
Show HN: Adopted a dog, had no clue what meds she needed, did some research - youngj
http://www.dogmedicationdb.com/
======
Amorymeltzer
I just want to say that this is an beautiful example of the hacker ethos being
put to use. The creator got into a new field, saw a hole in information, and
put together a neat, useful resource. Just perfect.

~~~
bl4ckcontact
+1

Actually, I was having this exact same issue last week, as my dog was sick and
I found myself scouring google for even a semi-organized resource. Excellent
job!

~~~
shaneofalltrad
I am going to save, but I think it still could use some medications to be
complete. I think some commonly used "farm" medications, like the very
effective de-wormer; panacur would be a good addition. For example, this drug
can be given orally in food as a paste, tastes ok, is safe and will eradicate
roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and certain tapeworms.

------
r1ch
I would recommend adding a warning for Hartz products - they are notoriously
toxic and kill pets.
[http://www.hartzvictims.org/](http://www.hartzvictims.org/)

~~~
sunflower55
Showed this to my wife, a veterinarian, that was her first comment - don't use
Hartz, their products kill cats and dogs.

Her second comment was that the matrix seemed outdated, most meds were
available in oral form now.

------
dkhenry
I don't want to be a downer, but I don't like this concept. I understand the
desire to educate yourself about the medicine you need for your pet, but the
best thing you can do is find a good vet that you trust to give you this
advice. In fact the mechanism that you have where by you allow the user to buy
said medication from Amazon makes it seem like your putting this list out as
an alternative to proper medical care.

There is much more to taking care of a pet then reading the packages of some
medication and then buying it from amazon.

~~~
lbenes
This is terrible advice. Whether it's for your own heath or your pet's you
should always educate yourself. Doctors/veterinarian are heavily influenced by
drug/pet supply companies. From her first days veterinary school, my
girlfriend was constantly lobbied and given perks and educational material
from the industry. It's not that she's not a good vet, but the system is
corrupt.

In the case of my grandfather, multiple times we caught the doctor prescribing
expensive prescriptions when more effective generics were available. In the
case of my dog, my local vet pushes for Purina pet food[1] and vaccines when
my doc is regularly titered. She is oblivious or fails to acknowledge the
risks of a Lyme Vaccine carries [2] and serious allergic reactions that her
recommended flea control can cause.

The only way to guarantee the best health care for yourself and your pet, is
to educate yourself.

[1] [http://www.aplusflintriverranch.com/define-menufoods-
petfood...](http://www.aplusflintriverranch.com/define-menufoods-
petfoodrecall.php)

[2] [http://www.alldogsgym.com/health-and-
nutrition/articles/heal...](http://www.alldogsgym.com/health-and-
nutrition/articles/health-and-nutrition/nh-sunday-news-dog-tracks-column-
sp-67677413)

~~~
meric
I still remember my vet having recommended opening my cat up (at a cost of
thousands), with big chance for dying, for a sickness the vet couldn't figure
out that my cat recovered on her own after we decided to let her come home and
die with us instead. The vet said it was urgent because she wouldn't eat but
actually our cat just needed a bit more attention when being fed while sick.
She recovered after I took a day off and fed her a biscuit by hand the whole
day, every 5 or 10 minutes.

~~~
smt88
This is a single anecdote. This kind of thing happens with human doctors,
lawyers, auto mechanics, and even engineers.

With incomplete information, you sometimes make an incorrect diagnosis. It
doesn't reflect the overall value of the profession.

Your cat could just as easily have died, and from the experience of dating a
vet for many years, I can tell you that they very often do.

------
akshaykarthik
Is there an algorithm that would find the minimum subset of these to cover
every parasite/bug?

~~~
meritt
It'd be a really bad idea to just load your dogs up on meds. The risk of these
parasites varies greatly by geographical region. For example, in the pacific
northwest, there's no need to protect against heartworms.

~~~
sxcurry
Are you sure about this? My wife and I fostered a dog last year (here in
Southern Oregon) that had heartworms. The treatment was nasty and dangerous to
the dog, but the dog did recover.

~~~
meritt
Dogs won't contract heartworms naturally here but dogs brought in from other
areas are definitely at risk of already having heartworms and possibly sharing
those via feces. Basically an invasive species.

------
NiklasPersson
Awesome. Problem found, solution created. See, you don't need to create
ridiculously overfunded ( - exuse my language -) bullshit products in order to
"put a dent in the universe". Just try provide a solution to a real problem.
Thumbs up!

------
zumtar
This is really great, thank you for doing this.

Could you please add Advantix, Scalibor, Kiltix and Foresto for us Europeans
:)

We use most of the others here also, but those I have listed above are used
alongside the ones you have listed.

------
madsushi
Trifexis is awesome and what I use for my active dog (and we have never had
flea problems). The problem is that the pill smells very, very strongly of
mold. I have to smash up the pill and mix it into peanut butter for my dog to
even look at it. I also administer it outside and use gloves, because it will
have your house smelling of mold for days. With a smaller dog (thus smaller
dose/pill), you could force it down, but a 30+ lb dog will have too big of a
pill and won't eat it normally for any reason.

