The Connector | October 2026

Welcome to The Connector. Fetching the freshest animal health news.

Important Things You Need to Know

Share Your Animal Health Summit Experience

Have a topic you’d like to see on the agenda? Interested in speaking, or know someone who would be a great fit?

Share your ideas and help shape next year’s event when you take our survey.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Registration is Open for The Gathering at VMX

Join us January 17, from 3:00-4:30 p.m., for drinks, bites and an afternoon of connecting with leaders and friends from across the animal health industry.

REGISTER TODAY

2027 Iron Paw Nominations Are Now Open

The Iron Paw Award honors individuals making a lasting impact on animal health through leadership, innovation, dedication and more.

Know someone whose work deserves recognition? Nominate them for the 2027 Iron Paw Award.

LEARN MORE
Kim Young headshot, KC Animal Health Corridor logo, Corridor Conversations with Kimberly Young

Plant the Seed, Let Them Bloom: Helping the Next Generation Find Their Path

Choosing a career path can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re still discovering what’s possible. As industry professionals, we have an opportunity to expose the next generation to new possibilities, encourage their curiosity and remind them that careers rarely follow a straight line. By planting the seed and giving young people room to explore, we can help them find the places where they’re meant to grow and bloom.

READ FULL BLOG

Industry News

CATalyst Council Reports Cat Clinical Visits Grow 2.7 Percent as U.S. Veterinary Clinical Visits Fall 1.9 Percent

Virbac Donation Brings Heartworm Prevention to Every Dog at KC Pet Project

25 Years Later, Landmark Purina Life Span Study Still Shapes Healthy Weight Conversations for Dogs

FFAR Research Explores New World Screwworm Vaccine

CatsOnly™ Makes History as First-Ever Veterinary Practice to Open With CAETA Practice Certification

Sustell® Enables Customer-Specific Crop Footprints Across the Animal Protein Value Chain

Boehringer Ingelheim’s New Quarterable Snap-Tab PREVICOX® (Firocoxib) Chewable Tablets Provide Flexible Dosing for Dogs in the U.S.

Artificial Intelligence Use Among Veterinary Professionals More Than Doubles in 2 years

Merck Animal Health Highlights Landmark Clinical Research on Gilvetmab, the First Caninized Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor for Canine Oncology in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine and Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association

Big Idea Ventures and Mars Petcare Select Three Startups for the 2026 Next Generation Pet Food Program 

Merck Animal Health Expands SenseHub® Dairy Monitoring With Bucket-Fed Calf Capability and New Herd-Level Insights

Dechra Brings Laverdia® (Verdinexor Tablets), the First and Only FDA-Approved Oral Treatment for Dogs Diagnosed With Lymphoma

BiomEdit’s First-of-its-Kind Engineered Bacterial Biologic for Poultry Receives Conditional Licensure From USDA

Boehringer Ingelheim and WHO Foundation Launch Global Collaboration to Close the Gap in Obesity and Metabolic Health

IDEXX Laboratories Acquires CoVetAI to Advance Veterinary Workflow Intelligence

Hill’s Pet Nutrition Committed to Advancing Veterinary Industry With Residency Sponsorships

Parnell Appoints Sharon Holt as Vice President of U.S. Pet Care

CERES TAG and Acies Agricultural Risks Announce Collaboration to Connect Livestock Intelligence With Risk Management

Zoetis Expands Vetscan Imagyst Capabilities

Patterson Veterinary Launches Atlas: An AI Assistant for Veterinary Software

View Animal Health Corridor Events

Plant the Seed, Let Them Bloom: Helping the Next Generation Find Their Path

As we head into a season of conferences and conversations focused on developing youth and the next generation of talent, a quote recently stopped me: “The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.”

I found myself thinking about this when talking with my 19-year-old son, who, like so many young people, is questioning his path.

He knows he loves art and being creative, but he struggles to see how his educational path will ultimately lead to a career that feels fulfilling. The weight of choosing one direction can feel enormous when you haven’t fully figured out who you are yet. It can feel as though choosing one thing means closing the door on everything else.

And then there is the challenge of not knowing what all the possibilities are. How can you choose a path when you haven’t been exposed to all the paths that might exist?

That is where I believe we, as industry professionals, have a responsibility.

Through the Animal Health Corridor, we are working to tell more of the stories of our industry and introduce high school and early college students to the incredible range of careers and opportunities that exist in animal health. There are so many ways to contribute to this industry through science, technology, business, veterinary medicine, agriculture, entrepreneurship, research, communications and countless other disciplines.

Many students simply don’t know these possibilities exist. Our job isn’t to tell young people exactly what they should become. It is to help them see what is possible.

