before the Wind, a book about her experiences as a marine mammal trainer. She is also the founder of Clicker Expo, the Karen Pryor Clicker Company, and the Karen Pryor Clicker Academy.

Her most visible legacy is her contribution to the world of dog training. Countless training and behavior professionals, including yours truly, owe a huge debt of gratitude to Karen for awakening us to the science behind the training, and helping us understand that there are far better ways to train than inflicting punishment with choke, prong, and shock collars.

Ironically, Don’t Shoot the Dog was never intended to be a dog-training book; it was written as a self-help book for humans and human behavior. It was a stroke of pure luck that her publishers talked her into bestowing the title that serendipitously caught the attention of the dog-training world. The rest is history.

Educated dog trainers and behavior consultants around the world today truly deserve the title “professional” because Karen introduced our profession to the science of behavior and learning and whetted our appetites to learn more about how our dogs think and learn. And it’s not just dogs. Companion cats, horses, fish, rabbits, mice, birds… all the non-human animals who share our homes and our hearts can thank her for vastly improving the quality of their lives. (To learn more about Karen, read this interview from WDJ 10 years ago.)

An article posted last week on the Karen Pryor Clicker Training website gave an update about Karen, for the occasion of her 90^th birthday. I was sad to learn that Karen is dealing with some dementia as she enters her ninth decade on this earth, but comforted to read that she is living in a cottage in a lovely country setting in the Sierra Mountains with one of her sons’ family, enjoying the family dogs, cats, chickens, garden, and the infinite beauty of the natural world around her.

Happy birthday, Karen, and thank you for all you’ve done for all of us. May you enjoy your remaining years on this planet. Rest assured that your legacy will live far beyond your all-too-brief time on this world.

I’m going to expand here on an exchange that was sparked in the comments section of the online version of a WDJ article that was posted recently. The article described each of the most effective pesticides and oral medications for dogs that either repel or kill fleas and ticks. One reader wanted to know whether we receive any compensation from pharmaceutical companies in exchange for consideration of their products.

I replied, a bit defensively (due to the use of the word “kickbacks”), that, no, we don’t receive anything in exchange for editorial consideration. The reader wrote back to clarify that he was just trying to determine whether there was any sort of financial consideration or relationship between our publisher or editorial department and the companies whose products we write about. I appreciated his clarification. My short answer is “No!” – and if you’ll forgive me, here’s a longer answer:

Neither the publisher nor I accept any sort of incentives to write about any company or its products.

Very recently, the folks at our publishing headquarters in Connecticut made the decision to offer affiliate links to products that appear in our “Approved Foods” lists or product reviews, as a way to both make it easier for our readers to find and purchase those products if they wish, and to help defray the cost of building and maintaining our new searchable database of approved foods. “Network ads,” which are generated by something to do with Google, may also appear on this website. I’m not sure there are any publishers still in business who are not taking these tacks today, in order to help offset postal and print-industry cost increases. But as WDJ’s editor, working from my home in California, I have no involvement with any of that. Those efforts are siloed far from me.

WDJ’s publisher was founded more than 40 years ago with first one, than an increasing number, of consumer-supported periodicals that eschewed advertising. Founded on the Consumer Reports model, the idea behind each publication was to give readers independent reviews of products and services and technical information from experts in the field, free of any advertising considerations whatsoever. The publisher felt that readers would find enough value in publications that “tell it like it is” – not hedging or holding back in reviews out of concern of losing a chunk of advertising income – that they would gladly pay subscription fees for those publications on an ongoing basis.

When I was hired to edit the inaugural issue of Whole Dog Journal more than 25 years ago, I couldn’t be more excited. I had worked part-time for a predecessor, Whole Horse Journal, which had been purchased by Belvoir from a friend. I was aware of Belvoir’s consumer-oriented approach and was thrilled for an opportunity to shine a light on products and practices that are demonstrably in the best interests of dogs – as opposed to anyone with a dog-related business who will give us advertising money. There can be no more fulfilling job for a journalist than to be allowed to research and write articles without ever having to “pull a punch” out of concern that one of our advertisers might withdraw their support and threaten our ability to continue publication. None of that has changed. I still feel honored to enjoy complete editorial independence from the constraints of influence of advertisers.

