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Short Wave

Could this anti-aging dog pill lead to one for you too?

Short Wave

NPR

Nature, Daily News, Science, Life Sciences, News, Astronomy

4.76.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Every dog lover’s greatest fear is inevitably losing their pet to time. We want our furry pals to stick around as long as they can. That wish may soon become reality with a new pill from a company called Loyal. It aims to extend the lives–and health–of dogs. This new drug also serves as a pitstop on a much bigger quest: to eventually lengthen human lives.

Interested in more science about your pets? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

0:06.3

Forrest.

0:10.0

Forrest.

0:11.1

Good boy.

0:12.9

This is Ross Anderson, a staff writer at the Atlantic.

0:16.5

And as you heard, he has a dog, Forrest.

0:19.3

He's delighted to be on the show.

0:21.2

Now he thinks that, like, I've called him over to play fetch.

0:23.8

Ross called Forrest over because he was the inspiration for Ross's reporting on a company called Loyal.

0:29.8

They're working on a new drug to fight against every dog lover's greatest fear,

0:34.2

inevitably losing their pet to time.

0:36.7

The hope is this new pill will extend the lives of

0:39.5

dogs. And the vision all started in the rural outskirts of Austin, Texas, where Loyal's founder

0:45.5

Celine Hollowah grew up. Her whole childhood, she was surrounded by animals, forming deep, loving

0:51.5

bonds with a lot of them. She told me her family had like 15 dogs and cats,

0:57.1

and most of them were strays.

0:59.2

And she fell in love, actually, with a horse that lived locally.

1:03.7

He lived with a ratchet cowboy, is how she described it to me.

1:08.6

That bond with animals was on her mind as she went off to college.

1:12.5

She worked at a neuroancology lab, and so got to kind of see just the horror, the cosmic

1:19.2

horror, really, of brain cancer very close up, and it had a profound effect upon her.

1:24.9

Loyal's drug is still working through the FDA's approval process,

...

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