This is a miracle drug that pretty much instantly changed both my (older) dogs' lives. Every vet tech I've spoken to (it's a monthly injection) agrees it is amazing.
Librela gave us another year with our old girl and allowed to her to walk again. It was absolutely life-altering for her and we're forever greatful for the extra time we had with her because of it. Some are saying it's not a miracle drug but honestly, a monthly injection that gave us back our girl for a year is 100% a miracle to me.
I'm just past the second dose on my older border collie, and it has been a good thing for him. But I would hesitate to call it a miracle. He's somewhat more active and flexible, but he still has some trouble climbing steps and stairs.
He also loves the cold, and he's always more active in the winter anyway. I would say he's close to the level he was last winter instead of slightly declined. That's great, but not miraculous.
We'll stick with the regimen and see if he continues to improve. I'll upgrade my judgement if he starts climbing stairs again.
+1 on the Librela. "Fine, I'll blow $99 on your snake oil injection. Who knows, maybe it might actually work!"
36 hours later, the limping stops and the dog wants to walk further than he has in years. We take him to doggy daycare once a week since his housemate passed, and daycare staff commented on how he was like a new dog. Not every day is a great day, but most of them are.
This was the same experience for me too, except that it really took after the 2nd shot to be really apparent.
My girl has had shoulder arthritis for years and walked with a limp. We had her on daily pain medication and we tried multiple kinds because they weren't very effective. It always was a chore because she hated the pills and would literally eat around them in placed inside a treat (she wouldn't even take the flavored ones). She was in pain and would basically just lay down all day.
Now? No limping anymore. No pills. She isn't scared to go up and down the stairs. Jumping on and off the couch without missing going up or being scared to hop down. Running around with my other dog.
I'm so happy to learn this exists, and I'm also feeling deep heartbreak that I didn't learn about it a year ago before we lost our dog. He had an almost inoperable tumor, so I don't know that we would've gotten a whole lot more time, but watching his decline and increasing pain was horrible. If we could've had even one more month of walks with him I would have paid a lot more than $99.
Pain medication, specifically for arthritis. I hesitate to post a marketing page, but it does specify what the product is for and how it works, and better than I could do:
We thought we were going to have to say goodbye to our girl back in February this year. Her arthritis was so bad, she'd stopped using the litter and was... Backed up, let's just say.
But she's currently curled up right next to me, and generally acts like she used to a couple years ago. You can tell her legs are weaker than they were, but the pain doesn't bother her anymore.
My 19 year old cat is on the feline equivalent, Solensia (Frunevetmab). It is a once a month injection that relieves his joint pain. We don't have to give him other pain relief and so can save the stress on his kidneys.
He isn't back to being a kitten, you should have appropriate expectations, but he wasn't able to jump on or off the couch before, now he can. He is walking around more than he used to, before he would spent most of the day in his box. The effect of getting him more exercise is compounding his good health.
If you have an older cat/dog you should definitely talk to your vet about it.
My understanding of Librela is that it specifically targets arthritis pain. I don't think it has anything to do with the breed, but more about what kind of pain they are in. My bigger, older dog did much better on it, but not as well as my dog with elbow dysplasia, who basically was made brand new again.
The other comments imply the same; it will depend a bit on the dog's condition. That being said, I still stand by my miracle drug assertion. And seemingly side-effect free.
If anyone here has any anti-aging resources for cats, I'd love to see them. I have two 9-year-old Maine Coons whom I'm supplementing with glucosamine for joint and urinary health, and wonder if there's more I could be doing.
Edit: Getting some great tips on core diet and health down below! Luckily we're already doing most of those, and I guess I'm largely wondering about advancements in supplementation or preventative medicine (of course everything would have to be considered with a veterinarian). Here are other basic things we already do:
* My most important thing is not giving any dry food. Especially since one of my cats is prone to urinary problems and gets sick within just a couple of weeks if given even a partially-dry diet. But even if he wasn't prone to it, with what I've learned over the years I would not feed any cat dry food.
* We eat partly wet partly homemade raw (but the latter needs to come with careful research and caveats since cats have very delicate nutritional needs).
