From industry shakeups to trending pet headlines, it’s time for the April Zoomies! Once a month, Jordan Tyler and Dr. Stephanie Clark will break down the latest news from across the pet world and what it means for pet owners, veterinary professionals, and the future of animal care. We discuss emerging trends and timely conversations impacting pets and the people who love them. The Barking Mad Podcast will keep you informed, entertained, and in the know on everything happening in the pet industry right now.

Helpful Links

🐶Read the full story here! First Dog to fly with Med Flight

⛑️Check out all the details behind the Ridglan Beagle Rescue!

📖 Read more about the Revival Recall here!

Show Notes

01:08 – Beagle Breakout from research facility

10:11 – First ever dog to be transported via Med Flight

13:38 – Nutraceutical Boom for Pets

18:52 – Revival Animal Health Recall

20:30 – Dog inbreeding

What happened in the industry in April of 2026? Yeah. What happened that you need to know as a pet owner, as an industry professional, as a veterinarian who was also probably a pet owner, hopefully a lot a lot of things happened. A lot of things tend to happen, and they're going to keep happening all around us all the time.

That's why we're here. To help you stay up to date with all of the news, developments, trends, challenges, headlines, everything that has to do with your pet, their food, their health, their well-being, your the way that you interact with them, everything. We're going to cover it in these monthly updates. We're going to call them zoomies, because we're going to zoom through all these updates and give you just the pieces that you need.

We'll also incorporate some feel good stories, of course, and let you in on any recall news that you need to be aware of. So we hope you enjoy.

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast by BSM partners where your hosts, Doctor Stephanie Clark.

And I'm Jordan Tyler. One of the headlines I came across was quite juicy, and it had to do with a research facility that breeds and raises beagles for biomedical research. And I know, I trust me, I know this is a sensitive topic. So before you get out, your sensor pitchforks almost just said fork knives. You're kidding about your pitchforks and crucify me.

There's this is there's a lot to this. So let's unpack it a little bit. I'll take you through and then step has some really great insights. So protesters on April 18th basically rated this facility. They drove a truck through the main gate and just stormed right in. And I think they rescued about 30 dogs that day. In the following days after that, an animal, an animal rescue organization, actually reached out and made an agreement with the facility to release 1500 of the dogs.

So the protesters totally got what they wanted from the situation, but they did so in kind of a loud, crazy way. It was kind of awesome. There's video footage in everything. We'll link it in the show notes for sure. But Stephanie, you've done research with animals and you have beagles. You love beagles, you have like a really insider kind of perspective on all of this.

And I, I would love to hear it.

Yeah. So they released 1500 dogs. Right. And what they basically did because that's a lot of dogs is they disperse them over the United States. So some of them are in Wisconsin, some of them are in California, some of them are in like Utah, like they're just all over some places. Took a couple hundred, some took 25. It's whatever they could.

Right. I mean, because these are dogs that need fed, need care and they need potential adopters. So here's the thing that we have to be really careful about is these dogs are anywhere from a couple of months old to three years old, and their entire life has been spent in this facility. So this means that these dogs have never seen grass, they've never seen a car, they've never heard a car.

They probably have never experienced a front door. They don't even know what a fenced in yard looks like. So we have to keep all of this in mind when we're thinking about adopting them or fostering them. And from someone who has also owned an ex beagle, the the challenges that come with them is a little different than just adopting a dog.

So you sometimes dogs are totally fine. They bounce back. They are. They're happy, they're zoomies. They their love in life. Other times they're going to be a little bit more shy. They're going to be a little bit more timid. The research beagle that my family adopted was terrified of cars. So she first off, she refused to poop or pee and grass, so she would go outside and she would poop on the porch because all she had ever pooped on or peed on was concrete and crates.

She didn't want to use the grass at all. She didn't like the touch of it like she would like, pick up her paws. I wish you all could see me doing this like prancing motion. But then we would take her for, like, walks around the neighborhood. And any time a car would pass, she would instantly freeze. And, I mean, this was her life for years.

And it didn't matter how much desensitizing, it didn't matter how many times she saw a collar, passed a car, went in a car to go to the vet hospital to get her annual checkups. She just was terrified of them. And she just grew up not knowing and being exposed to them. So by all means, if you are in need of a beagle, if you want a beagle, if one beagle calls your name and you're like, this is for me, by all means do it.

But make sure that you are aware of the commitment, the slow, the training and meeting them where they are. I feel like this is like a like a PSA for like adopting dogs, but really, I mean, it is like dating, like you want to find the dog that fits your lifestyle. And not all beagles are going to want long walks on the beach.