~~~
cantankerous
Does your dog throw up often when taking Trifexis? I was considering making
the switch, but my parents dogs both have had a really hard time with it.
Eventually they (my parents) gave up on Trifexis and went back to topical
stuff because the vomiting was so bad.

To that end, I wouldn't mind maybe an accompanying table to the OP's medical
list that maybe listed the negative side effects of some of these treatments.
Might be a bit too much to ask though.

~~~
madsushi
No, I haven't seen any vomiting. I was worried about that since I was breaking
up the pill (and it smells awful) but my vet said it was fine since it is
supposed to be chewable. I always serve it right after a full meal (usually
the morning).

------
marincounty
A Veterinarian with reasonable prices is greatly valued. So valuable, with the
right marketing I feel people would leave their estates to your business; I
would. That's all I really have to say to Veterinarians, but I feel a lot of
you need to ask for some businees advise. I see a lot of people skipping the
trips to the vet because they just can't afford the high priced boutiqe
veterinarian practice. I know people are inherintly cheep, but I think most
just want to be treated fair. I also know what happens when vet hospitals
offer too much for free. (SFSPCA offered a "no kill" policy. People started to
abandon their animals, and ruined a great organization.) I will pass along--
I've always had big dogs. A Bullmastiff, and mixed breed American Bulldog/Pit.
They look sturdy, but they are fragile. The purebred Bull Mastiff was always
at the veterinarian. She had multiple problems from huge paws that attracted
Foxtails/grass seeds to Entropian. I had a great income so going to the vet
was no problem. I now have a low income and thank goodness for the mixed
breeds. They are still fragile, but don't need to go to the vet as often. I
still hear vets telling big breed dog owners about the benefits of exercise.
Yes, exercise the dog, but let them choose when and where. All my dogs were
over 100lbs, and when I exercized them too much their bodies fell apart. For
the Bull Mastiff, a walk around a small lake was too much on a summer day with
a gallon of water. She just dropped half way around. I sat with her until
dusk, and then we just made it back to the car. My point is they, especially
the Bulldog breeds are fragile.

------
clumsysmurf
The NRDC has a listing of various products and safety concerns at:

[http://www.simplesteps.org/greenpaws-
products](http://www.simplesteps.org/greenpaws-products)

I'm using NexGard(not listed - just approved in 2014) and seems to be working
fine so far - but since its new there isn't much data on it. I preferred the
oral over a topical so I didn't have to worry about topical applications
transferring to the home, others, clothing etc.

------
throwaway5752
Heardgard and Frontline are usually all that anyone needs.

------
k-mcgrady
Interesting to read this thread to see that lots of people have to medicate
their dogs. Is this a regional thing? I've had my dog 8 years and apart from
the required injections it has never needed any medication.

~~~
robwilliams
In the US, yes. My dog gets two medical treats every month: one to prevent
heart worms and one to keep ticks and fleas away.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Interesting. Is this something most dog owners you know do? Like I said it
isn't the case for me and I'm not aware of any of my friends medicating their
dogs unless they've had a procedure at the vet or something serious happen
that required a vet.

------
edmack
Nice! It'd be helpful if one could check the column headers for the things you
need to treat, and then the list is filtered for what is effective against
those :)

------
tallanvor
If the place you adopted the dog from didn't give you information, you should
talk to a vet about what parasites are common in your region and what
treatment options there are. --Many times vets will offer a couple of options
for non-prescription treatment and prevention.

If you're in a region that doesn't have fleas and ticks, there's no reason to
treat your dog for them. The same goes for many of the other parasites listed.

------
nlh
Very cool. Nerd question -- can you talk a bit about how you made it? Tech
stack used, etc.? Always curious about that stuff, especially when on Show HN.

------
unreal37
Nice site. Interesting to see the information clearly laid out like that. This
should exist for everything as a decision making tool.