Over the years, in order to learn more about the production of dog food, I’ve asked various dog food makers whether I could come see their manufacturing facilities and talk to their formulators. In this way, I’ve been able to tour food production plants operated by WellPet, Hill’s, Diamond, The Honest Kitchen, Champion, Breeder’s Choice, Lotus, and a few more (including some that are no longer in business or that were purchased by other companies, including Iams/Eukanuba and Natura). Some of those companies offered to fly me to their manufacturing cities, pay for my hotel, and more. But Belvoir would never allow such a thing; the most I could (or would) accept on these trips is a meal or two.

Sometimes, pet product manufacturers send products to me, unsolicited and unannounced (ask me sometime about the box of frozen dog food that was sent to me lacking ANY labels that identified it as needing refrigeration or even being food –the one that sat in a pile of other mail and unsolicited stuff for over a month, until I noticed the box was bulging in a way I hadn’t noticed previously! OMG!). If the product is one that I find I really like and think would be a useful product for other dog owners, it might find its way into a review or article at some point. If I find the product to be without value or use, I tend to not respond to the sender. Either way, all products eventually get donated to my local shelter or given to friends or family who might be able to use them.

I’ve never received products from any of the big pharmaceutical companies – and come to think of it, I don’t receive even unsolicited literature from them. I suspect they don’t think they need our support or interest.

I’m just back from a week’s vacation, wherein my husband and I picked up his grandson from a suburb of Boston and drove to Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania to indulge in said grandson’s fascination with the Civil War. We took a hike in Connecticut (on the way) and took several hikes all around the battlegrounds of Gettysburg, on wide, gravel trails and small, forested paths alike. One night in our hotel, after walking all over the hills and trails in Gettysburg, I felt something crawly and found a big dog tick walking along my forearm. Ack! I flushed the tick down the toilet and told my husband and grandson to be alert for ticks on themselves, too.

I honestly thought no more about it until this morning, when I read a 2021 article that a Pennsylvania friend had just shared about the detection of a new strain of Rikettsia, a potentially deadly disease affecting both dogs and people. The new strain of this tick-borne disease was first detected in a handful of dogs who either lived in or had recently visited southern states. I was not bitten by the tick, so I know I don’t have to be worried for myself, but any new tick-borne disease is bad news that dog owners in particular should be aware of.

Ticks can carry quite a few pathogens that can cause disease in dogs and humans. Some of these pathogens are viruses, some are bacteria, and some are protozoa (single-celled animals). Rikettsia are very small bacteria species that grow inside the living cells of their hosts. Different strains of Rikettsia are responsible for diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and various strains of typhus.

The new strain of Rikettsia has likely been around for a while, but researchers identified it as a novel species only in 2020, after obtaining laboratory samples from tests conducted on dogs who had been diagnosed in 2018 and 2019 with Rikettsial diseases and certain symptoms (fever and specific hematological abnormalities). Researchers obtained DNA gene sequences from canine blood specimens that were seroreactive for R. Rickettsia and found identically unique genetic markers in samples from three dogs who had been bitten by ticks in three different states (Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma). After extensive analysis, it was determined that these three dogs had been affected by identical and never-before identified strains of Rickettsia. Additionally, the new strain was found to be related to two strains of Rickettsia that affect humans (R. heilongjiangensis and R. massiliae). The researchers concluded that this unique Rickettsia species has clinical significance for dogs and potentially humans. The disease caused by this species, they warn, could be underdiagnosed and geographically widespread.

