Feedback deadline is: 4:00 PM on October 26, 2026
Summary
The Ontario government’s Veterinary Professionals Act, 2024 (VPA) is expected to come into force in the near future and will give pharmacy professionals the authority to continue:
- Compounding veterinary prescriptions for animals
- Dispensing veterinary prescriptions for animals
- Selling veterinary medicines for animals
Without a regulatory exemption in the VPA, only veterinary professionals would be legally permitted to perform these activities. Pharmacy professionals have a long history of providing animal owners across Ontario with access to pharmacy services and the medications their animals need.
To support the exemption and to clearly outline expectations for providing pharmacy services to animals, the College has prepared a draft Providing Pharmacy Services for Animals policy that is now part of a public consultation. We are seeking feedback on whether the policy expectations are clear, reasonable, and achievable, and to identify information that may be missing that could result in risks to animals or pharmacy practice.
How You Can Provide Your Input
Members of the public, pharmacy and veterinarian professionals, and interested organizations or system partners are encouraged to participate by 4 p.m. on October 26, 2026, using one of the following methods:
- Complete an online survey
- View a PDF version of the survey questions
- Feedback submitted through the survey will be anonymized and aggregated
- Add your feedback in the online form below
- Feedback submitted through the online form will be published on this webpage within 1-3 business days in accordance with our posting guidelines
- Send us an email at [email protected]
- Feedback submitted by email will be added to this webpage within 1-3 business days in accordance with our posting guidelines
The College reserves the right to refuse or remove comments that do not meet the posting guidelines. All feedback submitted as part of the consultation, whether published or not, will be reviewed and considered in the analysis provided to the Board.
Requests for accessible formats can be made by emailing [email protected] or via our toll-free number 1-800-220-1921.
Next Steps
Following the consultation, the draft Providing Pharmacy Services for Animals policy may be revised based on the feedback received. The Board will then be asked to consider and approve the draft policy at a future meeting.
Supporting Documents
- Draft Providing Pharmacy Services for Animals policy
- Draft Supplemental Guidance to the Providing Pharmacy Services for Animals policy
- Summary of policy development
- Board Briefing Note: Providing Pharmacy Services to Animal Patients (June 15, 2026, meeting)
Read The Feedback
I am a veterinarian. I am encouraged to see that some pharmacists are NOT interested in carrying and dispensing veterinary products. Animals are NOT small people. I cannot dispense drugs for human use, so why is a pharmacist dispensing drugs for animal use?? If you want to keep good quality veterinary medicine in your communities, don’t undercut by selling meds cheaper at human pharmacies. The veterinarian will be the one to deal with any adverse events like drug reactions and to advise on dose changes, etc. when needed, not the pharmacist. I sent a prescription to a human pharmacy last week for a cat–simply because it was urgent–and the owner went home with the human drug information–completely not applicable to the cat at all. Please leave veterinary dispensing to veterinarians. Please.
Hi, I would like to get more information regarding animal allergies and the ingredients that should be avoided for specific animals, including which ingredients may be unsafe or contraindicated for certain species. It would also be helpful to have guidance on commonly used OTC medications for animals, including: * Which OTC medications are considered safe for specific animal species * Recommended dosing and frequency * Age/weight considerations * Important contraindications, interactions, and potential side effects * Ingredients or formulations that should be avoided * Any specific brand or product recommendations that are appropriate for animals This information would help us provide safer and more appropriate guidance when customers have questions about OTC products for their pets.
Before OCP add more responsibilities on pharmacists, please understand that we pharmacists have to do everything during the pharmacies’ working hours and if these hours are not extended or registered technicians are not provided then patient care is going to be compromised. We already have lots of minor ailments to be treated by the pharmacists and we may treat a few more minor ailments in future, but without having any knowledge, to dispense vet medicines, it’s not safe for either the pharmacists or for the animals. I am highly positive that if we have to dispense vet products, no one pharmacy owners or no one companies will provide proper training or online reference to the pharmacists.
Minor ailments, suboxone injections, flu shots, covid shots and now vet services! I am a PHARMACIST. I am NOT a vet, I am NOT a nurse, I am NOT a doctor!!!! Please stop adding more work with no compensation yet again. ONce again, OCP is prioritizing convenience over accuracy and appropriateness. Of course the public things its wonderful, they don’t have to wait to make sure they get the right medication. Animals are not simply small humans. We are not taught animal medication in pharmacy school. I had a pharmacist colleague who gave a dry eye drop to owners of a parrot and it died (by the way the pharmacist lost their license). I dispense vet meds right now with zero checking of dose or counseling unless I use AI. Hope I don’t kill your pet. For once, can we let the vets do their job and I do mine?
Getting my dogs meds filled at my pharmacy was wonderful. Saved me time and money!
This is a welcome change from the college of Pharmacists. I do agree that there needs to be some sort of policy that guides the dispensing of prescriptions to animals. Most pharmacies do not have the required knowledge to dispense such prescriptions however and a training process would be required. One can expect the cost of veterinary prescriptions to increase as the number of available pharmacy operators offering such service services decrease similar to when compounding changes were introduced.
As a RPhT who also had a animal with several chronic and serious health conditions, being able to have my pets medications filled in a community compounding pharmacy versus purchasing from my vet saved me thousands of dollars, if not close to $10K+. I know how much this cost savings helped me to be able to afford quality and lifesaving care for my pet prior to his passing and I think giving this option to pet parents and expanding a pharmacies ability to sell veterinary specific medications will help with providing more accessible care for pets. I believe it will also help with availability issues, for example, my vet could not get one of my pets medications, that I usually get from the vet as it is an animal specific medication, as it was on backorder. As they knew I worked in the pharmacy field, he offered to write me a prescription to get filled at the pharmacy I got all of my pets other medications done but since it is a vet only medication they could not. My vet was very shocked by this so I feel they would be supportive of this From a workload perspective, I can also see this adding more stress to community pharmacies that are already overworked and understaffed, which would also lead to more errors. I also think having a designated “vet-med only” section for medications that are old prescribed to pets (ex. Tylosin tablets) to help with patient safety to avoid accidental mix-up of medications.