Lehigh Farallon of Caber Feidh, call name “Rawley,” is due to arrive at 6:30 PM on Thursday, March 25. My four-year-old nephew, Ronan, will be accompanying me to the airport to pick him up — oh, and his parents will be tagging along, too. But mainly it’s me and Ronan.

It’s kind of a sentimental journey for Ronan’s father, my brother, McKenzie (and why yes, Gina did name her dog after my brother). He rode with me and my mother when we picked up our first show deerhounds, Lillie and Duffy, a couple of decades ago.

Now my mom is gone, and we’ll be taking her beloved grandson to bring home my first deerhound since losing my mom, the person who got me into deerhounds in the first place.

Whenever Ronan talks about Rawley, he says, “The new puppy is coming. His real name is Farallon, but his nickname is Rawley. But I call him Farallon.” Ronan still says, every time he comes to my house, where I lived with my mom and with my dog Rebel, who died just before my mom did, “I still miss Rebel and Grandma.”

So do I, little guy, but hopefully between you and Rawley, it won’t hurt quite so much anymore.

Here’s to the next generation, four-footed and two.

Kim and I are hanging out at the American Animal Hospital Association’s convention in Long Beach this weekend.  I’m looking forward to meeting Jason Merrihew, AAHA’s smart, funny and helpful PR guy. I feel as if I know him — I know he and his wife are expecting a baby next month — and yet, we’ve never met.

Kim and I aren’t the only ones covering cool stuff this weekend. Christie’s spending the day at the House Rabbit Society’s seminar.

Next week, I’m on the road again, meeting Dr. Becker, David and Liz at Global Pet Expo.

And then, I have to come home and finish the book Dr. Becker and I have due to the publisher May 1.

I’m getting stressed out just thinking about it. So I won’t.

***

Our free monthly e-mail newsletter has gone through a major revamping, with more focus on keeping everyone current on the latest pet-care news. We’ll also be offering some subscriber-exclusive freebies and plan a few big giveaways. If you’re not signed up, you ought to be. Go here.

That’s it for me now.Gotta catch a plane.

Yes, the Beckers let their dogs and cats sleep on their beds. We also allow them on the sofas, or, as Quora, right, and Quixote refer to them, “the dogs’ sofas.”

We’re not alone. The American Pet Products Association reports that 62 percent of cats and small dogs, and a smaller percentage of larger dogs, sleep on their owners’ beds.

Some experts warn that letting your dogs sleep on the bed with you will create behavior problems. Others contend it can make allergies worse. We’ve never had those problems, but we have to admit there is one small downside to surrendering the vast majority of our mattress to the dogs: Neither of us has had a good night sleep in the last couple of decades.

That’s right. The dogs wake up every morning, refreshed and rejuvenated, and Teresa and I stumble out of bed bleary-eyed and groggy. Teresa fortunately looks beautiful even without eight hours of restful sleep. I’m not so lucky.

If I’m ever tempted to change the sleeping arrangements, all I have to do is hit the road, which I do constantly, flying to veterinary conferences or to film “Good Morning America” or the “Dr. Oz Show,” or even just going on vacation, as Teresa, our son Lex and I are right now.

Teresa and I have all these hotel room beds to ourselves. We can stretch out, cuddle in the middle of the mattress, and move our legs around all we want. What we can’t do is get warm little dog kisses, see their eyes light up with happiness when they see us there first thing in the morning, or feel the comfort of a furry dog body when we crawl into bed after a freezing cold midnight bathroom trip.

And when we come back to the hotel room at night, there’s no four-footed, tail-wagging welcoming committee there to tell us how much we were missed and how wonderful it is that we’re back.

The way we see it, the unconditional love they give us every hour of every day is worth a little missed sleep.

What about you? Where do your pets sleep? And why?

With an estimated 87 million free-roaming, homeless cats in the United States, it would cost governmental entities about $16 billion to trap and kill these cats as opposed to about $9 billion for supporting trap-neuter/spay-return (TNR) programs run by rescue organizations and individual volunteers.

