Can I give my cat Doxycycline for a UTI? Is it safe and what dose?

This is a great question. Doxycycline falls into the category of antibiotics called tetracyclines. Other tetracyclines- namely oxytetracycline- are shown to disturb bone and teeth developement in fetal skeletons or in young growing animals. Doxycycline is MUCH less likely to do this than other tetracyclines. Even so, the formulary recommends considering the risks and benefits before prescribing. Though I don’t routinely give this to kittens (I prefer clavamox) I do often give it to puppies. I have not yet seen or heard of a case of abnormal bone developement with doxycycline in kittens or puppies - but it could theoretically happen. In my opinion, doxycycline is a great drug for upper respiratory infections in cats- especially in a shelter situation which may not have the labor, funding, or storage abilities of my suburban clinic. I also feel that - especially in a shelter situation - the benefits far outweigh the risks. I am far more worried about a kitten in a shelter dying from complications from a URI than I am about the minuscule chance of affecting bone development. Of course, if your shelter had plenty of liquid clavamox and people to administer it, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to switch the young ones to something like that. Hope this helped clarify some things! Thank you for all you do!

Thank you for contacting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach with your question about Mia, but unfortunately we are not allowed to give specific dose information for a pet in regards to a medication. That would be like prescribing the medication to the pet, which is illegal without seeing her in person. It's also against the user terms of the site. This dose information can only be obtained from the vet who prescribed the doxycycline for Mia, and I would speak to her vet to get that information. Best of luck.

I would hold off on giving any antibiotics and wait to be seen by the veterinarian. When you get there, I would recommend having her blood tested, urine tested and have possible x-rays done of her abdomen as a baseline. I hope this helps and hope Eesha gets better soon! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

Hi there. I can't legally advise you to give a prescription medication to any pet without an exam. But, in general, I can tell you that there should not be any problem with using doxycycline in a cat that also happens to have tapeworms. The tapeworms do not affect the medication one way or the other.

Hi there and thank you for using pet coach to address your concern. In regards to the test results, I would contact your vet to find out what the results were. For the cats you havestarted on doxycycline, the respiratory symptoms may not be due to a bacterial infection but rather a viral infection, in which case, an antibiotic won't treat if it is purely a viral infection. Sure it will treat secondary bacterial infections that may be going on as a result of the primary viral but I wouldn't rely on an antibiotic solely to treat this. I recommend using lysine supplementation. Many times in kittens, they pick up the herpes virus from the mother. Lysine works by lessening the severity and possibly shortening the duration of a herpes viral infection. Duralactin with Lysine is the supplement I recommend to help treat the infection which can be found online. If the infection worsens, a nebulizer may help and sometimes antibiotics are nebulized in severe cases. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Do not medicate your pet without the advice of your veterinarian. Inappropriate antibiotic use can lead to resistant bacteria and may complicate the underlying condition. If Rupert does have a UTI, the nitrofurantoin will have no effect if the bacteria is not susceptible. A urinalysis and culture will confirm infection and identify the responsible organism as well as the best antibiotic to use in treatment.

What seems to be UTI in cats are in 99% of the time a condition which is actually a bladder inflammation, it's not an infection and for this reason it is not treated with antibiotics. it is treated with special prescription diet for urinary problems, anti inflammatories and other supplements such as Cystophan. the cause of this condition is usually due to stress, so you might want to check this out as well.