Some are going to want couch potatoes and cartoons, and some are going to want to be running around in offensive backyard and loving life and and not stationary or cash potatoes. So at the end of the day, just know what you're getting into. Go low and slow. Yeah, but these dogs have a better life. But unfortunately, I don't think hot take releasing 1500 beagles is going to stop the breeding the demand for laboratory dogs, unfortunately.

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely think there's been a more concerted push toward animal welfare when it comes to animals being used in research. And I think we've we've made some good stuff. So there's still a long way to go. Hopefully we continue to trend in that direction. You know, it's been kind of a necessary evil for so long. And that's what makes this such a tricky topic.

You know, it's like it kind of reminds me of the marine world stuff where we close down all these marine parks. And there was one in France that I remember we were talking about, and there were still orcas just chilling in one of the tanks in there, and it was starting to get all like algae, like dirty with algae and like, murky and like, what did these orcas have to eat?

I don't know, but the point I'm kind of trying to make is, you know, we made an effort to, quote unquote, save these animals, but then we didn't do anything after we had saved them, quote unquote, lots of air quotes happening right now. So it's kind of like we have to plan for every part of the process. And it's something that BSM partners definitely did in our DCM research.

We did use beagles, we used dogs, but we rehomed every single one of those dogs after the study, and they are all now living their very best lives. One of them was on the news recently just saying.

But I think part of that and going and harping back to what I've been, is we literally set it up like a dating website. So depending on your lifestyle, depending on if you had kids, if you were active, if you stayed at home, if you had to have your dog crated while you went to work, some dogs were not eligible for you to adopt.

And it's just we wanted to have a high success rate. We wanted everyone to end happy. The dogs would be happy and the adopters to be happy. And to do that, you really had to play matchmaker. And so I think at the end of the day, like we need these sanctuaries to make sure that they do their due diligence.

And just because you want a beagle, because it looks really cute, or you want to say, oh, I rescued a beagle from this research lab, like, make sure it's a right fit for your family. If not, they're going to just be returned back and they're going to end up in a cage because that's where they're staying right now, right?

Like they're they're crated.

Yeah, yeah. We're acting like we just released 1500 beagles into this endless meadow of green grass and flowers, and they just get to frolic forever. It's like, no, we we kind of moved him from one cage to another cage, a more temporary cage. But yeah, it just it goes back to we got to do this really mindfully, you know, I'm all for storming the gates and, you know, driving the truck through and he ha whatever.

But let's let's plan right for what we're going to do after that. To do it for the dogs. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean and another thing is a lot of these dogs are inbred, right? So they've got a few select genes that they've decided to continue on with. Mostly docile, mostly smaller, because the amount of space that they have to have in the crate for them to turn around and stuff like that. So they're going to be smaller.

Most of them will be smaller. I saw some chunky ones, which they're beagles. Sorry, beagles. But keep in mind they're going to have a shorter lifespan, or they could potentially have a shorter lifespan, and they could have some other issues that come with inbreeding. I keep going back to the research Beagle that we adopted. And again, she had the tattoo in her ear.

She was this cute, tiny little 12 pound beagle, but she also had her vocal cords clipped. And she had a lot of issues at the end of her life because the inbreeding and she had a really hard time digesting food. And it just, you know, by ten years her, her life was lived. And so just keep that in mind that like most beagles are living 12 to 15 years there, curious little guys and growls, but you're getting something with this heavily inbred.

So there's going to be some other issues that come along with that. So just make sure you're in it for the commitment and you know what you're getting yourself into.

Totally. I think that's really great advice. And it's actually kind of a perfect segue into another headline that I wanted to talk about. This one is a feel good one all around, I promise. Well, actually, no, it's not even I have to be a Debbie Downer here just at the beginning. But remember when we did the episode about canine veterans?

So we have dogs that serve in the military and they do all sorts of really amazing life saving work, like detecting bombs and helping in search and rescue missions and literally like being out in the battlefield with soldiers. They're super bonded to their handlers. But, you know, as we know, in times of of warfare, you know, people die.

That's that's what happens. And when a dog, a canine member of the military loses their handler, you know, sometimes they're not always reassigned. Maybe it's time for them to retire. And depending on who owns that dog, did it come from a contractor? Did it come from, you know, somebody that somebody else? There's all sorts of organizations that raise and work with the military on these dogs that can kind of depend on are they left overseas, you know, to just hang out over there?

What are those conditions like? Are they brought back over to the States? How is their behavior impacted? You know, a lot of these dogs come back with PTSD. So it kind of comes back to the matchmaking thing, right? We talked with a guy at a Canine Veterans rescue and he was saying, you know, not all of these dogs like Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds that have been in the line of duty, are going to be your typical cuddly, you know, loyal dogs.

So you have to be really mindful when you're adopting a retired military or a police dog as well. That's totally not the point of this. Why I'm telling you this though. This is the good news part. Okay, so apparently this is back in April. An injured police dog was flown by. I believe it was helicopter. It was airlifted for emergency veterinary care in what was called a quote unquote historic mission.