OK, that’s a savings to John Q. Taxpayer of $7 billion, or $80.45 per feral cat not killed. As Sen. Everett Dirksen famously said, “A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later we’re talking about real money.”   This is real money, and it would make a real difference.  In fact it already is, in communities where TNR has been adopted.   I’ll get to that in a minute.

Meanwhile, the issue has direct applicability now. Today.  In the state of New Jersey.  Here’s the lede from our friend Alley Cat Rescue’s current post:

Fish and Game Council member Leonard Wolgast has sponsored a resolution to have feral cats reclassified by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which could put an end to TNR programs in the state and allow feral cats to be hunted.   [...]  Unfortunately, Mr. Wolgast is a member of this committee and owns property with a kennel (owned and operated by his wife’s family) that contracts with several communities in Central Jersey to pick up and euthanize cats.

First there’s the screaming conflict of interest, but let’s not waste time right now on the ethical violations haunting New Jersey’s regulatory agencies.  The bigger problem is the needless waste of both money and animals’ lives. Furthermore, hunting down feral cats to kill them doesn’t solve the problem.  You want proof of that?  I take you back to the Best Friends’ study.

“The city of San Diego had one of the earliest and most successful TNR programs. In the early 1990s, the Feral Cat Coalition of San Diego began programs aimed at curtailing the free-roaming cat population in the city as an alternative to exterminating the cats. Since 1992, not only has the city moved towards being a “no-kill” community, it has witnessed 50 percent decrease in the feral cat population.”

Fifty percent decrease.  Trap and kill didn’t do that.  TNR did, and this is conclusive data from close to two decades’ worth of TNR policy in a major city. But TNR isn’t just working in San Diego.  Again, back to the study summary:

“TNR programs have had much success on municipal levels, with some of the most comprehensive being San Diego, New York City, Mobile county, Alabama, Chicago/Cook County and Jacksonville, Florida.” (Best Friends, First Coast, the City of Jacksonville, and Jacksonville Humane Society have partnered in a program called “Feral Freedom.” The cats that arrive to the city animal shelter in traps are turned over First Coast to be spay/neutered then returned to their original trap location. These cats are referred to as “community cats.”)

TNR works, and it saves money.  So why are we still killing cats?

Photo credit: feral kitten, flickr creative commons.

You see, as PetConnection’s sibling site, DogCars.com takes great pride in the fact that if not for us, the 2010 Dog Friendly Honda Element would most likely not exist. That’s because back in 2007, the doggedly dedicated auto reviewers at DogCars.com came out with our first-ever DogCar of the Year awards for vehicles that are popular among folks who routinely travel with their pups.

Topping off that debut DogCars awards list was the Honda Element, which we honored as Best In Show for 2007. The Element’s versatile cargo area offers many features that dog owners can appreciate, such as an easy-to-clean interior; squared-off rear hatchback that easily fits crates and side doors that open opposite each other to provide extra access for dogs to jump in and out.

The Best In Show award was immediately embraced by Honda, which proceeded to create an advertising campaign that featured our four-legged friends enjoying the dog-friendly attributes of the Element. But Honda didn’t stop there. In 2009, the automaker announced that a special Dog Friendly edition of the Element would soon be available. This special package, which is priced at just under $1,000, offers dog lovers a host of items that are designed to make the ride safer and more comfortable for all involved.

Dog Friendly features include:

– A stowaway rear ramp

– Built-in nylon crate on comfy bed

– Rear fan

– Bone print rubber floor mats

– Built in doggie bowls

– Special dog print emblems

And much more.

The new Dog Friendly Element is so impressive that it warranted a repeat honor as Best In Show for 2010, tied with the versatile Toyota Venza.

The new Element has also been getting plenty of attention and accolades from dog lovers and automotive writers alike. And when you combine the two – an auto writer who loves to travel with dogs – you get a first-hand account of how well Honda had hit the mark with dog owners.

