Hello - I have a black lab, who is approximately 11 years old. She has developed a limp on her right paw which I believe is from arthritis as when I touch the right leg and paw there is no sign of an injury or pain when touching. We have a vet appointment but we are unable to get her in till this Friday due to work schedules. I was wondering if I can dose with baby aspirin until the vet appointment to help relieve the pain. I did a quick search on google and found a lot of conflicting information. Some sites say you can others say it's dangerous. Hoping someone here can shed some light on the subject. Thanks in advance!
No, please don't use any human pain medications on dogs - you can cause catastrophic organ failures... And with an 11yo dog, you also don't know the state of their liver or kidneys before giving them drugs to process. (Vets will often do a blood test before prescribing pain meds to elderly dogs for that reason.) The only non-prescription canine pain med, is Pardale. Which should be in everyone's medicine box! But you would need to order this online from a pet pharmacy so it's unlikely to help. Really, you will need to rest her and try to apply hold or cold compresses to the area.
Pardale is the same as human co cocodamol except pardale is 9/400 and cocodamol is 8 /500 - and pardale is more expensive. Id still be heading to the vets myself.
Thanks for the advice. We ended up staying away from OTC meds and did the hot and cold compress until we got her into a vet to be checked out. She is now on prescription meds and is doing better.