So it was kind of a first of its kind, you know, airlifting a dog to receive emergency veterinary care, rapid transport. It was coordinated between law enforcement and veterinary teams. This is something that we don't see all the time. You know, when we think about military animals, when we think about police animals, a lot of the times these animals are assets and that's hard to hear as a pet owner, as an animal lover.

But that's the truth of it, really. You know, their assets, their property. And so, you know, we're not going to go the extra mile to airlift them to receive emergency care. But now, now we might be, which I love. I just thought that that was so wholesome. The dog's name is Luca and he's doing great last I checked.

Yeah, it kind of goes back to, you know, there's a demand, right? Like there's a demand for laboratory beagles or laboratory dogs, you know, and there are quote unquote, laboratory assets. And the same thing with like police or military or any kind of working dogs. But at the end of the day, they're doing so much for us. And we have to return that or we should return it.

Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. So that was your feel good story for the day Steph, what did you have. What do you want to talk about.

So what. Know of course it has to do with nutrition. But you know sitting back as a formulator and as a consultant we get a lot of people that are like we want to do a supplement. We want to do we want to go into nutraceuticals, which is great right? I spent a lot of time studying nutraceuticals. For those of you who don't know, nutraceuticals are like a natural, functional ingredient.

So think of instead of like a painkiller or an anti-inflammatory, we would use like turmeric or ginger or fish oil, or EPA and DHA to like help with inflammation. That's a nutraceutical. Great, right? Love it. There are some downsides with nutraceuticals. It takes a long time for it to work. Whereas like you take like an ibuprofen, you want that like pain gone in like 30 minutes.

You take gabapentin, you want it to work. Nutraceuticals are something that you can give either preventative or help over time to alleviate any kind of ailment for your pet. Of course, of course, this is going to be booming. Preventative care is booming, and therefore nutraceutical demand is going to be booming. So for us to be asked, let's do a functional topper, let's do a functional tree, let's add some nutraceuticals into X, Y, and Z.

Of course we're seeing it, but there's actually some market analysis out there that we're going to see this double by 2033, which is crazy because I think they gave like some sort of like couple billion dollar market on nutraceuticals. And here's the caveat that I want to tell pet owners is make sure that you're picking a brand that has done their research.

I'm saying, is this product actually useful? Is there science to back this product? And that's super important because you're going to start seeing a lot of supplements still the shelves still e-commerce. And it's going to have the same claims supports hip and joint supports joint support. Skin and code supports this x, y and z. How do you decipher between it?

And that kind of goes us back to like our MNAs episode where having the science, having a regulatory body or a third party look at what they're putting in there and making sure that it's actually efficacious, it's going to be, for lack of a better phrase, you're getting what you're paying for. And unfortunately, sometimes you pay a lot of money for a lot of label candy.

So looking at naskh, looking at as their science, looking at who's formulating this and looking at their reputation, before you just go and say, I like your claims, this is what I want. Don't judge a supplement by its claims.

There we go. Yeah.

No, I totally, totally agree. We'll link the episode in the show notes for this for you guys, but also we'll link the NHC member list. So they keep a list of companies that have gone through the certification stands for National Animal Supplement Council. Sorry, I'm speaking in acronyms right now, but they have a list so you can easily see who all has taken this extra step, who all is putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to these claims, and that should help you make more confident decisions, especially in a market.

It's already crazy saturated. Oh my gosh, there are so many supplements. Talk about doubling the market for ingredients that go in these supplements. Oh, it's going to be Casey.

Yeah. And for pet owners, it's important to know that when you start a supplement, you're looking at 60 to 90 days before you can see any sort of benefit. So I know, myself included, I give something and like with I don't see some like sort of results within a week. I'm like, it doesn't work, but it's going to be a low and slow.

It's going to it's going to change over time. And so 60 to 90 days is really kind of like the benchmark for most nutraceuticals to start seeing some sort of improvement. So yeah, you may have to buy a month or two of it before you start seeing.

Yeah. And in a world of instant gratification, yeah, supplements are going.

To take a little bit longer to kick in.

It's don't.

They say.

That that's a compounding effect.

It is. And I mean you're trying to undo. So like with like EPA and DHA, you're trying to undo the inflammation that's already going on. We're like painkillers or incense or ibuprofen or Tylenol like stuff that we use. It's just blocking that pain response. It's not fixing the information or reducing it.

All right. I think that's a super good PSA. It's already a crazy, crazy place out there in the supplement realm. And NAS just announced that they are going to start certifying functional treats as well, which is interesting because the line between supplement and functional treat is like God. It makes no sense.

It's a very, very blurry, gray line.