* Keep water bowls away from food and switch bowls/fountain once in a while for novelty.
* Indoor-only and we go for walks on a harness for enrichment when the weather is nice.
We just lost our cat last week. She was 18 and got a tumor in her nose which became too big.
Her kidneys were mostly fine and it wasn’t a concern the last time we checked (about 6 months ago)
I think she lived so long because she was allergic to most commercially available food (chicken and beef allergy) so we had to feed her higher quality food with 95+% meat. We also put her water in a different spot or the house (cats hate drinking where they eat, the smell of food near water makes them think it’s unsafe to drink so they’ll drink much less of it)
She was an indoors only cat for the last 10 years of her life after some crazy junky partially shaved her.
If we ever get over the pain and get a new cat, I’d do it all over again:
- high quality, 95+% meat food (dry and wet, the cat picks whenever she’s hungry)
- indoors only (no crazy people, no antifreeze, no cars, no cats/animals fights)
- water bowl far away from food bowls
Not a miracle recipe, but she was older than any other cat I’ve known.
Thanks. It’s hard for people who haven’t gone through it to understand the pain it can cause. But even then, euthanasia is an act of compassion no matter how difficult it is rather than letting the animal suffer and slowly die.
For dry food, vets told us some cats like it better but it also helps with oral health as it removes some of the plaque by friction and keeps the gums healthier by stimulating ligaments holding the teeth from the crunching.
I have not yet had to go through it myself, but came very close when one of my cats nearly died as a kitten. The experience affected me permanently and I get a little more anxious with every year that they get older.
From what I understand the plaque thing with dry food is a bit of a myth. After all, we don't brush our teeth by eating crackers. So I brush their teeth with a toothbrush and enzymatic toothpaste instead! For stimulating ligaments, that's really interesting. I feed largely a (balanced) homemade raw diet alongside commercial wet and suspect/hope having them chew through solid chunks of raw muscle meat would achieve a similar effect.
It doesn’t replace brushing but as our cat was eating wet food with a sort of pâté consistency, it would accumulate in her teeth. Alternating this with dry food helped remove most of this still wet food from her teeth so that it doesn’t turn into stone as fast. It’ll never be as effective as brushing though but our cat didn’t allow it unfortunately.
If the wet food is chewy then I guess it’d be very similar to dry food. Our cat’s food consistency was softer so she’s need the hard kibbles to crunch on.
Losing a pet is never easy I think. Even if it isn’t human, it becomes a member of the family with its own character, habits, and behaviour. It does create a void when they go but it’s unfortunately inevitable. It’s difficult to know when is the right time, but I believe it’s worse to leave a pet suffer because its owner doesn’t have the empathy to call it.
I think this depends more on your lifestyle. If you're never home and can't play with your cat, there is nothing to watch out of the windows (birds, nature...), no toys, etc then I guess two cats make sense because they can entertain each other.
But otherwise, it's fine. We were feeling guilty about keeping our cat indoors after the incident (it's not in their nature, etc) but every (North American) vet told us that they'd love it if all the cats they look after were indoors. They'd have way less diseases, wounds, maiming, etc. In Europe, vets weren't as adamant about keeping the cat indoors but they all agreed it's still better than outdoors. Our cat lived both in Canada and Switzerland.
Whenever we were hearing vicious cat fights outside for 10--15 minutes at a time, it felt very nice to look at ours peacefully curled on our bed rather than worrying if that was the sound of our cat losing an eye or getting notched ears and the expensive associated subsequent vet visit. They also require less vaccines from not being exposed to other cats and animals, and even though the vaccines are safe, it's still avoiding the very low chance of an adverse reaction (and the cost of the shot and boosters).
This was in Europe and I was working from home during that time. We only had one cat. I played with it for sure, but not for hours. He had a window. Made weird sounds, especially at night. Once we got the second cat it was much better, at least to us he seemed way more chill.
Shorter life of freedom and enjoyment is better than a long life stuck in a box. The real reason why they incentivize cats to stay indoors is to spare bird populations. Anything else is a cope.
