Antihistamine – this helps to limit the reaction to stings and snake bites and is easy to immediately achieve. The drug of choice is Chlorphenamine – marketed most commonly as Piriton 4mg tablets (other brands are available!!). As a rough guide, in an emergency, dogs under 20kg can have one 4mg tablet and dogs over 20 kg two 4mg tablets.

Pain relief. For this in the field we use paracetamol as it is safe and effective. The dose to give is based on 10mg of paracetamol for every kilogram of weight. Every 12 hours. So for a 50kg dog that’s a whole 500mg tablet. A 25kg dog – half a tablet. 12kg dog – quarter of a tablet.