Is your dog having car sickness? And found out that Benadryl can help your dog feel better? Well, the answer is YES. Benadryl can be used for car sickness, allergies and anxiety for your dogs. But it’s important to talk to a veterinarian first before giving it to your pets, since you need to apply the right amount of dosage based on the size, age and health of your dog. It’s safe to give Benadryl to your dogs but there are things that you should keep in mind before dosing your pet.
Before everything else, you need to know what’s inside Benadryl and how does it work? Let me explain it to you.
What Is Benadryl?
Benadryl have been used by humans to relieve from allergies, colds and fever. In addition to that, it helps prevent vomiting, motion sickness and dizziness. The same thing applies to your dogs. It’s an antihistamine that helps block H-1 Receptors on blood vessels and smooth muscles. Your dog’s body still produces histamines, but it’s already blocked, which means it can’t get through the body that causes allergic reactions.
It’s a great and safe medication for your dogs, if it’s suffering from food allergies, seasonal allergies, insect bites and environmental allergies. It helps treat your dogs skin allergies and other symptoms such as coughing, redness, sneezing, anaphylactic reaction, runny nose, hives, itching, inflammation and swelling. It usually takes 30minutes to take effect, so before travel you can give your dog Benadryl to make it feel comfortable throughout the journey.
Whenever you travel with your dog, it’s ideal to bring your pet kit together with Benadryl, since it can easily be bought over-the-counter. Now, you can rest your head anywhere you want to go, even in long hours.
Benadryl Side Effects
It’s the side effects of Benadryl that treats your dog’s anxiety. The diphenhydramine makes your dog feel drowsy, which makes your dog feel calm and prevent motion sickness while on the road or plane rides.
Uncommon Side Effects:
- Breathing Problems
- Diarrhea
- Dry Mouth
- Vomiting
- Rapid Heartbeat
- Lack-Of-Appetite
- Urinary Retention (Won’t Pee)
- Sedation
- Hypersalivation
Once your dog experience these uncommon side effects, then you should check with your vet.
Things To Consider When Using Benadryl On Dogs
Avoid Combinations
If your dog have been experiencing other sickness, don’t just give your pet a combination of meds. Ask a veterinarian for proper medication for other illness. Make sure when you use Benadryl, you won’t mix it with other medications.
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Puppies are like human babies, they aren’t fully developed yet. It’s not ideal to give them certain amount of dosage without a veterinarian’s approval. These pups have small body, so it’s probably gonna need small dosage.
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Some Benadryl may have sodium ingredient, which can be harmful to your dog. Make sure you take time to look at the ingredients to make sure sodium isn’t present, especially if you are buying from children version Benadryl.
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Dogs that has health conditions like cardiovascular disease, glaucoma, prostate disease, hyperthyroidism and etc. Make sure you talk to a veterinarian before giving Benadryl to your dog. Their health conditions may complicate your dog’s health, especially if they are taking other medications.
What’s The Right Amount Dosage For Your Dog?
Before giving anything to your dog, it’s important to apply the dosage based on the size and age of your dog. Below I made three categories that will help you know which ones applies for your dog.
- 30lbs & smaller – 10mg/dose
- 30-50lbs – 25mg/dose
- 50lbs – 50mg/dose
If you want to be precise, you can give 1mg dose per 1lb weight. To give you an example, if your dog weighs 33pound then it should get 33mg dosage.
When it comes to dosing frequency, you can ask a veterinarian but the usual dosage per day is 3x a day or every 8hours. That really depends on your travel time.
An alternative way and natural way is to condition your dog to travel. When it gets used to car drive you won’t deal with car sickness or anxiety during car travel anymore. Introduce your pet to new places, train your pet to keep calm in different aspects from eating it’s food, walkies, going out of the car and etc.
Training your dog will make them think that you are in control all the time, so whatever situation you are in, it’s surely gonna follow your command. You can train your dog yourself, since there are a lot of successful training videos available online. You can also take your pet for dog training. Training helps prevent anxiety the natural way. Unless, you don’t have the time. You can always resort to Benadryl. Just make sure your pet is not taking any meds and apply the right dosage.
4 Tips On How To Give Your Dog Benadryl
Test It
The first thing that you should do is to give a test dose. Try to give your dog a small dose and observe after an hour or two. Check if you see any reactions or side effects.
Take Benadryl with Food
Just in case your dog experience the loss of appetite. It’s ideal to feed your dog before giving Benadryl.
Break Pill To Chunks and Mix with Meat
Your dog won’t swallow the whole pill unless you force it to. The best thing to do is to break it into chunks, mix it with real food and feed it to your dog. As a dog owner, you should know what your dog loves to eat. But most dogs love meat.
Benadryl Liquid Gel
You can just add Benadryl liquid form to your dog’s wet food.
When Do You Need To Call A Veterinarian?
Overdose
There are signs when your dog is overdosed with Benadryl and it can be fatal. Watch over for these signs: Agitation, Constipation,Rapid Heartbeat, Seizures and Dilated Pupils.
Allergic Reaction
Your dog may have allergic reaction to Benadryl, if you see these symptoms, you should seek for a vet immediately.
Rare Side-Effects
Vomiting, increase appetite, diarrhea and decreased appetite. if you see these rare side effects after an hour or four hours after your dog has taken Benadryl, then you should seek help from a vet.
Final Thoughts
There’s a lot of reasons why your dog can experience anxiety and these are the common reasons, separation, fear and old age. Benadryl can help prevent their anxiety but it’s always recommended to train your dog and let them understand, in how they should act properly in certain situations. Car rides can make them feel excited, which leads to anxiety.
Which is why it’s important to train them, so they will be able to understand and take control of their reactions, once they experience new situation.