The marijuana industry’s newest customers are sick and elderly dogs !

A day prior to a booked vet arrangement to euthanize her pooch, Wendy Mansfield chose to attempt one final resort to alleviate the chronic pain of her 15-year-old labrador mix: treats from a cannabis dispensary made particularly for ailing dogs.

Kali, an amiable 80-pound rescue, was never much of a complainer. But  she always seemed to lick her paws—a possible indication of pain, as indicated by her vet—which was normally joined by episodes of hacking as a result of the shedding hair that got in her throat. One treat and after 20 minutes, the licking all of a sudden stopped.

Seeing this, Mansfield, who lives in Fort Bragg, California, issued her pooch a second treat, and afterward a third. Kali, who had been sluggish and discouraged, got up to drink some water and strolled outside—something she wasn't able to do as of late without moaning or clear indications of pain.

Mansfield then called the vet to cancel her appointment. That was three weeks ago. “Never in my wildest dreams would I have anticipated this,”  “It brought my dog back.”

With weed growing into a huge business in the US, another section of the business pander to maturing and debilitated pets has been growing under the radar. The legitimate weed business sector raked in $2.7 billion in income in 2014, and one evaluation by the ArcView Group, a network that connects investors with cannabis startup businesses, projects the marijuana industry to top $10 billion in sales by 2018.

The pet-pot business is treading on new territory, notwithstanding. The legal grey area is posing challenges for companies that need to market and distribute cannabis-derived products for animals. There's been insufficient scientific investigation and industry guidelines. Still, that is not discouraging frantic pet owners, like Wendy Mansfield, or keeping investors from getting on board.

The special cookies given to Kali were produced by Auntie Dolores, an Oakland-based maker of edible marijuana goods, including caramel corn, cheese crackers, and savory pretzels (a bestseller). The seven-year-old company launched its pet treat line, Treatibles, about a year ago.

Unlike its edibles for humans, Treatibles products, which are sold in dispensaries, aren’t made from marijuana but from hemp—the stem of the cannabis plant that’s low in the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which produces that feeling of getting high. Hemp, however, does contain cannabidiol, or CBD, a chemical compound that alleviates pain. The US government also defines hemp as cannabis—not necessarily the stem—that measures less than 0.3% in THC, a threshold that allows its movement across state lines.