Pet Medication Dose Calculator

Multiply body weight by the prescribed rate in mg/kg to get milligrams, then divide by the product's concentration in mg/ml to get the volume. A 12 kg animal at 15 mg/kg needs 180 mg, which is 1.5 ml of a 120 mg/ml product.

Because the same drug is sold at several strengths. A dose calculated for one concentration and given from another bottle can be several times too much, and the bottle looks identical.

No — weigh it. A 10% error in weight is a 10% error in dose, which matters most for small animals where the margin between effective and toxic is narrowest.

Not without veterinary advice. Several common human medicines are toxic to cats and dogs at any dose, and some are metabolised so differently that the human dose rate is meaningless.

An oral syringe marked in millilitres. Kitchen spoons vary enormously and are not a measuring instrument — the difference between a level and a heaped teaspoon can be a doubling.

Follow the prescriber's instruction rather than doubling up. Doubling a dose to catch up is the most common way a safe medication becomes an overdose.

Weigh yourself holding the animal and subtract your own weight, or use a kitchen scale with a container for very small animals. Estimating is where most dosing errors start.

Milligrams of drug per kilogram of body weight. It is the standard way doses are prescribed because the required amount scales with the animal, not with the species.

Cats lack some liver enzymes dogs have, so several drugs safe for dogs accumulate to toxic levels in cats. Paracetamol is the well-known example and it is lethal at small doses.

Only where the tablet is scored and the drug is not modified-release or enteric-coated. Splitting an unscored tablet gives unpredictable halves, and splitting a coated one destroys what the coating was for.

Contact a vet or an animal poison line immediately with the drug name, strength and amount given. Do not induce vomiting unless specifically told to — for some substances it makes things worse.

As the label states, and reconstituted liquid antibiotics usually need refrigeration and have a short shelf life. Out-of-date liquid medication can be both ineffective and unsafe.