Editorial Policy

Effective date: May 21, 2026 Last updated: May 21, 2026

Senior Dog Daily is an independent publication about senior dog care, written by Sarah Bennett and Leo Bennett. This page explains who we are, how we research and write our articles, where we draw the line between information and advice, and what readers can hold us to.

A short, plain-English summary

We are not veterinarians. We are researchers and writers caring for our own senior dog, Lucy.
Every health claim on the Site is sourced. If we cannot source a claim, we do not publish it.
We do not use AI to write our articles or generate photographs of dogs.
Our recommendations are independent of affiliate compensation. We will refuse to recommend a product we do not believe in, regardless of commission.
If we get something wrong, we correct it in the open and date the correction.

The rest of this page is the detailed version of the same thing.

1. Who we are

Senior Dog Daily is written by Sarah Bennett, with input from her husband Leo Bennett. We live in the American Midwest with Lucy, our 7-year-old Border Collie, whom we adopted from a rescue four years ago.

We are not veterinarians, veterinary technicians, animal nutritionists, or licensed pet-care professionals. We are two people who love a good dog and have committed to learning what it takes to give Lucy a comfortable and informed senior life — and to share what we learn with other senior dog owners.

The Site does not represent or speak for any veterinary clinic, manufacturer, retailer, or trade association.

2. What we cover and what we do not

We cover: the day-to-day reality of caring for senior dogs, generally age 7 and older — daily routines, mobility, nutrition, supplements, equipment, cognitive changes, end-of-life decisions, and the products, brands, and services owners encounter along the way.

We do not cover: diagnosis, treatment plans, drug dosing, or anything else that should come from a licensed veterinarian who has examined your specific dog. We also do not cover unrelated topics (training puppies, exotic pets, livestock) where we have no special insight.

When we are out of our depth on a topic, we say so and point you to someone who is not.

3. Our editorial stance

Senior Dog Daily takes a proactive, preventive stance. Most senior dog content online is written for owners whose dog is already sick. We are written for owners whose dog is 5 to 9 years old and who want to prepare — to build a baseline, understand what is coming, and make decisions early when they are cheaper and less stressful.

That stance shapes what we write about, how we phrase things, and what we recommend. It does not shape what the underlying evidence says.

4. Sources we rely on

Every health, nutrition, or medication claim on the Site is sourced. Where possible we link directly to the source in the article. Our typical sources, in roughly the order we prefer them:

Peer-reviewed veterinary research. Articles indexed in PubMed and journals such as the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Veterinary Clinics of North America, and similar.
Veterinary association guidelines. Position statements, practice guidelines, and consensus statements from organizations including the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM), and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA).
Veterinary reference works. The Merck Veterinary Manual, the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine library, VCA Animal Hospitals' veterinary content, and Veterinary Partner (the pet-owner-facing content site operated by the Veterinary Information Network, VIN).
Licensed veterinarians on the record. Quotes from named veterinarians published in peer-reviewed work, edited veterinary publications, or recorded interviews — with credential, institution, and link to the original.
Manufacturer documentation, for product specifics only. Ingredient lists, dosing instructions, certifications, and recall notices come from the manufacturer or from the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine.
Our own experience with Lucy and with products we have personally tested, clearly labeled as our experience and not as evidence.

We add a "Sources" section at the bottom of any article that makes meaningful health claims, listing the works we drew from.

5. Sources we will not use

We will not base an article on:

Marketing copy presented as evidence.
Studies funded by the manufacturer of the product being recommended, unless the funding source is disclosed and the study has been independently corroborated.
Anonymous "experts," fictional veterinarians, or quotes we cannot attribute to a real, named person on the record.
Social-media anecdotes presented as data.
AI-generated text or summaries of veterinary research that we have not personally verified against the original source.

If the only source we can find for a claim is one of the above, we drop the claim.

6. How an article is made

Every article on Senior Dog Daily goes through the following steps:

Topic selection. A topic starts from a real question — one we have for Lucy, one we see senior dog owners asking on Reddit and in Facebook groups, or one suggested by a reader.
Source gathering. Before writing, we pull together the peer-reviewed studies, association guidelines, and reference-work entries that bear on the topic. If sources are thin or contradictory, we say so in the article rather than smoothing it over.
Outline and draft. Sarah drafts the article, organizing it around what the reader most needs to know first.
Fact and source check. Every factual claim — dosages, prevalence figures, symptom lists, breed risks, product specs, prices — is checked against its source before publication. Numbers we are not confident about are removed or stated with a clear range and as-of date.
Cooling-off review. We re-read the draft at least 48 hours after writing it, with fresh eyes, looking for sentences that overstate, oversimplify, or stray into territory that requires a vet.
Publication. The article goes live with a byline, an "Effective date," and a "Last updated" date.
Refresh cadence. Articles that drive significant traffic, or that touch on fast-moving topics (medications, recalls, pricing), are reviewed at least every 90 days. Other articles are reviewed at least once a year. Material updates are noted at the top of the article with the update date and a short summary of what changed.

