Vital Animal News: February 8, 2026

Drug class shortcuts to judge new approvals; Good fats vs antibiotics / Breast milk miracles / Do testicles make aggressive dogs? Bamboo, bulls, and MORE

1. New Drug? You’ve Got This.

2. MCT’s vs Antibiotics

3. Breast Milk: More Than You Ever Imagined

4. Intact vs Neutered: Who’s More Aggressive?

5. Along the Natural Path

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Snap Judgement on New Drugs

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Learn to recognize new drugs

I’d like you to broaden your watchfulness in the drug world a bit. Let’s soften our focus, shall we?

Rather than try to keep ahead of every new drug by name, you’ll be well served by knowing a new drug is in a dangerous class you’ve already learned about. So, it isn’t even worth considering.

The Pain Killer Example

When you learned NSAIDs (Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) were bad news (even though approved, glowingly marketed and sold widely), you’d be cautious about a new one touted to be the greatest anti-inflammatory yet.

Both Vioxx and Rimadyl are cautionary tales.

Vioxx, and a relative called Bextra, both human drugs, got pulled from the market after years of use when it was discovered they caused heart attack and stroke.

Oops.

The veterinary NSAID with great concerns (with reports of liver failure and death) is Rimadyl.

For more on this common class of drugs (and a peak into my brief time as a paid lab rat), check out this post: NSAIDs, Inflammation, And A Cautionary Tale

Here Come the Mob. Safe Bets are Off.

Hey, nice dog ya got there. Be a shame if anything happened to him…

So, when another “-mab” (monoclonal antibody) hits the veterinary world to control the #1 disease dogs see vets for (The Itch), you’ll not be swayed by its marketing promises.

This latest is called Befrena (tirnovetmab), and when you see the “-mab” piece, you’ll know from earlier exposure to this class of drugs that it’s not going to be a cure for your itchy, allergic dog.

But, it just got USDA approval. Uh huh. By now, you may well be aware that approval by that government agency means only one thing: Profitable!

And, “USDA‑approved” really means: “we took the manufacturer’s data on faith, and you don’t get to see the fine print.”

As we’re seeing in many veterinary drugs, the safety studies were done in house, in this case, by Elanco (aka the vet branch of Eli Lilly and company, and now you’ll never forget their name derivation…).

There’s no research data available, no mention of how long the dogs in the treatment group were followed, or if they even looked for serious health effects related to immune suppression.

Deja Vu

The mechanism of action for the newbie is familiar: turn off part of the immune system to stop The Itch.

In this case, it’s yet another “kill the messenger” approach.

When that finally attuned immune system is tweaked to stop alerting your dog that’s she’s got every reason to be itchy, like magic the itch settles down.

This new drug is a close cousin of an earlier product called Cytopoint. I went into greater detail on that in Cytopoint: High Tech Answer to Your Itchy Dog?

Both that version and this new Befrena (oh: best friend, maybe? tricky…) are signal killers of the cytokine called IL-31.

Cytokines are the signal corps for every immune system in mammals everywhere.

The assumption from Elanco is there’ll be no other shoe to drop by telling your dog,

Hey, no worries. Sure, since your vaccinations, you’re now wildly allergic to normal things, but we’ve turned off the alarm. Carry on, you’re good.”

Yeah. And how’s that going to play out in years of use?

How’s that going to interact with ever more vaccines, drugs, hormone changes, and years going by?

Silence from the marketers, as expected, and no published data.

The Bigger Selling Signal Blocker

Let’s do one more class, in this case Apoquel, a “JAK inhibitor.”

Different approach, same goal: shut down Mom Nature’s signaling that something is wrong.

It’s got major side effects (cancer perhaps being #1, as the over 700 comments on this post show). Click the image to view this one, lot of people sharing their disasters after this drug was prescribed, usually with zero warnings.

Like the mabs, JAK inhibitors completely ignore the elephant in the room, the one I call “immune confusion.” More on that in my Smart Vaccine Alternatives short course.

The Chief Disease of “Prevention”

You likely already know the disease we’re talking about, if you’ve owned pets and vaccinated them over the past few decades.

