This research project aims to investigate different duration of antibiotic treatment in cases of canine pyelonephritis (bacterial kidney infection). Currently, no scientific veterinary data is available on the ideal duration of antibiotic treatment for pyelonephritis. In human medicine, pyelonephritis is usually treated with a short course of antibiotics (between 5 and 14 days). Due to the lack of current literature on the subject, veterinarians currently treat pyelonephritis with a 4-6 week course of antibiotics. A traditional 6-week course of antibiotics will be compared to a newer recent recommendation of a 2-week treatment. If the results of this study are in concordance with our hypothesis, it will dramatically change the treatment of pyelonephritis and significantly decrease exposure to antibiotics. This decreased exposure will lower the risk of multi-resistant bacteria which in turn will also improve global human health by decreased exposure to multi-resistant bacteria.

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