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Abstract Background Awareness of prescribing practices helps identify opportunities to improve antibiotic use (AU). Objectives To estimate AU prevalence in dogs and cats in U.S. veterinary teaching hospitals (VTHs) and identify antibiotic drugs commonly prescribed, indications for use, and evidence of bacterial infection. Animals Medical record data were collected from dogs and cats examined at 14 VTHs. Methods Data were collected from VTH medical records of dogs and cats examined by primary care, urgent care, emergency and critical care, internal medicine, and surgery services on a single day during August 13‐September 3, 2020. Data included signalment; clinical service; inpatient or outpatient status; clinical conditions; diagnostic tests; evidence of bacterial infection; intended reason for AU; name and route of antibiotics prescribed. Results Of 883 dogs and cats, 322 (36.5%) were prescribed at least 1 antibiotic. Among 285 antibiotics administered systemically intended for treatment of infection, 10.9% were prescribed without evidence of infection. The most common class of antibiotics presribed for systemic administration was potentiated penicillin for dogs (115/346, 33.3%) and cats (27/80, 33.8%). For dogs and cats, first‐generation cephalosporins (93/346, 26.9% and 11/80, 13.8%, respectively) and fluoroquinolones (51/346, 14.7% and 19/80, 23.8%, respectively) was second or third most‐prescribed. Common AU indications included skin, respiratory, and urinary conditions, and perioperative use. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Collaborative data collection provides a sustainable methodology to generate national AU prevalence estimates and bring attention to areas requiring additional research and detailed data collection. These efforts can also identify practice improvement opportunities in settings where future veterinarians are trained.

Background: Widespread antimicrobial use in dogs and cats drives antimicrobial resistance in both animals and humans. Knowledge of the factors associated with antimicrobial use is limited in veterinary medicine. We examined factors associated with antimicrobial drug prescription among inpatient dogs and cats at an academic veterinary hospital. Methods: A veterinary-adapted observational medical outcomes partnership common data model was utilized to extract demographic, clinical, and prescription data from the electronic medical record system in this descriptive observational study. Using generalized estimating equations, we assessed the association between demographic and clinical factors and systemic antimicrobial drug prescription among inpatient dogs and cats at a small-animal teaching hospital between 2018 and 2020. Results: Across 11,685 dogs with 14,328 admissions (mean age, 7.4 years; 47% females), the following factors were associated with increased odds of any antimicrobial drug prescription: female, longer admission, a history of chemotherapy within 30 days of hospital admission, surgery upon admission or within the last 30 days, urinary catheterization, ICU admission, and oxygen support. In 3,371 cats with 4,088 admissions (mean age, 8.6 years; 39% females), the following factors were associated with increased odds of any antimicrobial drug prescription: female, longer admission, increased age (>8 years), admission into the ICU, surgery upon admission, and feline that did not require oxygen support or urinary catheterization. Conclusions: This study identifies multiple patient and clinical factors associated with increased risk of antimicrobial drug use in inpatient dogs and cats that can inform veterinary antimicrobial stewardship efforts and may be useful for antimicrobial use benchmarking on an institutional or multi-institutional scale.