We can encourage them to stay curious. To ask questions. To explore things they haven’t considered. To seek out people who can show them a different perspective. And, perhaps most importantly, to trust their instincts and give themselves permission to evolve.

Careers are long. They take turns. They have unexpected opportunities, detours and sometimes complete changes in direction. The education and experiences you gain in one area may become the foundation for something you never imagined doing.

You don’t have to know exactly who you are going to become before you begin. You just have to start navigating forward.

I also remind my son that the right rooms and the right people will make space for you. They will pull out another chair at the table. You don’t have to become someone else to belong in the places that are right for you.

Keep exploring. Keep learning. Keep being authentically you. The right opportunities will find you and you will be ready to recognize them when they do.

Then my son took the flower metaphor one step further.

He reminded me that growing flowers takes patience and persistence. A seed doesn’t bloom overnight. And sometimes, the seed that becomes a flower has been carried a long way by a bird before it ever finds the soil where it can grow.

I love that thought.

Sometimes our stories carry us to places we could never have imagined. Sometimes the path we think we are choosing is simply carrying us toward the place where we are meant to bloom.

As an industry, we have an opportunity to help young people see more possibilities, ask more questions and have the confidence to keep moving forward even when they don’t yet know exactly where they are going.

Maybe that is what we can give the next generation: not all the answers, but a broader view of what is possible and the encouragement to trust themselves along the way.

Plant the seed. Keep growing. Keep exploring. And let the journey carry you to where you are meant to bloom.

Wagner Logistics to Add Nearly 80 Jobs with New High-Volume Logistics Operation in Liberty

NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Oct. 15, 2026 – Wagner Logistics, a nationwide provider of third-party logistics, today announced it has signed a multi-year agreement with a Kansas City-area manufacturer to launch a new manufacturing support and warehouse operations program in Liberty, Mo.

The new operation includes two leased warehouse facilities in the Liberty area totaling more than 830,000 square feet. Wagner expects to add 79 new local jobs over the next two years, starting immediately. The company will also make a multi-million-dollar investment in equipment, infrastructure and automated trailer loading and unloading technology to support the operation.

“This is exactly the kind of operation where Wagner’s strengths come through,” said Brian Smith, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wagner Logistics. “It requires speed, flexibility, close coordination and the ability to design a solution around what the customer actually needs.”

Wagner will provide manufacturing support, warehouse operations, distribution services and transportation management between the customer’s manufacturing plant and Wagner-operated warehouse facilities. Wagner will also support a high-volume operation designed to move finished products efficiently from the production line to their next destination.

“Wagner Logistics’ expansion in Liberty is yet another example of a Missouri-grown success story and a testament to our commitment to supporting the companies that call our state home,” said Governor Mike Kehoe. “This investment means new jobs, greater opportunities for Missouri families and continued economic growth for the Kansas City region. We’re proud to see this strong Missouri employer deepen its roots here in the Show-Me State.”

As part of the operation, Wagner’s warehouse dock areas and trailers will be outfitted with a state-of-the-art system designed to automatically load and unload 53-foot trailers in less than two minutes. The operation will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, once fully operational.

“The City of Liberty is committed to fostering a vibrant economic development environment and we are excited to welcome Wagner Logistics to Liberty,” said Liberty Mayor Greg Canuteson. “This is another economic development win, that clearly demonstrates our commitment to bringing new, well-paying jobs to our community while also developing a more diverse, stable and sustainable tax base.”

The project strengthens Wagner’s presence in the Kansas City region and expands the company’s national network. With the new Liberty operation, Wagner will operate nearly 9 million square feet of warehousing and distribution space nationwide.

Wagner partnered with KC SmartPort, an initiative of the Kansas City Area Development Council and the region’s leading industrial business development organization, throughout the site selection process.

“World-class logistics operations need leading logistics markets, and Kansas City has become one of the nation’s top 15 industrial markets for a reason,” said Elli Houston, vice president of KC SmartPort. “Companies here can reach nearly 90% of the U.S. population within two days by truck, while tapping one of North America’s strongest multimodal freight networks. That’s a competitive advantage that premier companies like Wagner continue to capitalize on.”

About Wagner Logistics
Wagner Logistics is a leading supply chain management provider offering distribution center, fulfillment and transportation services across the U.S. since 1946. The Wagner team delivers precise solutions tailored to each customer’s needs at the required speed. Wagner continues to innovate by tackling complex supply chain challenges and providing exceptional performance as the industry adapts to evolving customer buying habits.

The company serves manufacturers across a wide range of product types, including energy, food and beverage, automotive, consumer products, apparel, building materials, packaging products, industrial manufacturing, chemicals and hazardous materials. Wagner has been honored as a Top 100 3PL by Inbound Logistics for 21 consecutive years. For more information, visit https://www.wagnerlogistics.com.

###