Here’s a sample of what Alex Nunez, of AutoBlog.com, has to say about how his pups rated the Element:

Our Honda Element pooch-pack tester was a loaded, all-wheel-drive EX with navigation ($27,270 MSRP including the dog package). The centerpiece of the kit is a crate secured to the Element’s cargo bay via straps that loop right into the standard floor-mounted tie-downs. Once it’s in there, know that you have zero storage behind the second row seats; the crate eats up all the usable space. Installation is rock-solid, though, and the top and sides of the crate are a breathable mesh material that the dogs can see through. Not that they’ll be seeing too much – the clamshell-style tailgate obstructs their view backwards and the side windows are too high for them to really see out of. Since the roof of the crate is mesh, light still gets in and they can see the sky.

Frankly, I was okay with all this, because my dogs’ general reaction to seeing any living thing out the windows is to bark loudly and incessantly, as if they have just spotted flying saucers unloading giant cat warriors in a mass invasion. That gets old in a hurry. In the Element, Millie and Pepper basically sat quietly once zipped into the crate. However, if your dogs get motion sickness or really like to look out at the passing world, this is likely a less-than-ideal setup

Read the rest of Alex’s review here. And for more dog-focused reviews, check out our comprehensive list at DogCars.com.

Austin approves no kill policy: The Austin, Texas, city council last week approved a no kill plan for the city’s major shelter.  From the Austin American-Statesman:

The plan includes three dozen provisions aimed at reducing euthanizations and increasing adoptions. The plan’s goal is, within two years, to have 90 percent of the animals leave the shelter alive. The city euthanized 7,003 animals last year, or 32 percent of the animals it took in.[...]

There are still funding questions to be worked out, and as always the devil is in the details, but the Austin city council deserves a hearty handshake for standing up for what’s right. And no, there’s no truth to the rumor that they did it just to impress Christie, who was there for the  South By Southwest Interactive conference.

Georgia House sends  Grace’s Law to Senate: Gas chambers for animals are one step closer to becoming a thing of the past in Georgia after the House approved HB 788 by a vote of 115-46.   We haven’t crossed the goal line yet, though.  Now it’s on to the Georgia state senate for consideration, and after that, Gov. Sonny Purdue’s desk. Purdue, interestingly enough, is one of very few veterinarians holding public office.

Pets returning to Santa Cruz? If you live in Santa Cruz, Calif., you haven’t been able to walk your dog (or any pet, for that matter) on downtown’s main drag since 1976.  That may change soon.  The downtown merchant’s association voted overwhelmingly to recommend the city council repeal the ban, in order to add shoppers who might like to bring their pooches with them (like the dog peering out of the passing vehicle).   From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

The Downtown Association’s specific recommendation includes the following restrictions:

• Leashes can be no shorter than 3 feet and no longer than 5 feet.
• No dogs after dark.
• No panhandling with dogs.
• A maximum of three dogs gathered together in close proximity.

Widening pet access often comes about as a result of grassroots efforts, and in this case a driving force is a woman named Whitney Wilde:

The founder of Woofers and Walkers, a dog-walking group that advocates for responsible ownership and expanded access, has collected at least 335 signatures for a council petition to repeal the ban.

“Everybody is so happy,” she said.

I wasn’t able to get confirmation as to whether or not banana slugs (the mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz) would be allowed downtown, but I doubt it.

Pyrethrin suit in New Jersey: A series of lawsuits over the use of pyrethrin in flea and tick control products have been filed, alleging pets have been sickened by the medication, and violations of New Jersey consumer fraud laws.  The Morning Call of Allentown and Lehigh Valley and North Jersey.com say the suits have been filed  in New Jersey, as four of the five defendant companies are based in the state:

Secaucus-based Hartz Mountain Corp., Summit VetPharm LLC of Rutherford, Morristown-based Bayer Healthcare LLC, Merck & Co. Inc. of Whitehouse Station and Sanofi-Aventis Inc. of Bridgewater are named as defendants in suits filed over the last four months.[...]

Five pet owners filed suit against Hartz Mountain and Summit VetPharm last week in U.S. District Court in Newark, alleging that their flea or tick treatments contained Pyrethrin, or a synthetic version of the chemical Pyrethroids, which are ”known to poison animals.”

