pet connection

Sometimes I feel guilty when I tell a pet owner to give medication to a cat or dog. I know that only a small percentage of pet owners actually give that medication to their pets, and chances are those pills will sit in the refrigerator or cupboard and never find their way into the animal at all.

The reason for this epidemic of non-compliance is simple: it’s hard to give medication to a pet who absolutely doesn’t want it.

There are two problems with this reality. One, of course, is that the pet needs the medication, in the dosage and at the intervals the veterinarian has prescribed. Two, by letting our pets sense that we’re reluctant to give them medication, and then rewarding them for resisting, we are teaching them that medication is bad, scary or otherwise unpleasant.

Fortunately, for many medications, help is available in the form of compounded drugs. Compounding pharmacies can make big pills tiny, bitter pills sweet, and turn your cat’s worst nightmare into his favorite tasty treat. How? By mixing the medication into savory liquids or pastes that pets will lap up eagerly.

Compounded medications are prescription only, and you’ll need to ask your veterinarian for them. The good news is that there are compounding pharmacies all over the country that will fill your veterinarian’s prescription. The bad news is that you need to be a little careful about the use of compounded drugs, as last year’s tragic deaths of 21 polo ponies should remind us all.

At the recent Western Veterinary Conference, Ron Johnson DVM, PhD, a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology, gave some tips on how both pet owners and veterinarians can make sure that compounded medications are safe and effective.

Some owners and even a few veterinarians think that compounding is legally questionable, but Dr. Johnson (no relation to our own Dr. Tony!) assured us that’s not the case. “The Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act (AMDUCA) was passed in 1994 and become effective in 1996,” he said. “Compounding is legal under AMDUCA, as long as guidelines are followed.”

That means only your pet’s veterinarian — the health care provider like me who has actually seen and examined and made some kind of diagnosis of plan for that pet’s treatment — can prescribe compounded drugs.

We also need to be available to monitor that treatment and change it if things go wrong, or if the pet’s condition changes.

That part’s simple. But Dr. Johnson next launched into a long list of other legal, regulatory and medical issues related to compounding, all of which would make most pet owners and even some veterinarians run just as fast as your cat ran the last time you tried to give her a pill. Fortunately, he also threw us a lifeline in the form of this piece of advice:

Veterinarians wanting to create or prescribe compounded products should seek the advice of a reputable pharmacist.

Those would be members of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, the Professional Compounding Center of America, or the American College of Veterinary Pharmacists.

The compounding pharmacists should “also be willing to provide product and ingredient information when requested by the veterinarian, including a certificate of analysis and the background of the drugs.” He warned particularly about drugs originating in China, and said that if the pharmacist is reluctant to provide that information, it’s a big red flag that there’s a problem.

What does that mean for you and your pets, especially those notoriously unpillable cats?

As long as you work with your veterinarian and a reputable compounding pharmacy, there’s a very good chance that your pet’s icky medicine can turn into something tasty and appealing, and you can get your pet well without making both your lives miserable in the process.

And that’s just plain good medicine.

Image: Getting pills into pets can be such a problem many owners just give up. A compounding pharmacy can help, by turning “treatment” into “treat.”

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