Indoors cats can have a happy, full, low stress life indoors. The onus is on you to make sure that’s the case. It means providing entertainment (play, toys, windows) and making a little effort. Indoors cats are not in prison like you’re trying to make it sound.
> high quality, 95+% meat food (dry and wet, the cat picks whenever she’s hungry)
I think this right here is the smartest thing you can do. Cats are obligate carnivores, and some of the crap in the stores is just fillers they crap out anyway. Same with dog food - they design it to make poop more solid and easier to deal with.
I noticed that too, all the supermarket (and “vet only” foods like pedigree pal etc) are mostly fillers like corn or other things that cats don’t really eat normally but make it much cheaper to produce.
Raw food is the biggest thing. One of our cats has IBD and was about to be put down, raw food completely reversed it and now he’s better than before with no signs of slowing down.
Good point; despite fountains and large bowls mine tend to not drink much except when the male is on urinary-specific food that ups his thirst (he was sick as a kitten which made him prone to urinary issues). I've read that cats in general don't tend to naturally drink much and are more used to getting moisture from their food. So I make sure they only eat wet and raw food, which provides extra moisture.
Thanks for posting this. Mine don't have OA (that I know of or see symptoms of, at least), but I know joint issues are common in larger breeds like Maine Coons. I'll definitely ask my vet about this if the time comes (since this seems like more of a pain-relief thing rather than a prevention method?)
Several vets have all told my parents to get mutts rather than purebreds because they have so much less problems. The genetics are just healthier and stronger because they’re a mix, instead of inbreeding for generations. Ditto for cats.
Good move unless it includes pit bull. Pitbull mixes are not appropriate for family pets and anyone who says otherwise is lying to you or themselves.
Please protect your loved ones and stay away from pitbulls and pitbull mixes. They are total sweet hearts, right up until they're not.
Edit:
I too was once a 'how it's raised' apologist. After a number of experiences and some research, my mind is concluded. Someone in the replies was kind enough to post papers, but if you don't have time for reading, this will express the overall point that these dogs are land-mines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ZGEvUwSMg
If you think you can readily find 10+ reports of 'unprovoked lethal violence with no prior history of violence' for another breed, please, be my guest.
Shelters will just not label the dog as a pitbull mix. I got a "border collie mix" that is indeed border collie but a DNA test shows it is part pitbull. Also part rhodesian ridgeback, part a bunch of other things.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a well trained and socialized pit bull/mix.
Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you or themselves.
EDIT:
None of the papers folks have posted control for training or socialization. I grant you that due to socioeconomic factors you will in fact find more samples of aggressive pitbulls than aggressive dogs of other breeds in most regions, but that is not what's under discussion.
They are a physically strong breed that is capable of lots of damage when not trained well, but that's true of many other breeds too. It's just less common (these days) to see abused or neglected german shepherds, rottweilers, sheepdogs, huskies, etc.
The video you posted is a sensationalist news story, not any kind of actual analysis.
I don't believe you. Most of those dogs are fine, but a few just seem to have a screw loose in a way that can't be fixed through training or socialization. People who believe otherwise are in denial or lack experience. Whether the root cause is due to irresponsible breeding or whatever is irrelevant, it's just really antisocial behavior to bring a pitbull where they can potentially present a risk to others.
Think through the potential consequences. If a beagle freaks out and bites a toddler then they might need a few stitches. With a pitbull it can be fatal.
I've had dogs all my life - many breeds. We currently have a rescue that is a pit/lab mix and although she is sweet as could be to humans, she is a menace at the dog park or day care. Constantly trying to fight.
Folks who say that breeds don't matter are deluding themselves. Pits are just plain aggressive. There's a reason that every time you see a "DOG MAULS CHILD" headline, it's always one of the same few breeds (hint: it's never a golden retriever).
I’ve had numerous rescues as well, over my life, and this tends to be generally true for all breeds. The defining feature of a rescue is that they were not trained and socialized well.
The problem with this widespread belief is that there is no such thing as a "pit bull". Or rather, there are many and some of the breeds are entirely unrelated. Likewise news stories are usually thin on the specifics and fail to identify exact breeds or may mislabel them entirely.
