Expert: Dr. Louis N. Gotthelf - 3/9/2007

Question
In October my 16 year old dog had an ear infection and they put her on Cephalexin 500mg  she took this for 4 weeks
then one day she could not use her hind legs, she could hardly hold her head up and she could not control her body functions.  I had to put her to sleep.  Then for some reason I started to research this drug and I feel it caused her death.

Answer
At 16 years I would think of some type of metabolic disease present rather than the cephalexin causing her death.  I use cephalexin like water in my practice and I rarely see any type of reaction.  Occasionally a dog will vomit on it and I will take the dog off of cephalexin.