Principales hábitos de medicación por los propietarios de caninos que acuden a consulta veterinaria en Pasto, Nariño, Colombia

The main objective of this work is determining the habits of medication in dogs by the owners before the veterinary consultation, and to classify the drugs used by pharmacological group. A study of drug use was performed by means of a questionnaire sent to 196 owners in six veterinary clinics. In 95% of owners, medication habits were evidenced before medical consultation. In 6.4% of cases, administered medication to pets did not match with the final diagnosis issued by the veterinarian, since the pathology derived from another system. 63% opted for using mouth for giving medication. The two pharmaceutical forms most used were liquid (55.91%) and solid (32.8%). The most used pharmacological group was the non-steroidal analgesics (24.73%). According to the drug-dose-frequency-pathology correlation, 98% of owners did not administer medications properly. The findings are: the owners medicate their pets without veterinary doctor recommendation, most of them do it with products which are not approved for being used in dogs, and doses used are incorrect and do not take into account the frequency of administration.