The suit accuses the companies of negligence, violating New Jersey’s consumer fraud law and liability for creating an ”unreasonably dangerous product.” The products named include Hartz Ultra Guard flea and tick drops and Summit VetPharm’s Vectra 3d.

Sergeant’s Pet Care Products, based in Nebraska, and Merial Ltd of Georgia are also named as defendants.  From NorthJersey.com:

Rich Parsons of California said he worried he might be carrying fleas when he returned from helping reconstruct parts of the Mississippi Gulf after Hurricane Katrina, and might infect his Scottish Terrier, Duffy. So Parsons treated his dog with Hartz flea and tick drops, the suit says.

“Duffy tragically died at the veterinarian’s facility three days later,” the suit says. It adds that the veterinarian said the death was due to a “reaction to the insecticide.”

In related news, the EPA announced it would be stepping up efforts to make topical flea and tick products safer for pets:

Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said new restrictions will be placed on flea and tick products, with additional changes for specific products likely — including possible changes in some product formulas.

[....]

The EPA said it received 44,263 reports of harmful reactions associated with topical flea and tick products in 2008, up from 28,895 in 2007. Reactions ranged from skin irritations to vomiting to seizures to, in about 600 cases, death of an animal.

[....]

In a 29-page report, the EPA said the majority of problems for dogs occurred in smaller dogs, weighing 10 to 20 pounds. Some incidents occurred when products intended for larger dogs were given to smaller animals, the report said. Chihuahuas, Shih Tzus, miniature poodles, Pomeranians and dachshunds were among breeds where problems occurred the most, the EPA said.

Similarly, many problems for cats occurred when they were given treatments intended for dogs. The EPA is likely to require companies to revamp labels to clarify that products intended for dogs should never be used on cats, Owens said.

No dog insurance necessary in Great Britain:  It was a silly idea, anyway.  However, there’s one line in the story that I must share with you:

The opposition Conservatives accused ministers of turning the issue into a “political dog’s dinner.”

Irish kitteh: And finally, since I didn’t have a chance to check in yesterday, a late St. Patrick’s Day smile, courtesy of lolcats, a tiny little division of Icanhascheezburger.com :

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.

Photo credit:  Hopeful dog in Santa Cruz, Dan Coyro/Sentinel.

Her two hens, Maude and Roxie, were the first chickens I’d ever met, or at least had seen as individuals with their feathers on. They were gorgeous and friendly, their eggs delicious, and at that point I have to say, the bug bit.

I wanted chickens, though it would be a while before I’d pull everything together enough to get them.

About the same time as Sue got her chickens, my mom clipped an article for me from Martha Stewart’s magazine, about Ms. Stewart’s chickens, especially the “easter-eggers” who lay green- or blue-shelled eggs.

Looking back now, I suspect it was Martha Stewart who got interest in backyard chicken-keeping going. (Although it’s not new to Ms. Stewart: Check out this picture, from 1976!)

The Martha-ness of chicken-keeping continues, and in fact I laughed out loud at a story in the New York Times over the weekend tying chicken-keeping to the our endless media fascination with  well-educated urban women who married well and opted to stay home to raise a family in a home ever-so-full of “Good Things” like Martha’s.

The dateline, predictably, was Berkeley (media shorthand for “silly liberals live here” just as “San Francisco” is shorthand for “Teh Gays, they so crazy!” and any dateline  in the Deep South is  meant to cue the banjo music — even though all that is just the laziest of stereotyping), and the picture with the story was beyond parody: A woman just over the line into middle age, her hair pulled back except for a few wispy escapees. She is dressed in a simple aubergine frock with a no doubt fair-trade shawl thrown artfully around her shoulders. Posed in front of a weathered structure accented with lovely old-fashioned rose vines, she holds in her arms a red hen, perhaps (and I’m guessing here), a New Hampshire Red. (Oh, and note in the background, pretty blue sheets on a clothesline.)

