Question: How do you make sure that what you use is sustainable and not harming animals?

As vets we try to maximise sustainability for everything we do – this means thinking about the wider ecological impact of medicines which we use. For example, considering the environmental impact of products such as parasite treatments. For external (skin) parasite treatments, which are designed to kill harmful insects on an animal’s skin, we have to recognise that they may also unintentionally harm other insects such as bees and other pollinators in the wider environment when they wash off the original animal’s skin. For internal (gut) parasite treatments, which are designed to remove worms which live inside the animal’s digestive system, we have to recognise than when the animal poos on the ground, insects such as beetles might be harmed by the remains of those parasite treatments. So we have to consider how to balance these two competing needs and how to avoid over-using these treatments as far as possible. The same applies to using antibiotics which are used to treat infections caused by bacteria – in the same way as your doctor says to you that they avoid using these unless absolutely necessary, as vets we do the same, because we want to avoid creating bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics and would therefore result in infections which are untreatable, which is bad for both animals and for people too.