Generally most people shouldn't have dogs because they lack the time and energy to properly train them (or in the case of adult dogs: to compensate for their lack of training). But you're right that there are some dog breeds that are more prone to biting accidents than others: but if you go by the actual numbers your advice should also explicitly apply to German shepherds.
Not enough nuance in your comment. Shepherds are mouthy, bitey breeds as part of their bred disposition to herd -- they can draw blood and hurt infants, but they tend to have a "gentle" bite with their families -- they are strongly protective. Pits have a different lineage and a different neural pathway with their biting instincts.
Okay, how's this for nuance? There are plenty of news stories about shepherds killing or severely injuring toddlers. Heck, even the POTUS' shepherd has injured and hospitalized multiple people: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67015811
People make up all kinds of pseudoscience about why pit bulls are involved in so many severe attacks (e.g. the myth of "locking jaws" after a bite - which isn't a thing in any dog breed). The core problem with most of these claims is that "pit bull" is not a breed but actually a number of different breeds and mutts, many of which aren't even related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_bull
All of these contribute to statistics involving "pit bulls" (contrast this with German shepherds, which are very narrowly defined) and even then this ignores that people looking for aggressive dogs often want "pit bulls" because of their reputation and make them aggressive (i.e. traumatized) before they eventually end up as rescues in situations where the aggression endangers children.
I don't like dogs, generally, and I don't like most "pit bulls" because of their looks alone, but most of the studies people like to cite uses garbage data that fails to consistently define "pit bulls" (if you look at the methodology the groupings usually rely on what breed the dog is registered as which tells you nothing given that "pit bull" isn't a breed and various mutts will be lumped in as well) on top of being misrepresented by people trying to reaffirm their biases instead of looking at the complex socio-cultural context. Heck, most studies don't even correct for population sizes (i.e. giving statistics about registered dog breeds relative to the number of dogs registered for each breed).
Most of the difference between dog breeds are cosmetic, some are physical, very few are "neurological" but at the end of the day, all dogs are domesticated predators, all dogs can bite and dog bites can be life threatening to humans. All things considered, dog breed is one of the least important factors to whether a given dog poses a threat or not. Yeah, big dogs are more likely to bite in a way that is life threatening and anxious dogs are more likely to bite and abused dogs are more likely to be anxious and dog breeds seen as "aggressive" are more likely to be abused. But given how diverse and hetereogenous the group of dogs classified as "pit bulls" is, any genetic argument is clearly nonsense and just because you can misinterpret studies to reaffirm your biases that doesn't mean you're not just trying to find a simple and easy to reason about explanation to a very complex problem.
> but if you go by the actual numbers your advice should also explicitly apply to German shepherds.
Pretty much everything people say about Pit Bulls today was said about other breeds before, including German Shepards and Doberman Pinschers.
I think the change over time is mostly fashion trends among people who deliberately keep and train dogs for actual or perceived viciousness, and media trends interacting with that.
This may vary by country but where I live cat breeders have actually started taking measures to avoid inbreeding even when this means foregoing "pure breeds". Inbreeding tends to be a bigger problem for dog breeds because they're usually more formally established historically.
I'm the Founder/CEO - appreciate the excitement! :) Lot's of work to do still, but a very important step for dogs and for lifespan extension pharmaceuticals.
Bear in mind dogs are pretty unnatural creatures at this point - we've done so much breeding that you can't really assume any natural forces apply to their development at this point. After all, why would any creature develop a facial structure that makes it hard to breathe (like bulldogs, pugs, etc.)? The answer is because humans are selfish.
This is pure speculation, but maybe it's beneficial in some circumstances to make way for the younger generation?
Natural selection doesn't necessarily favor genes that optimize the health of a particular animal. Natural selection favors genes that optimize for more copies of themselves, at whatever cost to their current carriers. Perhaps under some scenarios of canine evolution, the fittest genes might have been ones that selected for higher turnover than would happen if bodies wore out naturally.