The woman is, the story said,  one of a new breed: The Femivore. Bored with the drudgery of common child-raising and house-work, she has claimed the higher ground. No Wal-Mart eggs for her brood. Why, that would be as bad as getting the little ones into the wrong preschool.

And so is a social movement that is so much broader in scope and significance neatly categorized, mocked and dismissed. In the word of the NYT contributor, it’s all so very “precious.”

After I finished laughing, the whole thing pissed me off. Because increasingly, I find that the renewed interest in where our food comes from, what’s in it and the treatment of the animals we eat is being pushed — and I don’t think it’s an accident, by the way — into the frame of what silly liberals in precious places like Berkeley do.

Because real Americans, you see, can’t afford such silliness.

About the only thing I have with in common that Times-mocked “femivore” is a New Hampshire Red hen. I don’t trip merrily past organic cotton sheets fluttering in a pool of sunlight to an artfully weathered coop to feed my chickens — I tromp in my feed-store rubber boots and an oversized men’s shirt, a WSU College of Vet Med coat thrown on for warmth on cool mornings.  My chickens live in a second-hand plastic storage unit, and they lay their eggs in plastic cat carriers picked up on Freecycle.

If the author of “The Femivore’s Dilemma” had looked beyond her circle of Berkeley friends — say, by visiting the discussion forums at BackyardChickens.com instead of just reading a little about non-Berkeleyites in a book — she’d have found the real story more wide-reaching. The new (and not-so-new) chicken-keepers are both men and women, young and old, rural and urban poor to the affluent,  politically liberal to conservative religious home-schoolers — all involved in learning more about the food we eat, growing and saving what we can ourselves and re-learning the virtues of thrift (not “cheap” imported  goods, but self-denial and value) and self-determination.

This is not about elite “foodies” with too much time and money — although I gotta tell you, real food tastes a lot better than the crap that gets extruded through the processors of Food Inc. — but about more people realizing that it’s healthy and flat-out satisfying  to grow and to know your food. To trade veggies, chickens and eggs with friends and family, to put away good food for the winter,  to support honest-to-God family farmers who respect their land and their animals, and who welcome you for a visit on their property or shake your hand in greeting at the farmers market.

And by the way:  The Slow Food movement’s motto isn’t “expensive food for rich people,” but rather: “Good, clean and fair food.” For everyone.

My food expenditure is actually lower with gardening, chickens and buying local, regional and sustainable product from people I can get on the phone, or visit in person. That’s not because my food is “cheaper” — it’s certainly not, item by item — but because my diet now relies far more on vegetables, little on meat and not at all on “snacks.”  Also lower is my weight,  my blood sugar and my blood pressure. (That last might be because I no longer worry about melamine in anything I eat, or if any other crap put in my food legally or illegally is toxic.)

When gardening, chicken-keeping and buying food you can recognize from people you can talk to yourself is framed as something only rich liberals from Berkeley or Santa Monica or maybe the hippest parts of the new Brooklyn urban paradise would do, it pushes people who could most use real food — rural and urban poor — away from empowering themselves by growing and raising food themselves and changing their diets to match. Where do they go? Towards continuing to choose crap off the “value” menu at the fast-food chain, where the higher costs are paid in a lifetime of the fallout of poor nutrition.

That’s the true story of chickens, not aubergine frocks and bored Berkeley housewives.

***

Meanwhile, back on the microfarm …

My neighbor Judy and I “balanced” our flocks last week, trading chickens back and forth to better get the flocks we each preferred, and making our overall flocks smaller by selling some of our extras. We aren’t raising any chicks this year, since all our hens are young and laying like crazy, but next year, who knows?

We were  both getting three dozen or more eggs a week, and that’s a lot. So I decided to part with my Plymouth Rock and Black Australorp, and Judy pulled three of her Red Stars — all five steady layers, and all about a year old. We sold them to a couple in the county east of us, who had a coop ready but were looking for healthy young layers to get them a jump-start on eggs.

After a week, the report back is rosy: The five hens are happy and laying like mad in their beautiful new digs, and their new family is hooked on chickens.

That just makes me happy, I gotta say.

