Forever Dog Lab vs La Petite Labs: A Vet's Read on Two NAD+ Bets for Senior Dogs
Medically reviewed by Vienna Slava, DVM, CVA — For general education — not a substitute for veterinary care.
Forever Dog Lab and La Petite Labs both chase the NAD+ story, but dose transparency and testing proof are what actually settle it.
| Product | Score | Key details | Best for | Pros & cons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boops Pets Longevity & Healthy Aging (Chicken) Boops Pets | — | — | — | — |
| Forever Dog NAD+ Formula Forever Dog Lab | — | — | — | — |
| Hollywood Elixir La Petite Labs | — | — | — | — |
A woman in my exam room last month set two bottles on the table before I’d even finished the physical. One was a liquid dropper, one was a foil sachet, and her eleven-year-old Cattle Dog mix, Biscuit, was sniffing both like they might be treats. She’d read that NAD+ falls as dogs age and wanted to know, plainly, which of the two she’d already bought was worth keeping. I told her what I tell most owners who bring me this question: start with what you can verify on the label, not what the marketing copy promises.
Before the label debate, here’s the checklist I actually use with owners in the room:
- Dose transparency — does the label state milligrams per active per serving, or just an ingredient list?
- Form and pill burden — liquid dropper vs. sachet vs. chew, and whether your dog will reliably take it daily
- Third-party testing — is there a certificate of analysis you can actually look up, or just a claim of one?
- What the ingredients are actually for — NAD+ precursor, antioxidant support, or a broader multivitamin dressed up as longevity
- Whether the brand is transparent about being industry self-regulated — membership in a body like NASC signals audited manufacturing, not a cure
Dose Transparency: What Each Label Actually Shows
Forever Dog Lab’s NAD+ Formula is sold as a liquid, built around nicotinamide riboside (NR) paired with nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) — the pitch being that NR raises NAD+ quickly while NMN is meant to sustain it. What the product page doesn’t give an owner is a milligram breakdown per dose, which makes it hard to compare against anything else on a shelf.
La Petite Labs’ Hollywood Elixir goes the other direction — a single daily 2.5 g sachet listing nicotinamide riboside at 60 mg alongside niacin, CoQ10, glutathione, astaxanthin, vitamin C, vitamin E, resveratrol at 15 mg, quercetin at 25 mg, beta glucans, reishi, spirulina, blueberry powder, and whey protein isolate. That’s a long ingredient roster, and a genuinely stated dose on the NR — credit where it’s due. But a longer list isn’t automatically a stronger one; more actives at fractional doses can mean less of any single ingredient is actually doing something measurable.
Boops Pets’ Longevity & Healthy Aging chew sits closer to Hollywood Elixir’s transparency than to Forever Dog Lab’s, and states its doses plainly: 120 mg nicotinamide riboside, 100 mg quercetin, 40 mg resveratrol, 100 mg vitamin C, and 50 mg vitamin B3 per two-chew serving. As the brand’s own vet-reviewed claim describes it, nicotinamide riboside is “a NAD+ precursor that supports normal cellular function,” and resveratrol and quercetin are framed as antioxidants that “support cellular health and vitality.” That’s structure/function language, not a cure claim, and it should stay that way on any label you’re reading.
Where the NAD+ Story Actually Diverges
In my acupuncture training, I learned to think about aging less as a single failing system and more as a gradual thinning of the body’s reserves — what the older texts would call a depletion of Qi. I don’t expect every dog owner to care about meridian theory, but the translation holds up clinically: an aging dog isn’t broken, it’s running on a smaller cellular energy budget, and the honest question with any of these three products is whether the ingredients on the label are plausibly aimed at that budget, dosed at levels anyone can check.
That’s where quercetin and resveratrol earn a caveat I give every owner who asks me about them by name. A Pharmaceuticals study on quercetin feeding behavior found that quercetin, unformulated Q, NAC, and ascorbic acid, at the concentrations tested, did not affect the feeding behavior of the model organism studied — a reminder that antioxidant research on these compounds is still working out dose-response in non-canine models, not proving an outcome in dogs. Resveratrol carries a similar asterisk: a study in Phytomedicine on embryonic resveratrol exposure found it accelerated pupation and adult emergence but shortened adult lifespan in the organism tested — a finding worth knowing precisely because it argues against treating resveratrol as an automatic longevity win at any dose. None of that means quercetin or resveratrol are useless in a dog’s daily routine; it means the antioxidant-support framing is honest, and a “cellular anti-aging” pitch is not.