I don't know what the mechanism for accelerating aging is in this case and it doesn't say, but IGF-1 serves a lot of purposes and it is ubiquitous among at least all mammals and I'm sure other animals I'm not familiar with. It is necessary for growth and healing and is what causes infants to grow and mature into adults. As with just about any molecule synthesized by a body, when its effect on mortality has been studied in humans, being either too low or too high are both associated with greater mortality risk. I'm guessing it's probably the same with dogs. Having higher growth hormone levels makes the larger breeds larger but also shortens lifespan. Nonetheless, being larger can clearly be important for a predator, especially in very cold regions where most available prey like caribou and bison and what not are very large. Shorter life might even be evolutionarily advantaeous on its own in places with food scarcity that can't sustain large predator populations. The old die to make way for the young as they'd otherwise starve them out.
Body doesn't `wear out` from use. Yes there are overuse injuries and overuse arthritis .
Aging related `wear out` has nothing do with use. Infact, opposite is often true. Its unfortunate that doctors refer to age related joint issues as 'wear and tear' issues.
Because the dogs we made aren’t naturally selected. We heavily selectively bred for many superficial phenotypes so it’s not strange to see side effects like this.
Kind of seems like a mercy, especially depending on what part of your body would wear out first. Would be interesting to study since we know stress also seems to increase aging, so I wonder if a stressful event triggers the aging process as a way to reduce suffering in the aging individual. Similarly there are cases where long married spouses die pretty closely to one another and I could see the stressful loss of your partner increasing your aging factor in such a case.
> Why would any creature have hormones to accelerate aging
Octopuses trigger rapid aging after
giving birth from their “optic gland,” which “undergoes dramatic changes to produce more pregnenolone and progesterone, maternal cholestanoids, and 7-DHC during the stages of decline” [1]. (”Some females in captivity even seem to intentionally speed along the death spiral, banging into the sides of the tank, tearing off pieces of skin or eating the tips of their own tentacles” [2].) When the optic gland was removed, the affected females “abandoned their eggs, resumed feeding, and some even mated again.”
Leading theories include octopuses being “cannibals” having evolved “a biologically programmed death spiral may be a way to keep mothers from eating their young.” Alternatively, octopuses are close to biologically immortal, “so eliminating hungry adults keeps the octopus ecosystem from being dominated by a few massive” members.
TL; DR Programmed death is biologically precedents. There is evidence it is at work in most animals, including humans.
So the goal is to make big dogs live longer... by reducing the hormone that makes them big?
Couldn't we just adopt healthier, proportional, longer lived dogs? Or do people just really want to see how miserable a 15 year old Great Dane would be?
Giant dogs are almost universally known for their gentle temperament and superior qualities for families. They are treasures, regardless of how they age.
Until you’ve owned a Great Dane and see how much joy they bring you and your family, I don’t think you could understand why there is a desire to help their longevity.
Yes, simply accepting the inadequacy of our current technology is always going to be easier than working to improve it. It's also going to lead to infinitely less progress.
Humanity is eventually going to be able to extend lifespans indefinitely. Whether that happens sooner or later depends on how many people decide not to go gentle into that good night.
We accept death because we have to, not because it's actually a good thing.
If you were enslaved with no expectation of freedom, you'd do your best to make peace with it just to survive. But you might also spend your free time secretly trying to find a way out.
Humans can easily develop an emotional attachment to any living creature they care for, even things that aren't alive.
Acting as if someone's emotional attachment to a creature is somehow invalid because it's not a creature people care about as often seems like more of the troll move here.
I’m totally on board with people loving their pets or anything else in the world important to them.
But the OPs comment was, to me at least, as absurd as if I said to someone “I don’t think you should worry so much about saving your daughter’s life. When I lost my dog, I was sad, but I got over it.”
These are not in the same category to most people, and you can’t assume your experience of losing a dog gives you insight into losing a child. Same goes with dog -> goldfish.
On the other hand the absolute majority here (and most in western culture) eat at least something with meat every 1/2 days, and that meat comes from animals that are as intelligent and/or cuddly as dogs.
But Fox News is an untrustworthy source known for intentionally spreading misinformation, even if it mostly reports true things. This piece probably is true but I actually wouldn't take anything from them without a second (ideally, primary) source.
