Can You Give CBD to Your Dog After Surgery?

What is the best medication for dogs after surgery? Experts have suggested CBD medication to treat your canine because it has a lot of benefits and helps your pet recover quickly.

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After the dogs get surgery, they will be in pain, anxious, stressed, and cannot eat. Sometimes, they could become so aggressive that it can be perilous for them or anyone around them. Furthermore, it needs time to recover, and the length of recovery differs depending on the surgery type. Therefore, the pet owners try to find medication to help with the dog’s post-surgery problems. Pet experts or veterinarians have recommended CBD medications for post-surgery treatment. CBD medication has a lot of benefits and would help the dog in the recovery process.

What is CBD?

Hemp or cannabis tincture.
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Cannabidiol or CBD is a chemical found in marijuana. When people hear the word marijuana, they will think of it as a drug that has a high psychoactive ingredient that detrimentally affects the health; however, CBD does not contain this chemical called tetrahydrocannabinol. Therefore, it is safe for your health. From research, CBD treats many conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and anxiety. Also, CBD is good for dogs’ health because it has anti-inflammatory properties, cardiac benefits, anti-nausea effects, appetite stimulation, and other anti-cancer benefits. However, the benefit is still limited, and there are risks if you do not take it with the correct dosage or prescription from the doctor.

A Guide to Caring for Your Dog Post-Surgery

Knowing how to care for your dog after surgery will help your canine friend recover quickly. Your dog can either have a spay or neuter or any other kind of surgery; therefore, you should ask for instructions from the vets on how to take care of them. Since your canine is still in pain after the surgery, they will feel anxious, hurt, and have no appetite. Therefore, you need to find a way to treat them and get them recovered as soon as possible. Thus, finding the best treatment products or medication would be the way to treat them. Giving your furry friend CBD products would help. Your dog would feel less pain when given CBD treatment to it.

Furthermore, you can add CBD into the food so that it would help with your pet’s appetite. Wounded pets need energy and nutrients to recover, so if they can eat more, they will get better as fast as possible. CBD oil also helps with anti-anxiety, so your dog would keep calm and not feel irritated and aggressive because of the stitches and the pain. CBD medication will also help with healing the bones faster if they take the proper dosage

Dosage or Prescription

From the research, there is no specific amount of dosage that you can use CBD on the dogs. However, most pet owners use it based on the veterinarians' prescriptions. Sometimes, they need to give the dog a small amount first to monitor the reactions or any other possible risks.

Forms of Pet CBD Medication

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CBD can be in the form of CBD oil, and it does not contain delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is harmful to the dog's health. There are three different forms of CBD medication for pets. The most common one is CBD oil. It can be applied to the skin of dogs. The oil has the highest concentration in the blood and could stay there longer, and it has a better effect on the dogs. While the capsule and the cream have fewer positive effects when using it. However, it depends on the dog's lifestyle, so that you can consult with the veterinarians for the best form of CBD medication for your dog.

Aftermath Giving CBD to Dogs

No specific research shows how CBD affects dogs, especially post-surgery. However, based on the study, the cannabinoids interact with the endocannabinoid receptors in the center and peripheral nervous systems when taking in this chemical. The effect is that they help maintain balance in the body and allow their bodies to be healthy. Furthermore, after the surgery, the dogs tend to swell up and endure a lot of pain, so CBD had an anti-inflammatory that could calm the swell and reduce the pain from the wound.

Besides using it for treatment, medicine can also be dangerous if it’s overdosed. Since CBD is a kind of chemical used for medicine, some side effects include dry mouth, diarrhea, reduced appetite, drowsiness, and fatigue. In addition, giving too many doses of CBD to your dog will drop blood pressure and create a feeling of light-headedness. These side effects could happen to your dog if you do not give them to the vets as prescribed. The post-surgery dogs might be prone to these reactions because they are still wounded and not well.

Furthermore, from the study, there are some issues with the purity and the dosage of CBD in the products in which more than a quarter of the products contain less CBD than labeled, and some contain THC. Since the research does not show the safety or the risks of using CBD oil on dogs, the pet owner should take a closer look at how much they give to their dog and the effects after taking it. The most significant thing is to consult with the veterinarian first before using.

Suggested Products or Brands

Suggested Products or Brands - Happypetsilla
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There are different types of CBD products on the market; however, they have different qualities. For the best treatment, check for the best quality one so that you would not regret giving it to the dogs after surgery. When looking for high-quality products, look for something organic. As mentioned above, best quality products tend to have a high price, so invest in expensive products for a better result, rather than buying cheap products that contain toxic products where you lose money and harm the dog’s health. Furthermore, in each product, there is an ingredient part on the package; therefore, check and analyze those ingredients, especially if there’s any THC in the product. If there’s THC in the product and have less amount of CBD, do not use that product since THC is harmful. Furthermore, buy CBD products in liquid form, which could be an oil or tincture.

CBD products have a lot of benefits for dogs; therefore, more and more pet owners decided to buy pet products containing CBD. Since there are a lot of demands in front of the customers, CBD products are distributed and sold across the country; however, some are illegal and contain unapproved animal products from the FDA. Hence, in the US, they put action on permitting the “legal” product of hemp and CBD across the country. Furthermore, the FDA stated that there is no specific scientific proof about the effects of CBD and the ingredients used in the products. For instance, there’s a lawsuit against a Colorado-based CBD product manufacturer that produces CBD dog treats. There are also fines or criminal prosecution on that company for manufacturing and selling unapproved animal drugs on the market. The two warning letters the FDA sent to the company because of their violation included the unapproved new animal drugs and adulterated animal food products.

Based on the new rule, hemp or cannabis products must contain 0.3% or less THC, which must be submitted to USDA for approval. Furthermore, the company that produces CBD products must submit its plans to USDA to prevent violations. The plans need to have the details on where the plants grow, the protocol for inspection, testing on THC concentrations, and enforcement procedures for violating federal help laws. If the producers violate the three times within the five years, they will be banned from producing hemp for five years.


CBD is known as the best medication for post-surgery for your furry friend. It can reduce inflammation, stress, anxiety, and pain and increase appetite. However, there is no specific evidence of how many doses you can give your pet unless you ask for instructions from the vet. It will be dangerous if the dog does not receive the right dosage and high-quality products.

References

Bauer, B. (2020). CBD: Safe and effective?. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved 3 August 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/expert-answers/is-cbd-safe-and-effective/faq-20446700.

Navarro, A. (2022). Post-Surgical Treatment with Pet CBD. Canis Synergy. Retrieved 3 August 2022, from https://canissynergy.com/post-surgical-treatment-with-pet-cbd/.

Peters, A. (2020). Treating Your Dog with CBD. Healthline. Retrieved 3 August 2022, from https://www.healthline.com/health/cbd-for-dogs#conditions-and-uses.

American Kennel Club. (2021). Retrieved 3 August 2022, from https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/cbd-oil-dogs/.

JD Supra. 2019. FDA Cracks Down on Pet Products Containing CBD After USDA Clears Path for Hemp Production | JD Supra. [online] Available at: <https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/fda-cracks-down-on-pet-products-98779/> [Accessed 3 August 2022].

Kosecki, D. (2021). Should you give your pets CBD? It depends. CNET. Retrieved 3 August 2022, from https://www.cnet.com/health/nutrition/is-cbd-safe-for-pets/.