How Much Aspirin Can I Give My 5 pound Dog?

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My dog got injured by another dog and is lame now and having a problem walking.
She is eating and I want to give her aspirin to relieve the pain, until I can get her to a vet as it is a holiday weekend.
How much aspirin can I give my dog that weighs 5 lb?

Answer

Hello !

Dogs may suffer from painful injuries or other conditions. These canine health problems can be medicated for a short time with aspirin, which helps to soothe pain, decrease fever and inflammation.
Vets do not recommend it nowadays anymore, because there are much safer, dog-specific painkillers available.

ASPIRIN MUST NOT BE GIVEN TO PUPPIES, VERY YOUNG DOGS OR TO CATS, because they lack the enzyme needed to process aspirin and will be easily poisoned!

Always ask your vet first before you give any medication to your dog!

Aspirin should only be used in the short-term and only in the correct dosage. Only, because aspirin is a commonly used drug and considered safe to humans, it can still cause serious side-effects in pets, if used over a longer period of time and/or in a too high dosage.

For dogs a dosage of 5 – 10mg per lb of bodyweight (and less than this for small dogs) given not more than twice daily with food is tolerable. You should always give first the lowest dose and only increase it, if necessary.

Please, keep in mind that aspirin will cause poisoning at 30 mg per lb (less for small dogs)! This means practically, that an aspirin tablet for an adult (contains 320 mg) would poison a dog weighing 10 lb.

So, for your small, 5 lb dog (that is hopefully not a puppy/very young dog), the recommended dosage would start at probably 2-3 mg per lb (= 10–15 mg), which would be about an 8th of a baby-aspirin (80 mg) given every 12 hours.

As you see, this can be fairly “fiddly”, crushing a baby-aspirin tablet into eight equal parts. This is therefore one of the reasons, I would rather ask you to find an emergency clinic/vet on call and ask them to prescribe a more suitable and safer pain medication for your pet!)

Also, don't use enteric coated aspirin tablets in dogs, because they will pass through the stomac and cannot be processed and will cause most likely side effects.

Signs of side effects are lethargy, poor appetite, vomiting (sometimes with “coffee ground” like particles = sign of bleeding in the stomach or stomach ulcers), black faeces (tar-like), kidney failure.

If you see any of these symptoms you need to stop giving aspirin immediately and seek veterinary help.

Best Wishes

Dr.Ellen Schmidt, MRCVS

This is only educational advice. It is based on the depth of your question and the picture you submitted. The above answer cannot replace the advice of your local veterinarian, as he / she has the ability to evaluate your pet in person.