It typically starts rearing its ugly, maddening symptoms about a month post vaccination. You see things like:

• Itchy paws, often the first symptom to show

• Then, The Itch expands to rump or groin, but really anywhere

• Sadie is seen chewing till she’s breathless, tormented by this itch, often keeping her (and you) awake at night

• Cats shredding their bodies with their claws and raspy tongues

• Hair loss, denuded areas, sores like red “hot spots” that ooze and get chewed repeatedly

• Ears that itch, discharge, stink, swell and hurt

No wonder you’re ready to reach for the drugs!

Wiser Options

Prevention without vaccines is entirely possible. We’ve long seen the chief killer possibilities in puppies (parvo and distemper) well prevented by the proper use of homeopathic nosodes.

You may have to apply a bit more Vitamin N (NO!), especially against these hot perversions of prevention:

• Annual vaccination. Zero science, 100% profit. Worth firing a vet over.

• Senior vaccination. A close second, far more risk than benefit.

And if you’re already in bad straits and Sadie is crazy itchy?

You can hire a qualified homeopathic vet and aim to cure, not suppress symptoms.

While that takes time compared to suppression by drugs, when you think long term, you’ll have far better life with a truly cured vital animal.

So, now you know how to sort out the Mob from JAKs and the NSAIDS. Oh, and the roids we covered in mid-January.

Right on. Should make it easier to withstand the Next New Amazing Medicine coming your way.

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Antibiotics Outclassed by Fats

Photo by sentidos humanos on Unsplash

While we’re talking drugs classes, antibiotic use is problematic as it often leads to “superbugs,” the bacteria that are resistant to most or all antibiotics.

Hospitals are a good place to catch one of these, if you’re interested.

Let’s Call Em “Growth Promoters!”

For decades now, confinement raisers of livestock for meat production have relied on feeding low levels of antibiotics to, ahem, help those crowded animals grow better. They are often called growth promoters. Yeah.

The EU, Mexico, South Korea, and New Zealand have banned this use some 20 years ago, but it still happens in beef, swine, and to a lesser extent poultry production in the US, Canada, Japan and a few others.

And, there’s long been evidence that this practice promotes antibiotic resistant bacteria that find their way to humans. Not cool.

Good News: Good Fats!

Research out of China has confirmed that medium chain fatty acids do a better job and, as you’d expect, don’t contribute to the superbug issue.

Just the opposite, in fact, at least in the pigs they studied: gut microflora diversity increased in their test groups.

In addition, gut integrity (“tight junctions,” anyone?) measurably improved and inflammation lessened.

For pig raisers, weaning time is tough. Diarrhea, decreased appetites and weight loss are all counter to a producers’ goals, but all improved with the help of these good fats.

Human Take Away

Ever heard of MCT oil? Stands for medium chain triglycerides, derived from coconut oil, and gaining popularity in those aiming to help their insulin resistant bodies be better able to switch fuel sources from carbs to ketones.

And for our purchases, MCT and medium chain fatty acids are identical.

It’s often used in “bulletproof coffee,” where butter and MCT are added to coffee as a means of keeping the sugar rush of the morning go drink zeroed out. It was inspired by traditional yak-butter tea consumed in Tibet, where Himalayan climbers need sustained energy and hypoglycemic crashes could be life threatening.

There are also fat loss benefits from consuming MCTs if you’re interested in exploring further.

I’ve been playing with MCT oil of late as another means of generating ketones and making my intermittent fasting easier and more effective. And my coffee never lacks for butter and coconut or MCT oil, and it’s a rich joy to drink.

So, along with gaining expertise in recognizing drug classes to avoid, you may want to explore the various types of fats for both you and your animal charges.

Some are very good, some very bad, and it pays to know the differences.

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Breast Milk: Hidden Bennies Revealed

Nature never ceases to amaze me. The deeper you look, the more wondrous and fine tuned it appears to be.

My mind was blown this past week when I stumbled on research on breast milk, thanks to Justin Deschamps:

With an opening like that, who could resist reading further?

I’ll let you get the whole story at the link above, but just a tease to get you there.

One of the good doctor’s findings: There’s actually feedback from the youngster’s saliva while nursing. When the child is starting to get sick, Mom’s milk, within hours, starts to contain increased white blood cells and targeted antibodies to help her newbie fight the challenge!

And, like several researchers before her, Katie had to stand up for her findings, as they were so unbelievable to her colleagues in the field that they dismissed them as “noise.”

