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My dog takes antibiotics. Will they damage organs or shorten life?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | German Shepherd | Male | unneutered | 3 years and 5 months old

medicine like antibiotics pills & other pills for infection really has adverse affect on organ such as kidney or liver &can damage them? My friend GSD is 1.5yrs old & my is 3.5 yrs when my dog was of his age since then he is having issues related to skin such as fungal &bacterial infection for which he used to take Augmentin 650mg sometimes clindamycin for twice daily for 15 days then he had tick fever & took doxycycline but my friend dog never take such medicines will my dog lifespan reduce?

2 Answers

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Dr. Strydom, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on May 27th, 2019

I believe we have repeatedly answered this question for you. There only a tiny, remote chance for those medications to cause liver damage or shorten the lifespan unless the dog already had an underlying liver problem. Your are worrying about this unnecessarily.

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Other Answers

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    Answered By Linda G, MS, DVM

    Veterinarian

    Published on April 11th, 2019

    Hello. If the proper dose of a medication is given to a pet & proper monitoring is done, then there should be no adverse effects on any of the internal organs or life span. However, incorrectly treating a condition is also not doing your pet any favors. Treating an infection over & over again means either some diagnosis is being missed, or your pet is being treated inappropriately. It sounds like Bruno may have an underlying allergic or immune mediated condition, & unless the underlying or primary condition is controlled, all the antibiotics in the world will not help him. It may be time to ask for a referral to either a veterinary specialist in dermatology or internal medicine to find out why Bruno continually needs antibiotics. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

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