Antibiotic Therapy For Dog Fever
When a dog's temperature goes above normal it is like millions of tiny fires are burning faster. When fires burn faster, they need more fuel. Fuel for the body's fires can come from only two places, the food taken into the body, or from the body itself. Fevers ordinarily occur during illness. Illness is a time when every calorie of fuel is needed by the dog for recovery. Any increase in fuel consumption due to fever should always come from a dog's food rather than from its body.
When a dog has a fever, its fuel intake should be increased by three calories per pound of body weight for each degree of elevated temperature. This can be done quite easily by adding corn oil to the diet. Each teaspoonful of corn oil equals 45 calories. Corn oil also helps to improve the palatability of most foods to which it is added, a decided advantage in dogs with a fever, since their appetite is almost always poor.
Fevers of prolonged duration result in a loss of body protein as well as energy consumption. The protein being lost can be replaced by adding three ounces of cottage cheese or one hard-boiled egg to every pound of canned food or every tour ounces of dry food. Except for the addition of corn oil, feed a dog with a fever the same as you would feed it when it has no fever. The extra calories needed should be taken into consideration when the quantity to be fed is calculated.
The addition of extra energy should begin as soon as the fever is noticed. Any time a fever persists tor longer than three days, protein replacement should be started, too. As soon as your dog's temperature has returned to normal the extra energy and protein can be discontinued.
In most cases a fever is caused by an infection from some microorganism. When it is a bacteria, the routine treatment includes a course of antibiotics. The use of antibiotics, especially the oral forms, may also produce a need for a dietary change.
All of the bacteria in a dog are not harmful. Indeed, some of them are highly beneficial. Among this latter group are the bacteria normally living in a dog's intestines. These bacteria produce several vitamins essential to the dog. The most important of these are the B-complex vitamins. Large amounts of B-complex vitamins utilized by healthy dogs come from the bacteria living within those dog's intestines.
When antibiotic therapy is instituted to help your dog's body destroy a bacterium that is attacking it, many of the innocent, helpful bacteria may also fall victim. With a reduced population of normal bacteria, production of needed vitamins will fall, and vitamin deficiencies may be created. Such deficiencies are more serious during infections since many of the vitamins are essential to healing and tissue repair.
To insure that adequate amounts of vitamins are available to your dog during infections, the water-soluble vitamins should be added to your dog's diet at MDR levels. Also, one gram of brewer's yeast for every ten pounds of a dog's weight will replace the B-complex vitamins and serve as an appetite stimulant, as well.