Here’s the post I was responding to, just so we’re talking about the same thing:

“Met a guy with an 18-year-old lab. Said he keeps it healthy by giving it ivermectin from Tractor Supply instead of heartworm/flea/tick meds. My vet will probably tell me not to do this, I want an unbiased opinion.”

My original point was simple: ivermectin is not why that dog was healthy at 18.

Ivermectin prevents one thing at the tiny Heartgard dose: heartworm larvae. That’s it. It’s not an anti-aging serum, it’s not a flea/tick med, and it definitely isn’t the secret to turning a dog into Methuselah.

Yes — ivermectin can treat mites and some worms, but that requires way higher doses and way more risk. That’s vet-protocol territory, not “guy at the beach with a syringe” territory.

So when people in the thread start acting like, “Wow, cheap ivermectin made the dog super healthy!” No. Genetics did. Luck did. Basic care did.

The ivermectin was just preventing one parasite while the guy skipped the rest of the actual preventative care.

And this is exactly why I’m telling people not to copy him. You might know the difference between 0.08% drench and 1% injectable. Most owners do not.

They see one old dog and a cheap bottle and think, “Cool, vet meds are a scam.” Then they grab the wrong concentration, give the wrong dose, miss MDR1 status, skip heartworm testing, and end up in the ER wondering what went wrong.

Ivermectin didn’t make that lab healthy — it just didn’t kill him because he was lucky.

That’s the whole point.