7. Use of AI in our workflow

We are transparent about what AI does and does not do at Senior Dog Daily.

We use AI for:

Brainstorming article outlines and headlines, the same way we use a search engine.
Spell-check, grammar, and readability review of drafts written by us.
Summarizing long documents (e.g., a 40-page guideline PDF) as a starting point for our own reading — never as the final source.

We do not use AI to:

Write or ghost-write the published text of our articles. The voice on the page is Sarah's.
Generate quotes, statistics, citations, or research summaries that we have not personally checked against the original source.
Generate photographs of dogs, veterinarians, or products. AI photographs of dogs frequently get breed anatomy wrong and are dishonest about what we have actually seen.
Auto-publish content. Every article is reviewed and published by hand.

We also do not allow our content to be used to train, fine-tune, or evaluate AI models without our written permission. See the Terms of Service, Section 8.

8. Editorial independence from sponsors and affiliates

Senior Dog Daily earns money primarily from affiliate commissions and, when relevant, from clearly labeled sponsored content. Our Affiliate Disclosure explains how those relationships work in detail.

What matters here is what those relationships do not do:

They do not decide which products we include in a guide.
They do not decide where a product ranks in a comparison.
They do not allow a brand to edit, approve, or veto an article.
They do not buy us silence about a product's downsides. Every recommendation lists what we did and did not like.
They do not buy positive coverage. If a brand asks us to write favorably about a product we would not recommend on its merits, we decline.

When a piece is sponsored — meaning a brand paid us a flat fee to write about a specific product — that is disclosed prominently at the top of the article, separately from affiliate disclosures, and the same editorial standards apply.

9. Conflicts of interest

We disclose anything that could reasonably affect how a reader interprets an article:

Affiliate relationships, on every article that contains affiliate links.
Sponsored arrangements, on every sponsored article.
Free or discounted products provided by a brand for review.
Any other compensation, gift, or relationship with a person or company mentioned in the article.

We do not currently work with a paid veterinary medical reviewer. If we add one in the future, we will identify them by name and credentials on the relevant articles and on a dedicated reviewer page, and we will not place a "Medically reviewed by" badge on any article without an actual reviewer behind it.

10. Author bylines, dates, and what they mean

Byline. Every article carries the name of its author — Sarah Bennett, or in occasional joint pieces, Sarah and Leo Bennett. We do not use ghostwriters.
Effective date. When the article was first published.
Last updated. The most recent date on which the article was reviewed or revised. A "Last updated" date that is recent is a signal that we have checked the article against current guidelines and prices. A date older than 12 months is a flag that we owe the article a review.
Reviewer line. Absent until and unless we engage a licensed veterinary reviewer; see Section 9.

11. Photographs and images

Photographs of our dog, Lucy, are real and unaltered beyond basic exposure and crop adjustments.
Stock photography is licensed from sources such as Unsplash or paid stock providers and is clearly stock — that is, we do not pass it off as our own dog or our own home.
We do not use AI-generated images of dogs. AI photographs frequently misrepresent breed anatomy, coat color and pattern, and age — exactly the things our articles depend on getting right.
Product photography is sourced from the manufacturer's media kit, the affiliate network, or our own photographs of the product as we received it.

12. Corrections

We make mistakes. When we do, we correct them in the open.

Where the correction lives. Above the article body, in a clearly labeled block ("Correction, May 21, 2026") describing what was wrong and what we changed.
What counts as a correction. Factual errors (wrong number, wrong dose, wrong breed risk, wrong price), misattributed quotes, broken or replaced sources, and significant updates that change the article's recommendation.
What does not count as a correction. Routine refreshes (price update, link refresh, typo fix). Those are reflected silently in the "Last updated" date.
How to flag one. Email sarah@seniordogdaily.com with "Correction" in the subject line and a link to the article. We respond within seven days. If you are right, we publish the correction within fourteen days of confirming it.

13. Reader feedback

We read every email. If you write us about an article — to disagree, to add information, to share your own experience — we take it seriously. We may quote you, with your permission, in a future article or update.

Email: sarah@seniordogdaily.com

14. The medical-advice line

Throughout the Site, we keep a clear line between information and advice for your dog.

Information is general — what a condition is, how it tends to present, what the published guidelines say, what categories of treatment exist, what a class of product does.
Advice for your dog depends on examination, history, bloodwork, breed, age, weight, and a hundred other variables we cannot see from here.

We give information. We do not give advice for your specific dog. For that, please see a licensed veterinarian.

15. Changes to this policy

We may update this Editorial Policy from time to time. When we do, we change the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Material changes — adding or removing source categories, changing our AI policy, beginning or ending a relationship with a medical reviewer — are noted at the top of the page for at least 30 days.

16. Contact

Questions, suggestions, or feedback about how we work:

Email: sarah@seniordogdaily.com Subject line: "Editorial"

— Sarah and Leo Bennett, on behalf of Senior Dog Daily