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Written by Paul
Dr Paul Manktelow is a vet who’s worked for almost 20 years on the front line in some of the UK’s busiest veterinary hospitals. As Chief Vet in the Charity Sector, he leads a team of vets and nurses that treat thousands of pets every year. Paul also appears regularly in the media as a TV and radio presenter, writer, public speaker and podcast producer.
The word “natural” carries enormous power in health and wellness marketing. For many of us, it suggests something gentler, safer and perhaps less concerning than a conventional medicine. It is one of the reasons products containing CBD and other cannabinoids have attracted so much interest from pet guardians.
But natural and safe are not interchangeable terms. Nature produces countless biologically active substances, and whether something is beneficial or harmful depends on what it contains, how much is given and the individual receiving it. CBD is no exception.
What Do We Know About CBD Safety?
The research available so far suggests CBD has a relatively favourable safety profile in dogs at the doses that have been studied. Reported adverse effects have included sedation, gastrointestinal upset and changes in liver enzyme values.
That is reasonably reassuring, but it should not be interpreted as evidence that every CBD product is harmless. Questions remain around long-term use, appropriate dosing and interactions with other medicines. These become particularly important when CBD is being considered for older animals, which may already be receiving several medications for chronic health conditions.
There is also an important distinction between studying a particular CBD formulation under controlled research conditions and buying a cannabinoid product online. The two are not necessarily equivalent.
Do We Know What’s in the Bottle?
Perhaps one of the most important issues surrounding CBD is product consistency. Research examining commercially available cannabinoid products has found discrepancies between what some products claim to contain and what testing actually identifies.
Products may contain more or less CBD than stated on the label, while some have been found to contain detectable THC. This creates a fundamental problem when we try to discuss safety or effectiveness because the results from research using one carefully defined formulation cannot automatically be applied to every product marketed online.
It also makes anecdotal recommendations difficult to interpret. If somebody says a particular CBD oil transformed their dog’s mobility, there are several questions we should ask before drawing wider conclusions. What exactly was in the product? At what concentration? What dose was given? And what quality controls were in place?
Those details are not an unnecessary scientific technicality. They are central to understanding whether a product is likely to be safe, consistent and potentially effective.
Moving Beyond the “Natural” Label
Product quality was one of the issues I found most striking while researching this subject for The Consult Room. The question is not simply whether CBD works. Before we can answer that confidently, we also need confidence that the product being used contains what its label says it contains. I explore the research, safety questions and wider debate in “CBD for Pets: Miracle Cure or Clever Marketing?” on Spotify.
None of this means cannabinoid research should be dismissed. There is genuine scientific interest in CBD, particularly around pain and inflammation, and future research may establish a much clearer role for cannabinoids within veterinary medicine.
What it does mean is that we should be cautious about assuming that a product is safe simply because it is natural or readily available. In healthcare, confidence should come from evidence, quality control and an understanding of risk, rather than from the language used on the front of a bottle.