So is CNN, and every other outlet, unfortunately. But for stories like this with no political motivation, any outlet can be trusted just as much as any other, so it doesn't matter which is reporting it.
I recently visited nyc and was hanging out in central park. I saw so many huge dogs, huskies/german shepards/retriever/etc, which made me sick to my stomach. These poor animals need space. They are not biologically designed to be an accessory for the urban rich. Being held hostage in 300 sq foot apartments while their vapid owners are working in some office or on zoom calls all day is borderline torture. These drugs will just prolong said torture.
Do we really need to be using up government resources doing drug approvals for dogs? It takes so long to get human drugs approved. Let's use the resources there and let the market sort out what works for animals.
How would you let the market sort out what works in terms of life-extension drugs? How would you measure that without well-structured trials?
People love their dogs and are willing to spend large amounts of money on them - how do you prevent people from selling them snake oil?
On top of that, we're talking about the first-ever drug approved solely for the purpose of life extension - yes it's in dogs, but it's a topic being heavily pursued in humans as well. While the approach taken here isn't directly relevant to people, one can imagine that developing this class of drugs in animals could lead to useful information on how to do so in humans, but only if there's actual evidence to prove their validitiy.
I propose treating all animal medication as supplements. Safety (including safety when consumed as food for livestock medications) is required but not efficacy.
And given the fact that people have the legal authority to euthanize their pets on demand, it seems pretty silly that we are spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money ensuring they don't get fed snake oil.
The people benefiting from from these millions are tax payers just like you. You may have differing priorities but that in no way gives you the right to decide what public money is spent on. You're expressing a very self-centered view. Try to step outside your own needs for a moment and understand that everyone has their own rich lives, desires, and needs and that they are all just as valid as yours are.
> You may have differing priorities but that in no way gives you the right to decide what public money is spent on.
Disagree. Public money is subject to the public process, which includes debating about and voting on how resources are spent. Don't shout down people who are participating in the process.
That doesn't really follow. I have the legal authority to pay a junk yard to smash my car into a tiny cube, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be protected from auto body shops selling me fake repairs and non-functional parts.
Are we making a good trade-off if that protection means preventing lifesaving treatments from reaching the market for decades or more? Does the risk the part might not work somehow justify the loss of life due to the absence of a lifesaving treatment?
Wouldn’t we learn a lot more about the effects of these experimental treatments if we allowed the willing to take them voluntarily?
> Wouldn’t we learn a lot more about the effects of these experimental treatments if we allowed the willing to take them voluntarily?
In the case of life-extension treatments, no - we would learn much less if we allowed people to give them to their pets voluntarily.
The problem is that what you're testing for is very difficult to measure, so you need a well-run study like the one that Loyal has done here. If people just give them to their dogs without the structure of a trial, you'll never get the kind of data you need to conclusive prove life-extending effects, and because companies can now sell without such a trial, you eliminate the incentives to invest the time, money and effort into that kind of a trial.
And body shops don't have to go through a years long and multiple million dollar certification process. They can open up pretty much with no oversight and you are free to sue if they rip you off. Sounds like this model would work just fine for dog medicine too.
Yes we do. The FDA's typical purview includes regulating food and drugs given to pets and animals raised for consumption. I'm glad that the industry isn't just the wild west - not just for the sake of my pets, but also for my human family who could be impacted by an unhealthy food chain, or by undesired impacts to the natural ecosystem.
> Do we really need to be using up government resources doing drug approvals for dogs? It takes so long to get human drugs approved. Let's use the resources there and let the market sort out what works for animals.
Let’s leave aside the fact that humans value companion animals such that they might want to spend government resources on keeping them healthy for longer. And also the fact that certain other animals are important food sources which make up a sizable chunk of the economy.
Do you think that if the government no longer had to spend resources on animal drugs that all of those resources would stay at the FDA and be diverted to human drugs?
The cynic in me thinks that the speed of the process is the independent variable here. And that resources will be added or subtracted to maintain roughly that same speed and/or rigor.
Well, as COVID proved, whatever drugs get made for animals will one day be consumed by idiots. Why argue against approving veterinary drugs, when you could argue for greater resources to be committed?
