You learn a lot in the dog zones of Holland Park in London. There I was, chatting away with the mother of an oldish but surprisingly boisterous golden retriever, when she said: “He has a new lease on life.” What was the magic potion, I wondered, and is it legal?
I was in the market for an alternative fix for Wilson’s knee. My 13-year-old cairn terrier has been arthritic and unstable on his feet since he had a cruciate ligament operation two years ago. I feel Wilson’s pain. I am also stiff, tired and not able to exercise much since getting Covid a few years back. I also take one look at the rain or a set of steep stairs and go, “Nah”.
Wilson’s other knee started acting up, poor chap. Our once vibrant, happy dog was now very slow and visibly depressed (dogs are wired not to show pain, I’ve since learnt), often reducing me to tears.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Wilson. He is my first dog and already my husband is stressing about how big my mental breakdown will be the day he goes. Watching your dog get old is sobering. What they experience, suffer, endure, you will too (though they don’t have the existentialist burden of imagining how they might die).
Children gradually detach from us and vice versa (only very odd mothers track their adult children’s every movement using apps). Dogs, though,are like newborns. They’re always dependent, always attached and always needy, which, not surprisingly, is good for mental health (in times of great narcissism).
In Holland Park, I discovered, many owners of older dogs are “biohacking” their pets — ie enhancing their constitution by altering diets, upping supplements and adding hormones to maximise health and longevity. This kind of customisation has long been in vogue with Silicon Valley tech bros. When it went mainstream, naturally the social set took it up. And now, why not their dogs?
And so, having heard of the Wiltshire “dog whisperer”, the holistic vet Lissy Seidel, who cured a friend’s dog’s knee using only cold laser, homeopathy and acupuncture, I (we unwittingly) entered the brand-new world of dog biohacking. What started as an exploration into an alternative to surgery with Lissy rapidly morphed into the quest for longevity — Wilson’s and mine.
Librela was the secret whispered to me in Holland Park. It is the first and only monthly injectable anti-nerve growth factor monoclonal antibody therapy for dogs with osteoarthritis pain. It is natural in that it works with their immune system, targeting the protein that stimulates pain. Made by the American drug giant Zoetis, the injection is given once a month (by a vet usually) and, once embarked upon, it is for life — unless you run out of money (it costs £80 a month).
