Dosing instructions
Amoxicillin is dosed based on your dog’s body weight and what infection your vet is trying to treat. A typical dosage used by many vets is 5 to 10mg per pound. This means a 50-pound dog would need to take 500mg twice a day.
This is usually given for 10 to 14 days. Sometimes this may even be given longer. Amoxicillin starts working in your dog and continues for 12 to 24 hours.
Introduction
Has your dog been prescribed amoxicillin? This is a common antibiotic that many vets use in dogs and cats. It is very effective at treating multiple conditions and is a very safe and inexpensive choice for treating an infection in your dog.
The duration of administration is harder to determine. In some cases Amoxicillin may be used to prevent infection after cleaning — trauma to the gums may allow an infection to develop. To prevent infection, a short course of treatment (approximately three days) may be all that is needed. In cases of severe gum disease (periodontitis), then a longer course of treatment would be needed, and four weeks of treatment would not be unusual.
Yesterday my dog had his teeth cleaned by a vet, who has prescribed 100 milligrams of Amoxicillin twice a day for 10 days. I am concerned about giving him too much Amoxicillin over that period of time. What is the correct dosage after teeth cleaning? Barry S. Zisman Frisco, Texas
The dose of Amoxicillin is based upon the dog’s weight. The correct dose is 5 milligrams per pound of body weight twice daily. So if your dog weighs 10 pounds, the dose would be 10 pounds x 5 mg/lb = 50 mg twice daily. The dose may be increased to 10 mg/lb twice daily in severe infections. Because Amoxicillin is supplied in 50, 100, 150, and 200 mg sized tablets for dogs, veterinarians will often round the dose to the closest 50 mg.
I hope your pet is doing well after his anesthesia and teeth cleaning. You ask if there is a correct dosage (yes) and duration (no) of treatment after dental cleaning. Please allow me to explain.
Best of luck to you and your pet! Michael Stone DVM, DACVIM (Small Animal Internal Medicine) Cummings School
Antibiotics dosage for dogs and puppies
Amoxicillin is an antibiotic drug commonly used in humans: it is used to treat bacterial infections and can also be used as one of the most commonly prescribed dog antibiotics, obviously at different dosages and only on the indication of the veterinarian, formulated both in tablets and in oral suspension. Among the best known commercial names there are Amoxi (Pfizer) and Clavobay (Bayer), but this antibiotic is produced by many pharmaceutical companies with as many commercial names and generic formulations. The most commonly prescribed dose is Amoxicillin 500 mg for humans, but it should be revised for the use in dogs. This is a prescription drug in both human and veterinary medicine, so you are not likely to find over the counter Amoxicillin at a legal pharmacy – and any drugstore distributing drugs without regard to existing regulations is a bad trade-off for your pet.