What your pet’s cold tells us about global health
February 25, 2026
When a beloved pet gets an ear infection or a bad scratch, the first thing you want is a treatment that works. For decades, antibiotics have been the wonder drugs of both human and veterinary medicine. But a silent threat is growing: antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
We are currently living through an era of "superbugs," where bacteria and other microbes are evolving to outsmart the drugs we have to kill them. While the global health community has made progress tracking AMR in human hospitals and livestock farms, our closest companions—the dogs, cats, and horses living in our homes and barns—have remained a dangerous blind spot. All antimicrobial drug use puts pressure on bacteria to develop mechanisms of resistance to these drugs. Without clear data on how we use these drugs in pets, it is difficult to see the big picture of emerging resistance—much like trying to track a storm without a radar.
Now, supported by a 5-year cooperative agreement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), researchers at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) are building out that radar system. Led by Jennifer Granick, an associate professor at CVM and co-director of the Antimicrobial Resistance and Stewardship Initiative (ARSI), this project aims to enable a comprehensive understanding of antibiotic use in companion animal health, to preserve the "miracle" of antibiotics for everyone.