It's not an either-or. We have a vet, but we still do our research on
everything they recommend to understand the decisions that are being made. It
all works very well for us. We're informed, but we also have a trusted
adviser.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
We just asked our vet.

~~~
chrisan
Good first step, but you should research on your own. Vets can get kickbacks
for pushing one and/or may not be up to date on all the latest studies and
products.

You'd be surprised how bad vets (and doctors) can be with drugs. (Wife a
pharmd.. and they drive her nuts)

Always value their professional opinion and experience, but never treat it as
law

------
JoshGlazebrook
Interesting that nothing protects from everything. Is that just not possible
or is that on purpose?

~~~
smt88
You don't need to protect from everything. Several of these issues are so rare
that you're better off treating them than preventing them and your dog
suffering side effects.

You should really just talk to your vet. There's way more to it than a simple
chart. They know the pharmacology, effectiveness, and necessity of all these
drugs.

My girlfriend is a vet, and our dogs only take Trifexis. It works for our
animals, their lifestyles, and our part of the country. Her prescription might
change for an animal with short fur that goes hunting a lot. It all just
depends.

~~~
amn0408
In addition to not needing coverage for everything, some of the treatments
require prescriptions because they can be dangerous to the pup. An example is
preventative heartworm medication can be devastating to a dog with heartworms.
A blood test is done to make sure a dog is heartworm negative.

------
jakobegger
Would be really awesome if there was some way to provide feedback on the
effectiveness. My experience with cat medicine showed that what it says on the
package is not to be trusted (for example all the "natural" stuff against
fleas was completely useless)

~~~
smt88
Some of the "natural" stuff is also extremely dangerous.

Neem oil, for example, can kill your pet. You should never use neem oil
anywhere near an animal.

------
jat850
In your research, did you explore other common immunizations like bordetella,
parvo, rabies? (I realize these wouldn't fit into any overlapping things like
you have here, I'm just curious if you might add it at some point.)

------
kephra
The main question is: In what area/country are the parasites resistant against
those toxins. e.g. in Bremen neither advantage nor frontline works against
fleas.

And I'm missing ARDAP by Shell in this list.

------
WolfieZero
Awesome idea! Just a suggestion to the developer (if reading this), would be
good to also have a list of what is okay to use on what breed/group (such as
advocate for pastoral breeds).

------
NDizzle
While this is a good list, these medications are kind of snake oily.

I've had 5 dogs in my lifetime that have lived to age 15+. All I do is take
them to the vet yearly and feed them good quality dry dog food.

I have lived in rural Arkansas to the east bay California, as far as exposure
to various things. I've had a half wolf dog in AR that would routinely kill
and eat armadillos, opossums, terapins, and all kinds of small wildlife. He
was probably exposed to all kinds of nasty things.

Never did I give him any of these dog preventative medications that seems to
be so popular today.

~~~
throwaway5752
I have fostered multiple dogs afflicted with heartworm and it's terrible to
keep an active animal still for months to prevent them from having a pulmonary
embolism. It's widespread, difficult to cure, and otherwise fatal.

You don't note if your dog was an indoor dog, but on that front, some of us do
not like to have fleas and ticks in our houses.

edit: also, if you have dog and cats, you really need to have your animals on
heartworm prevention. Heartworms are much more dangerous to cats than dogs.

~~~
sxcurry
+1 - I have also fostered a dog being treated for heartworm, and it's not
easy, plus dangerous to the dog. Prevention is really important.

------
joelrunyon
Do you have a template of this. I can think of 20 other areas where something
like this would be useful. Nice work.

------
fiatjaf
Why not do something like that for humans?

~~~
Shinkei
Physicians use this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Sanford-Guide-Antimicrobial-Therapy-
Gu...](http://www.amazon.com/Sanford-Guide-Antimicrobial-Therapy-
Guides/dp/193080878X/)

It has huge spreadsheets of antibiotics based on organism, resistance, etc.
But there are a LOT of nuances to choosing the right medication.

------
beachstartup
this is cool. i adopted a shelter mutt about 2 years ago and i love him to
death.

comment/feedback on the table: make the headers float with scroll, so that
when you get to the bottom of the table, you can still see what the columns
are.

------
fiatjaf
I started clicking randomly, expecting it to change the Xs into Vs and vice-
versa.

------
SaulOfTheJungle
Pretty neat! Care to share with us what type of tech you used in the backend?

------
GigabyteCoin
That dog will be alright. Great job you did there on the website.

------
seesomesense
Would you do this to your child ? See a vet.

~~~
nradov
Don't be silly. A dog is not comparable to a person.

~~~
ryan-allen
I like my dog more than I like other people's children. There's a comparison
for you!

