Is 100mg doxycycline enough for my 80lb dog with ehrlichiosis?

Hello and thank you for contacting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. The recommended dose of doxycycline for Lyme disease is 20mg/lb once daily, so Joey should be taking around 200mg a day. Rarely doxycycline is used at higher doses or more frequently than once every 24hrs. Please, get in touch with your local vet to discuss the treatment as it sounds that the dose should be slightly adjusted.

Yes it sounds right. It seems Olivia is affected by Ehrlichia Canis (transmitted by ticks). At the moment she has high temperature. The doxycycline (antibiotics) needs to be given eventually for longer periods (3 weeks) if infection is particularly persistent. Treatment plan seems right. Please let us know if you have further questions and let us know how she is getting on.

Hello. I wonder if perhaps the labels were mixed up. Normally, Doxycycline would be prescribed at 5-10 mg/kg ( 136-272 mg ) every 12 - 24 hours & the niacinamide 500 mg every 8 hours. Now if your vet actually sent home tetracycline, then the dose would be 500 mg every 8 hours. But if the Doxycycline was substituted for the Tetracycline, then the total dose should be less. I would definitely double check this with your veterinarian as soon as possible. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

The prognosis can be good if the disease is mild and her platelet count is normal. If this is the case then antibiotics and Tick medication is the treatment and may be about $200-300 with testing depending on your area. If then blood work is bad and shows a low platelet count and she is sick from it, than it can take longer to treat and may require hospitalization which can get more expensive. You vet can start with an exam and blood work and give you a better estimate for treatment from there

This could indicate that all dogs are infected. I suspect Obi was never cleared of the bacteria. It is more likely that all dogs were exposed to the same tick population and that is how they all got infected versus one dog infecting the rest. I recommend contacting your veterinarian and discussing if they would like to put all your dogs on the full 30 day course of doxycycline at this point.

Yes, that is basically all you can do now other than only leash walking so she does not get too excited and gets her blood pressure up and gets another nose bleed. While it looks like a lot of blood is lost, there is not and your dog will be fine. Just make sure she takes her doxycycline (or other medication prescribed) for the prescribed period and she should be fine.

Hello and thank you for your post! I am sorry to hear that Spock has ehrlichia. This disease is treatable and can be cured. However, you should know that the test most veterinary clinics use is a snap test to detect antibodies against ehrlichia. If you are going back in 3 weeks to have this same test performed, Spock will likely continue to show a positive result. This is because his body has made antibodies against ehrlichia. If he had a previous infection and ehrlichia is not causing any of these symptoms, he will still show positive on this SNAP test so if you are going in to have the same SNAP test performed I would have your veterinarian send out a tick fever PCR test to the laboratory. This will detect DNA to ehrlichia and not antibodies. If Spock is positive on the PCR, it means that he has a current active infection. If you do not know if Spock has ever had your licio previously, I would still treat this with Doxycycline for 4 to 6 weeks total treatment time. I hope this helps, please feel free to contact me with any further questions or concerns you may have. I am also available via consultation