Painkillers

Is it safe to give paracetamol or other such painkillers to my dog. The vet is shut for the holiday period, and my dog is hurting from infected anal glands.

Hi there.

It can be very dangerous to give dogs human medicine - I certainly wouldn't give paractemol.

Do you know any other dog owners - particularly someone who may have an older dog with arthritis as they may have some metacam in the house.

But if your dog is in enough discomfort to need pain relief, personally I'd call the emergency vet - there must be one working in your area over the holiday period.

I hope you can get him some attention and that he is soon back to normal.

can you squeese them yourself?

There are humain painkillers that you can give - ring your vet and ask for advice - will be fine for short term use, but best to have advice.

Many thanks for your replies. Eventually we had to rush her 12 miles to emergency vet, cost £165 (ouch) very large abcess blocking anal duct, which was squeezed, cleared, painkilling injection, anti biotic injection, and now course of tablets, another visit on Tuesday for check/further evacuation of anal duct when not so painful.

Normally she gives a warning by "skating" along on her backside, this time no warning suddenly we were into major problem, it was an enormous abcess. Good timing I thought, bank holiday!!!!!

Thank goodness for pet insurance. I think I will get a stock of dog painkillers in.

Sorry to hear about the cost but I'm glad you got her to the vet - she must be feeling so much more comfortable now.

The trouble with giving pain killers without a vet check is that these might have just masked the problem - if you'd have given her something you may not have realised just how bad an abcess she had and in the long run it could've been much worse for her.

Fingers crossed she recovers quickly now.

Glad your dog is on the mend. More fibre in the diet can help prevent this re-occuring as this tends to happen when the dog has soft stools BTW.