Problem family

Pets

Urine, scratching, shedding, litter boxes, and the behavior problems with a physical answer. Vet first where the guides say vet first.

A cat and a dog curled up together on a rug — The problems here are the accidents, the coats, and the habits, not the animals themselves.Photograph: SeanT313, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pet problems split in two: problems with a physical cause you can fix (a box in the wrong place, urine that reached the carpet pad, a coat tool matched to the wrong coat) and problems that are symptoms of something medical. This family works on the first kind and is blunt about the second: several guides open with the vet visit, because a product page is the wrong place to diagnose an animal.

The products here are checked two ways: whether people actually buy them, and whether the people who bought them say they work. The pet aisle is full of best sellers that fail the second check, and this family's standards page names the pattern.

Every problem in this family

What this family does not cover

What this family leaves out: calming chews and deterrent sprays as lead recommendations (the evidence does not carry them), ultrasonic devices of any kind, and any product whose job is to punish the animal. Training problems get training answers.

How we check a product before we name it: our editorial standards.

The Fix JournalPets