Answer

Hi Draco,
Has your dog been diagnosed by a skin scraping? Scabies is not a common skin parasite. However,Ivermectin is the first thing I use to treat scabies. The usual concentration available is a 1% solution, which is 10 milligrams per ml, not 1 milligram per ml. Since it can be toxic, is is very important to get the dosing correct. The only available formulations are the liquid preparation for cattle, a paste for horses (do NOT use this in dogs), and the ivermectin in the monthly heartworm preventatives, like Heartgard and Iverhart.

Again, you have to be careful with the dosage; I always triple check myself because is it easy to get to dosage wrong, and overdosage with ivermectin is potentially very serious, even fatal. The dose is 300 micrograms ( not milligrams; a microgram is 1/1000 of a milligram) per 2.2 pounds. Like I said, a lot of math, a lot of decimels; easy to get the dose wrong. So, a 22 pound dogs gets 300 times 10 is 3000 micrograms, or 3 milligrams, which is 3/10 of an ml of the 1% liquid. This is less than one drop, and must be measured very carefully and accurately. If your dog is less than 22 pounds, you do the math: your dogs weight, divided by 2.2, times 300, divided by 1000, and that is the number of milligrams you want to give. It is given by mouth (tastes terrible) once every 7 to 10 days, usually 3 treatments does it. You also have to clean up any bedding, etc, that the parasites might be hiding in, to prevent reinfection. Again, not every itchy dog has Scabies, so you want to be 100% sure that is what you are dealing with before you use a drug like ivermectin. Please be very careful with the dosing, if you are going to try this at home. Good luck, Rebecca

Expert:	RebeccaVet
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Answered:	12/12/2008

Dog Veterinarian

23 years of companion animal practice, with interests in internal medicine and behavior