So hopefully these resources will help you make more confident decisions. Okay I'm going to bring I'm going to bring up another womp womp. I know at the beginning of this we were like, it's not going to be all bad.

But this is important and I'm going to make it really quick because we have a supporting article that we'll link in the show notes, where you can read way, way more about this whole kind of debacle that we're seeing. But there was a recent recall that happened on April 20th. It was a company called Revival Animal Health recalled their canine milk replaced under the brands Breeders Edge and Shelters Choice.

So these are milk replaces for super super young dogs. So if you're a breeder, if you know a breeder that uses any of these products and doesn't know about the recall, definitely let them know. Because this recall involved both too little vitamin D and too much vitamin D, both of which are not good for your dog. Especially a really, really young dog who still growing and developing.

Isn't it like a deficiency in vitamin D can cause rickets, which is the weakening of the bones? Not what you want in early development, and then an excess of vitamin D can actually start. You can start to see kidney dysfunction and even to failure. So big be aware. That's all I'm going to say because this ain't the first vitamin D recall we've seen is it ain't going to be the last.

And there's a reason for this and you're going to have to go. Read more from the show notes to find out. Let us know what you think. Hey, I have a question related to the. We were talking about the the research facility, the Red Glen farms. Yeah. And you were talking about inbreeding. And I have this theory about Lenny, about Lenny, because he is such a beautiful dog.

And we found him literally in the middle of the woods, like, starving because he has APIs. Pancreas doesn't work. So we have to, like, give him the enzymes to help digests food. You guys have heard the story before. Is that something that could be like as a result of being inbred? Because I have this theory that he was like, bred is like a hunting dog.

And then they like, tested him and found out that he wasn't 100%. And they were like, oh, we can't sell this guy, you know, and maybe just let him go. I don't know, I'm on a tangent now, but what do you have?

You have you done the DNA test? There's an inbreeding marker.

Oh, yeah. I didn't know that either, because we did. I can't remember what panel we used, though, so I'd have to go back and dig it out of my email because it was a couple of years ago. Okay. Now I'll have to do that.

It doesn't say like inbreeding marker. They use like a I want to say it's like a wolf pyramid thing. Wolf. I'll have you look at it after this. But we did it for our research dogs. But I mean, you could, right? So, like, our first beagle was a champion beagle, I should say she was a champion. She was part of a champion bloodline.

She was of the utmost champion of beagles. But she was so inbred that, like her, her mom was bred back to her grandpa.

Right. Like, if we're going to use human terms, right? Like, well, her her mom and her grandpa were her parents, and she actually had yellow eyes, which is a super, super, super rare beagle trait. And we actually got her for like, super cheap. I mean, because this was back in the day, like, we were broke, busted, like my poor parents.

We tried. They were starting their business like, things are bad. We're better now, but we weren't going to drive back in the day. Back in my day, we weren't going to drop like $500 on a dog, which is like now, crazy to think like a purebred dog is $500. Like, no, it's maybe 5000, right? So like, we got her for like $200.

And I think at the time, like that was expensive. Like that was crazy. Like my dad almost like had a cow over it, but it was because she had yellow eyes and they're like, oh, she's a total reject. We inbred it too much, like, no, come to find out, that's actually a good trait in showing beagles. So they asked us to breed her for one litter, and they ended up reading her back to her dad like, oh.

Stop that.

So I'm going on a weird tangent now, but like, that's how like shallow this pool is. Like it is a puddle on a sunny day. Shallow. This was actually sandy. So again, I come from a long line of beagle lovers. So my, my first beagle was Sandy, and, and she had a sandy head and she had yellow eyes, like she was a very, like, light colored head beagle.

But, I mean, she was like a tricolor.

But shooting.

Yeah, she ended up not living past ten and she had like bad GI issues. We ended up having to get her anal glands removed, which is like a really risky surgery, because if you think about like if you hit a nerve where your anal glands are like, the sphincter is never going to close again. So like and this was back in like, oh God, the early thousands.

So like this was not like a people weren't dropping thousands on dogs to get anal gland removals.

Right. This was very niche.

This is like maybe like only for ferrets. Right. Like.

How did we get on this?

So Lenny could possibly have been bred back. I'm coming full circle here. Full anal gland circle.

But there should be a now, whether or not like how true it is, there should be in in most DNA tests, like an inbreeding factor.

Okay. I'll have to do.

About what they're truly testing for. I am not a DNA person, but find his results. We'll look at them and we'll see.

All right.

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We'd also like to thank our dedicated team Admire Thomas, Nelly Boden, Kate Wright, Katie Wolf, Anna Guilfoyle and Jacob Parker. A special shout out to Leanne Hagerty and Michael Johnson in support of this episode, and to David Perez for our original music in the intro and outro. See you next time.