Dog Antibiotic

When researchers learned that some bacteria and molds give offsubstances toxic to others, a new branch of bacteriology was born.When further research demonstrated that these substances would killor inhibit bacteria and not poison dog, a blessing of inestimablevalue was bestowed upon both us and our pets. And as wonderful aspenicillin, streptomycin, and tetracycline are, they were but heralds offar more wonderful drugs. As yet none has been found effective forviruses.

There are several points that should be kept in mind when your dogis given medication such as an antibiotic. First, we are rather treatingthe dog than the disease. Each antibiotic must develop levels of concentration adequate to eitherhinder the reproduction of the organis?n(s) or to destroy some of them.When the disease ceases to flourish in the host, your dog is able toovercome it by building immune bodies to it.

Some of the antibiotics are called broad spectrum, meaning thatthey affect a great variety of microorganisms, whereas some zero in on afew infections and have no effect on others. When a dog has an infec-tion, veterinarians have a choice. If the dog has responded to aparticular treatment 90 percent of the time, the decision may be totreat it with the usually successful treatment. If that is ineffective, thepatient may be put under a more detailed investigation. It seems that this is a logical approach from the economic point of view. The moredetailed investigation consists of culturing the microorganism, inoculat-ing the disease organisms in material they are expected to grow well in,and exposing these organisms to small disks saturated with differentagents that may be effective in preventing their growth.

This is not an inexpensive procedure and does not result in a black orwhite answer. First, it may be difficult to obtain a sample that containsonly the organisms causing the problem, since many organisms may grow together. If several organisms are cultured, it may be difficult todetermine which is causing the disease. Furthermore, some innocuousorganisms may grow luxuriously and some dangerous ones slowly. Itrequires a bacteriologist with experience to interpret the results.It is not rare for a veterinarian to send a sample to a bacteriologistand start a treatment, hoping it is helpful until the laboratory resultscome in. When they arrive, often many days later, the prescribed medication would not have eliminated the disease.

It is not rare to find a canine patient that cannot tolerate a givenmedication. If the effect of the antibiotic or other medication is worsethan the disease, you must withdraw it. However, the dog mayneed a given drug and only that drug to combat an infections, in whichcase by persisting it may become tolerable.

There is a vast number of antibiotics, many ofwhich are used for similar disease conditions but others specifically forone or two diseases. Some are effective but toxic to some dog. Someare abused, some are employed where less expensive members of thefamily are as effective.

Antibiotics, like sulfas, are prescription drugs. At first antibiotics are given in quickly absorbed doses, mostly intramuscularly and at veryfrequent intervals. Later a way was found of combining them in vehi-cles from which they are slowly absorbed, no that in some cases injec-tions given once every twenty-four hours suffice to furnish a highenough concentration in the blood to effectively destroy or inhibit thegerms against which they are being sited. Today a majority are givenorally.