We can applaud her strength and be awed by her ground breaking work.

Dig in. You won’t be disappointed.

p.s. breast milk is another place where we find “good fats,” brilliant for the newbies to get their healthiest start in life.

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Aggression and Testicles

Mom’s taking me to get tutored! So, I won’t fight or get cranky, you know. I think that’s what she said…

Not so fast… hold that scalpel

In the largest study yet that set out to prove or disprove neutering dogs had an effect on aggression, the authors found… well, it’s complicated.

Some earlier work by one of the authors (Zink) suggested neutering might even make aggression more likely, but this much larger study found the following:

In one analysis of the data,

…there was no significant relationship between aggressive behavior toward familiar people, strangers or other dogs, and (a) gonadectomy status or (b) the dog’s age at gonadectomy.

And in another way of looking at the same results,

…there was just one age-related effect of gonadectomy; dogs that were gonadectomized between 7 and 12 months of age were significantly more likely to show aggression to strangers. Dogs gonadectomized at other ages did not show aggression to strangers. Further, dogs gonadectomized at any age did not show aggression to familiar people or other dogs.

That early age castration finding is hard to explain. One theory arose with the researchers:

It is also possible that the experience of gonadectomy at this age creates a long-lasting fear response to strangers—it is difficult to know.

We’re tracking one of my Alpha student’s dogs who appears to be demonstrating a version of this last one. Mary’s small dog started tangling with other dogs on walks since he was neutered at 9 months old. Our plan is to bring homeopathy to bear and cure that behavior.

Foundational Finding

As this was a carefully done study on over 13,000 dogs, I’ll leave you with the authors’ conclusion:

Regardless, these data certainly do not suggest that intact dogs, compared with gonadectomized dogs, exhibit increased aggression to familiar people, strangers, or other dogs. They also do not support the view that gonadectomy will predictably reduce the dogs’ aggressive behavior.

This lends further support to the idea that current assumptions about sex and the aggressive behavior of dogs might be predicated on anecdotal beliefs (e.g., that the aggressive behavior of dogs can be predicted by testosterone levels).

Here’s my 2¢, based on n=4 male dogs I grew up with, one at a time, all un-neutered.

They were all gentlemen, never knew a stranger, and never even raised their hackles when meeting another dog.

And, if you haven’t learned of the significant effects around neutering in either sex and at various ages, you owe it to read my earlier article citing some serious concerns.

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Along the Natural Path

Good Sunday morning to you!

Early Feb in No. India seems to be giving us a lovely taste of spring, albeit quite early. The morning fog is gone, the skies have been clear, and that means I’m out on my bike with the circadian wake up benefit you see above.

Just last week, I pushed the envelope a bit, but rushed along the highway to the village back roads to find the fog caressing the fields nearest the irrigation canal.

At that hour, much of my village is still asleep or barely arisen. This guy’s up, but not active, still getting his bearings, it would appear:

Bulls aren’t allowed to be slaughtered (nor are cows) in Uttar Pradesh, so they wander freely, somehow finding enough forage to be well muscled and slick. To a T, they aren’t aggressive in the least, unlike their American cousins.

When I went through my large animal medicine rotation in U. of Missouri, guys like this came through the vet school clinic for semen testing. An entirely different temperament, they’d be crashing and head butting their way through a channel of gates from trailer to head catch, making it clear you’d never want to be near them unprotected.

The dairy bulls were even scarier, but they played it down low. Quiet in their pen until, one day, they decided to crush the old farmer who went in to clean manure. No apparent malice or roaring like the beef bulls, but deadly.

Bamboo is another fascination for me. Rapid in growth, these giants serve mankind with building materials, fence rails and posts, food in some cultures, and even clothing and paper.

All wrapped up in a 100% renewable resource, what’s not to like? Stands like the above are open to anyone to take as much as they need, and they never run out or appear pillaged.

I’ve got a bamboo cutting board, an Aeropress hanging rack, some socks and an undershirt made with its fibers, and I’ll soon be foraying into bamboo toilet paper. Clearly, one of Nature’s wonders.

Where ever you are on this amazing spinning blue globe we call home, drop in to the comments and let me know what landed for you and what you’d like to see in future newsletters.

And remember to keep making wise decisions on behalf of those innocents in your care.

Will Falconer, DVM