subject: Medication for dogs – are you killing your pet? [print this page] Medication for dogs are you killing your pet?
Are you loving your dog to date?
Sometimes people try to help the sick pet by providing the family medicine cabinet drugs. Clearly their intentions are good, they want to ease the suffering of the sick animal, but the results are sometimes disastrous.
There are important differences between humans and dogs.
Starting from the obvious differences in weight to the anatomical and physiological differences that are less evident. Medication for a full mature adult, certainly not suitable for dogs weighing ten or twenty pounds. Even the right dosage of the medication that is good for humans can be very harmful to the animals.
A common example of a particularly dangerous drug is given to dogs by their owners is paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen. Paracetamol is a drug that is considered safe without prescription, for human use, even for babies use. In contrast to dogs it is toxic, and if the dog receives a 500 mg pill designed for an adult, severe poisoning occurs. The difference in response is due to differences between dog and a man in the dog enzymes responsible for adjective of the medicine. Giving your dog aspirin is harmful, (although to a lesser extent than given it to cats, exposing the cat to the risk of death). The dog is usually cause severe liver damage. The dog or cat that got paracetamol, will be treated like a poisoning case - causing vomiting, gastric washing and Antidotes specific.
Many times this behavior cams from the tendency of the dogs owners to humanize their pets. The owners ignore the mental and physical, deferens between a dog and a man.
Another example for that behavior of personifying the dogs is shouting at the dog as you were yelling at a friend or family member in a similar situation.
Again, dogs are different from us. Shouting the name of the dog after he misbehaves is a "humanizing" behavior. The dog associates the shouting to the name and not to his misbehavior.
In sum, not everything that is good for us is also good for our loved ones on fours. When in doubt, always consult your veterinarian.
