Elena Shockman, VMD

Veterinarian. Founder of Paw & Pestle. The person who decides what gets listed.

Elena Shockman, VMD, founder of Paw & Pestle

I've spent 16 years in veterinary practice — the first six in general practice, and the years since in emergency and critical care. Emergency work changes how you think about supplements. You see what people gave their animal before they came in, and you see how often the label and the bottle disagree.

That's why Paw & Pestle exists. Not as another store, but as a shelf someone stands behind.

Credentials

  • VMD, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
  • BS, Animal Bioscience, Penn State — with a microbiology minor
  • A research year at Temple University, working on biofilms
  • Training in equine sports medicine, Santa Ynez, California
  • Active veterinary licenses in Pennsylvania and California
  • 16 years in practice: six in general practice, then emergency and critical care

How I decide what gets listed

Every product on this site was reviewed by me before it went up. Not by a buying team, not by whoever offered the best margin. Me.

Every product runs through the same clinical screen before I'll list it. These are the areas I assess:

  • Ingredient sourcing — where the raw materials come from, and whether the supplier chain is documented
  • Manufacturing standards — cGMP compliance, facility controls, batch records
  • Third-party testing — independent verification of identity, potency and contaminants, and whether the company will actually show you the results
  • Label accuracy — active ingredients disclosed per serving, not buried in a proprietary blend
  • Dose adequacy — whether the amount at the label directions is the amount the research used
  • Research base — what tier of evidence supports the claim, and whether any of it was done in the species on the bottle
  • Formulation and bioavailability — form, excipients, and whether the animal will actually take it
  • Safety profile — contraindications, drug interactions, reported adverse events
  • Regulatory posture — NASC participation, claims language, recall history
  • Clinical experience — how it behaves in practice, not just on paper
  • Cost and sustained use — cost per day at the effective dose, and whether a real household can keep it up

About one in ten products I evaluate passes. When one doesn't, I tell the company why — specifically, so they can fix it. Several have. More on how the screen works →

Integrative, not holistic

I describe myself as an integrative veterinarian, and the distinction matters to me. I don't sort medicine into conventional and alternative. I sort it into what the evidence supports, what's plausible and still unproven, and what's simply being sold — and those categories cut straight across the usual dividing line.

Emergency medicine teaches you that quickly. At three in the morning nobody in the room cares where a treatment originated. They care whether it works, what it costs the patient, and what happens if it doesn't. I've kept that standard for everything on these shelves. It means I'll take a second look at something conventional practice dismissed too fast. It also means I'll walk away from a remedy that can't support its claims, no matter how natural it is.

Then there's the question that doesn't get asked enough: can the person standing in front of me actually do this? A protocol nobody can afford, or keep up for six months, or get into a cat twice a day, is not a good protocol. It's a good protocol on paper. Practicality and cost aren't softer considerations than efficacy — they decide whether the medicine ever reaches the animal at all.

So everything here gets one more test after evidence, safety and dose: is this something a real household can actually sustain. That's why you'll see well-supported products at ordinary prices on these shelves, and why I'll tell you when the cheaper option is the right one.

That cuts both ways on this site. Some things I sell have strong clinical trials behind them. Some have a plausible mechanism and modest data, and I'll tell you that on the product page rather than let the packaging imply more.

Why this exists

The hardest cases in emergency medicine are rarely the hardest medicine. They're the ones where the treatment exists, the prognosis is good, and the family can't cover it. Economic euthanasia — putting an animal down for want of money rather than want of options — is the part of this profession that doesn't get talked about honestly enough.

I can't fix that from a shelf of supplements. But it shapes how I choose what goes on one, and it's why affordability sits alongside evidence in how I evaluate. Part of what this business earns is meant to go back toward helping families who are facing that choice. I'm working out the right structure for that now — whether to build it here or to support an organization already doing it well, which is where I'm currently leaning. I'd rather get it right than announce it early.

Speaking and continuing education

Elsewhere

Questions about a specific product or whether something is right for your animal? Book a consultation — and for anything urgent, see your own veterinarian first.