Images, from the top:

Martha Stewart and her eggs. The green and blue eggs — and the chickens who produce them — are so identified with Ms. Stewart now than they’re often just called “Marthas.”

An incredible find — and a more incredible gift! — from regular reader Susan Fox, who included one of her own gorgeous chicken cards, which I’m framing for the office. I’m going through the publication she sent me page by page now, and wow, fascinating.

New digs for the hens Judy and I sold. Lucky chickens!

But moving is tough on families, pets included. Animals always know when something’s amiss, even if they can’t understand exactly what’s changing, or why.

The key to moving pets is to keep them secure before and during the move, and to settle them safely and quickly into a routine afterward.

Cats are a particular worry at moving time because they form a bond not only with the people in a home, but also with the home itself. Because of their mobility, cats can be difficult to keep around the new home long enough for them to realize that this is where the people they love will now stay.

The family dog is a bit easier to deal with: Put his leash on and drive him to his new address. Show him his new, warm home and the securely fenced back yard. Unless the dog is a high-jumper of Olympic caliber, he’ll stay put while he adjusts.

Not so with free-roaming cats. The cases of cats returning to their previous homes are common for people who move short distances, and the instances of cats disappearing forever are just as common for families moving a great distance.

Find out how to keep everyone safe here.

And from Dr. Marty Becker, the scoop on dogs and broken teeth:

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim and dogs gotta chew. But sometimes, that chewing can prompt a painful problem.

Broken teeth are a common problem with dogs. Aggressive chewing on hard objects such as rocks or fencing, or on hard treats such as cow hooves, bones or hard nylon toys, are the primary cause. (Veterinarian’s rule of thumb: Don’t give your pet any chew toy that’s hard enough that you wouldn’t want it to hit you in the knee.)

To prevent broken teeth, dental experts recommend regular exercise of your pet to help prevent destructive chewing and having several veterinarian-recommended toys to chew so as to distract them from the bad ones. For extremely aggressive chewers, get a large toy the pet can’t get his mouth around, or offer softer chews.

A broken tooth exposes the delicate pulp and nerve endings, making life extremely painful for the pet. Food and other debris can get impacted in the fracture and attract bacteria, leading to infection, the loss of a tooth or worse.

The most common signs of dental problems are: excessive drooling (especially in a pet who doesn’t normally salivate much), not eating, or favoring one side of the mouth.

Just as the human family gets regular dental examinations and cleanings, you should take your pet to the veterinarian at least yearly for a comprehensive physical examination that will include a look at your pet’s entire mouth. If your pet is having problems sooner, don’t wait for the well-pet exam — dental problems really hurt!

Dental cleanings under anesthesia are a regular part of a preventive-care regimen for many dogs, as is at-home care such as brushing. Ask your veterinarian what’s best for your pet’s teeth and gums, both to prevent problems and to fix them.

Want more? Read the entire Pet Connection for this week!

Could it happen again? Absolutely. There have been no systemic changes that would prevent contaminated food ingredients from entering this country undetected once again.

Would the response be different? I think so. Pet owners have become more aware. The blogger network that kept news of recalled pet foods flowing without the controlling hand and influence of industry or government has not only survived but grown, and technology is even more adapted to the rapid and wide dissemination of information than it was then. (And we didn’t do a bad job of it then, although I can’t say the same for industry or government.)

Somewhat ironically, I spent the last week in Austin at the South by Southwest internet conference. I hung out with Therese Kopiwoda of PetSitUSA.com and Ben Huh of Itchmo, two bloggers who, along with Gina and me here at Pet Connection, lived and breathed the pet food recall three years ago.

We reminisced about those days, talked about whether things have changed — hardly at all, was the consensus — and found it hard to believe it has really been three years.

One thing is certain: The pets who died are still dead. The pets whose kidneys were damaged are still at risk of serious disease and a potentially shortened lifespan. And their owners’ hearts are still broken.

Will Congress finally pass serious food safety legislation? Will the rumblings of change at the FDA turn into full-fledged reform?

Let’s hope that when we check in a year from now the answer to both of those questions is “yes.”

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.”