The good news is that this strain, like other Rikettsia species, can be successfully treated with the antibiotic doxycycline; sometimes, more than one course of treatment is required. However, this presumes prompt detection of the infection (via PCR test for Rikettsia). Sometimes, dog owners need to push for this testing, as TBDs are not always the first thing that comes to mind when vets are faced with the varied array of symptoms and biochemistry abnormalities that TBDs can cause. Sometimes, additional medications ar required to treat side effects. For example, one of the three dogs whose novel infections were first detected (a Boston Terrier who lived in Illinois, but apparently got bitten by an infected tick on a trip to Arkansas) was treated with doxycycline to treat his rickettsiosis, prednisone to treat potential immune-mediated component, omeprazole to prevent gastric ulcers (doxycycline can be notoriously hard on a dog’s digestive tract, causing many dogs to stop eating during treatment), and metronidazole to treat “assumed dysbiosis” (disruption to the microbiota homeostasis caused by an imbalance in the microflora, i.e., super upset gut balance caused by the doxycyline).

Some readers of WDJ have complained that we promote the use of topical pesticides that repel and/or kill ticks (such as this recent one that listed all of the better flea and tick preventatives currently on the market). In truth, we want dog owners to know as much as possible about the tools that are available, so they can choose appropriate tactics for protecting their dogs from fleas and ticks, based on their dogs’ individual health conditions and environment. We do not advocate for pesticide use on all dogs, but we do want owners to be aware of the risks of failing to adequately protect the dogs who are at high risk of parasites and the deadly diseases that they (ticks in particular) carry. Tick-borne diseases are widespread, varied, and, left undiagnosed or inadequately treated, capable of making humans and dogs alike very ill – even killing them. It’s critical to prevent your dog’s exposure to ticks – and to get your dog tested for tick-borne diseases if he develops any symptoms of lethargy, fever, lameness, or lack of appetite after being exposed to ticks.

References: 

https://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/canine-rickettsiosis-a-novel-rickettsia-species-identified-in-dogs-in-the-u-s/?fbclid=IwAR1p-v9nR4LGdvmaL9q8wNE1qfkttVmTL-jj5weDbPz4j5ft__lQd0m0vMs

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7706976/

In the May issue of WDJ, you’ll see an article about prescription dog foods, as well as some tables that list information about all of the prescription dog foods currently on the market. The tables are organized by the company that makes them and sorted by the condition/s they were formulated to treat. The article discusses how these products differ from non-prescription dog foods.

We hadn’t planned on adding prescription dog foods to the WDJ online dog food databases, the way we do when we review dry or canned dog foods, mostly because we don’t approve or disapprove of them; if, in your veterinarian’s opinion, your dog needs a prescription food, who are we to approve or disapprove?

However, in the process of compiling information about the 169 of the prescription dog foods currently on the market, it occurred to us that we could easily put all of them into a searchable database that our readers could access (“easily” in comparison to the annual compilation of the 1,200 or so dry foods currently on our “approved dry dog foods” list and the 600 canned foods currently on our “approved canned foods” list). And not only would this help us examine their ingredients lists – which typically look very different from the lists of ingredients on our “approved foods” – but we realized that it could potentially help owners locate prescription products that met their veterinarians’ criteria as being beneficial for the dogs’ health condition and contain higher-quality ingredients, or a more appropriate amount of protein or fat. Because, usually, veterinarians are familiar with only the products from one or another prescription-diet company, and if you look with horror at the list of ingredients and balk at feeding that product to your dog, your veterinarian may well dismiss you as a client. And who could blame them? Why would they want to work with a client who won’t follow their recommendations?

But if you were able to see that another company had a food that ostensibly is formulated to treat the same condition that your vet’s suggestion is formulated to treat – one that contains ingredients that more closely resemble actual food – perhaps you could then ask your vet if she or he could prescribe that product instead. Who knows? Your veterinarian might learn about and become impressed with a different company’s products, and your dog will likely be happier with a more palatable diet.

So, if you’re a subscriber, and you’ve registered for your free access to our website, you’ll be able to access our new searchable database of prescription dog foods, too! And the cool part is, you can use the “search” tool to look for products that are formulated to address a particular health condition, and within that category, contain (or do not contain) certain ingredients; are grain-free or grain-inclusive; contain a specific amount of protein or fat; are made with meat, meat meal, or both; and so on. You can add as many search parameters as you like!

If you do nothing else, just peruse the database and check out the ingredients and the protein and fat levels of the foods for any given condition. We think you’ll be amazed at what passes for “food” in many of the products in this category.