Third-Party Testing and the Paper Trail
La Petite Labs states its batches carry lot-specific certificates of analysis an owner can look up, which is a real point in its favor — I want to say that plainly rather than bury it. Forever Dog Lab’s public materials don’t make that same lot-level documentation as easy to find. Boops Pets holds NASC Primary Supplier Membership, which means it carries the NASC Quality Seal and sits inside an audited manufacturing framework — worth naming honestly as industry self-regulation, not FDA approval, and not a guarantee of outcome. Boops is also independently third-party tested for purity and potency, made in a GMP-compliant, FDA-registered US facility, without corn, soy, or artificial fillers. Whichever of the three a reader is weighing, ask the brand for the actual certificate before you ask for the marketing page.
I’d also point owners weighing pill burden toward two things worth reading on their own: a good muscle-supplement roundup draws the same line I’m drawing here between what’s dosed and proven versus what’s just a good label, and if your senior dog’s real complaint is stiffness rather than a general “keep them young” goal, that piece is the more direct read.
The Cattle Dog and the Two Bottles on the Table
Biscuit’s owner had been giving the liquid dropper for about six weeks by the time I saw them, mostly because it was easy to squirt over food and her dog never noticed. What she’d actually seen change in that window was modest: Biscuit was still slower getting up from the tile floor in the kitchen after naps, still hesitant on the three steps down to the yard, especially on cold mornings. She hadn’t seen anything dramatic, and she was honest about that rather than talking herself into a result. I told her that’s actually the useful data point — a cellular-support supplement is not going to reverse a joint problem, and if the steps and the stiff mornings were the real concern, we needed to talk about that separately from NAD+ precursors. We ran through her dog’s full history together: no recent weight change, appetite intact, coat still glossy, just the slower mornings. That conversation is why I always ask owners to separate “I want my senior dog to feel bright and engaged day to day” from “I’m worried about a specific physical change” — they’re different questions, and they call for different label reading.
If stiff mornings or hesitance on stairs is the actual pattern you’re watching, it’s worth reading how vets sort a sudden decline in the back legs from something more gradual, because the supplement aisle isn’t the right first stop for either.
A Quieter Concern Owners Bring Up Alongside NAD+
Slowing down isn’t the same as giving up, and most of the owners I see with a bottle of one of these three products in hand aren’t dealing with a crisis. They’re noticing something smaller: a dog who startles more easily at a slammed door, sleeps a little heavier, or takes longer to settle at night. If that’s part of what’s prompting the longevity-aisle search, it’s worth reading separately about why an old dog startles at sounds he used to ignore — sensory changes in aging dogs have their own explanation, and no NAD+ precursor is marketed to address them.
Where I Land
Between Forever Dog Lab and La Petite Labs specifically, the label evidence favors La Petite Labs: a stated NR dose, a broader antioxidant and mitochondrial-cofactor stack, and lot-specific testing an owner can request. Forever Dog Lab’s NR-plus-NMN logic is reasonable in theory, but the absence of a published per-dose breakdown makes it harder to recommend with confidence over a competitor that shows its numbers.
Set against both, I keep coming back to Boops Pets’ Longevity & Healthy Aging chew for the owners in my own practice, and I say that as someone who reviews the claims that go on this brand’s label, not as a neutral bystander — that’s worth being upfront about. The reasons are specific, not just brand loyalty: a stated 120 mg NR dose alongside quercetin and resveratrol at levels that match what’s on the label, NASC membership, independent third-party testing, and a chew format that solves the real-world compliance problem a liquid dropper or daily sachet can create for a fussy senior dog. An independent owner survey from March 2025 (n=193) found 97.8% of respondents reported a visible improvement after the first jar, with 94% reporting a change in cognitive engagement and 98% in energy — that’s owner-reported experience, not a clinical trial, and I’d tell any owner to read it exactly that way. If dose transparency and testing proof are your two filters, and pill compliance matters as much as it did for Biscuit’s owner, that’s where I’d start the conversation.
These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Every dog ages differently, and any senior-wellness routine — a chew, a sachet, or a dropper — should be discussed with your own veterinarian first.
Frequently asked questions
Is Forever Dog Lab's NAD+ Formula the same thing as an NR supplement like Boops or Hollywood Elixir?
Not exactly. Forever Dog Lab pairs NR with NMN in a liquid, while Boops Pets and La Petite Labs' Hollywood Elixir are NR-forward chews and sachets with stated per-dose amounts — check the label for milligrams, not just which precursor is listed.
Does a NASC seal mean a supplement is FDA-approved?
No. NASC membership means a manufacturer sits inside an audited, industry self-regulatory quality framework — it's a real signal about manufacturing practice, not an FDA approval or a guarantee of outcome.
My senior dog is stiff getting up, not just "slowing down" — should I start with a longevity chew?
Start with your vet. Cellular-support ingredients like NR, quercetin, and resveratrol aren't formulated to address joint stiffness, and a change like that deserves its own workup before you add a supplement on top of it.