Sourcing & evidence policy
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How we research
The promise of this site is that its claims are sourced. Here is exactly what that means.
Primary sources over summaries
Where a claim rests on research, this site links to the study, the regulatory document, or the professional guideline — not to another website’s description of it. Where a primary source sits behind a paywall, the abstract or an authoritative summary is linked and identified as such.
This matters more than it sounds. A striking statistic can pass through four articles and arrive with its meaning inverted. Reading the source is how you catch that, and it is a substantial part of why articles here take as long as they do.
The source hierarchy
Where sources conflict, they are weighted roughly in this order:
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses in peer-reviewed veterinary journals
- Individual peer-reviewed studies, weighted by design and sample size
- Guidance from veterinary professional bodies and regulators (AVMA, AAHA, FDA, EFSA)
- Veterinary teaching-institution publications
- Expert clinical opinion from a named, credentialed source
- Everything else
Consumer sites, brand-owned blogs, and content farms are not sources here, whatever their search ranking.
How evidence is described
Certainty is stated honestly. Where research is strong, this site says so. Where it is thin, contested, or absent, it says that too — plainly, rather than hedging into meaninglessness.
“No good evidence” is a publishable finding. A great deal of what dog owners are sold has never been properly tested. Saying so is more useful than manufacturing a verdict.
Sample sizes and study limitations are described where they matter. A promising result from twelve dogs is not the same as a result from twelve hundred, and you will be told which one you’re reading about.
Where the science has moved, the page moves with it. [WHEN YOU BUILD THE SUPPLEMENT SILO, ADD: An explicit A–F evidence grade is applied to efficacy claims, with the grading criteria published.]
Costs and prices
Where this site publishes prices — cremation, hospice, procedures, insurance — it states when they were collected, how, and from where. Prices are ranges, not promises, and they vary enormously by region. They are re-checked annually and the check date is shown.
First-hand experience
Some of what you read here is lived rather than researched — what a decision felt like, what a process was actually like to sit through. It is always identifiable as such, and never presented as clinical evidence. It is included because it is genuinely useful and because no amount of citation substitutes for someone who has been through it, but it is never a substitute for your vet.
What this site will not do
These are hard limits, not preferences.
- It will not publish a health claim without a source.
- It will not publish a nutritionally incomplete homemade diet, however well it would perform in search. [Cited: a study of 1,726 homemade diets found roughly 6% potentially complete; a UC Davis review of 200 recipes found 95% missing at least one essential nutrient.]
- It will not let a commission shape a conclusion. If the evidence says the product doesn’t work, that’s what gets published.
- It will not present AI-generated text as human work.
- It will not run advertising on grief content. Ever.
- It will not manufacture urgency around a decision that deserves time.
When this site gets it wrong
It will. Evidence moves, sources are misread, and one person checking their own work catches most errors but not all of them. When it happens, the correction is published visibly and dated, per the editorial policy. If you spot something, please tell me. Corrections are the most useful mail this site receives.
Last updated: [DATE]