[Marvel]

What is your favorite/easiest method of giving medication to your dog?

Quill gets two capsules of fluoxetine a night, and we tried EVERYTHING when we started, but had no luck. He's too smart and quickly figures out there is a pill hidden in there. It varies depending on what we tuck it in, but in the end, he always figures it out. Pill pockets (of different brands and flavors), hot dogs, salami, cheese, soft dog treats, sausage, make your own PB pill pockets. I even tried a piece of marshmallow after some random google brought up the idea. Pill pockets worked the best. For about a week we were able to give it to him, then he started picking them apart and now he is weary of them.

The only method we have had luck with is opening his mouth and placing a glob of peanut butter with the pills in it far enough back on his tongue he can't work the pills out of it. He gets his all time favorite treat right after, so he has no issues with it whatsoever.

However, this method won't work next week when we're gone because I highly doubt he'll tolerate anyone else besides my SO and I opening his mouth and doing this. :doh: But I have NO idea how to get him his pills otherwise. Any thoughts?

 

[makenna]

I make pill "treats" for Chisum. He gets AM pills - paroxetine and clonidine - and a PM pill of clonidine. He started to get wise to me hiding the pills, and it was just too much work anyway.

I bought gummy bear molds from amazon, and I'll put his pill dosage inside of each empty bear. Then I make up a mixture of equal parts coconut oil and peanut butter, with just a pinch of cinnamon. Melt it together and dropper it into each bear. Freeze the molds until the bears are solid, and then store them in a jar in the fridge so they don't melt.

He LOVES them. He really eats them so fast he doesn't have time to debate whether or not there's a pill in there.

 

[Jen2010]

I bought gummy bear molds from amazon, and I'll put his pill dosage inside of each empty bear. Then I make up a mixture of equal parts coconut oil and peanut butter, with just a pinch of cinnamon. Melt it together and dropper it into each bear. Freeze the molds until the bears are solid, and then store them in a jar in the fridge so they don't melt.

I like this idea!

My dogs will eat anything so it's pretty easy for me to just jam them in a piece of cheese and they'll eat it. The really small pills I can just add to the top of their kibble meal and they'll eat those too without noticing.

 

[Shell]

Glob of greek yogurt. Tasty and easy to swallow without chewing and perhaps biting into a pill and getting that yucky pill taste.

 

[Marvel]

Oooh I like the homemade pill treat idea...Maybe I'll have to test that out!

It isn't so much that he's biting into it. Even with things that he normally gobbles up with minimal chewing, he'll lick it off and leave the pills behind. He just seems to figure out that there are pills and he finds one way or another that he can spit them out. That's the problem with the pill pouches. He loves the taste so there is minimal chewing before he swallows them, and then suddenly he's figured out something is in there and nibbles pieces off of them, leaving behind the treats.

He used to love food so much he would eat anything super quickly, but in the last year food has become less important to him. He still LOVES special treats, but not enough to be tricked!

 

[CptJack]

Honestly, Molly's so used to it, I say "Molly, come get your pill." She comes, I open her mouth and drop it at the back of her throat and she swallows and carries on.

The other dogs I wrap it in cheese, or, sometimes feed some without a pill, then the one with, then more without.

 

[CptJack]

And now, having properly read your post:

I'd have them mix it with a spoon or two of canned food or something and leave it in a bowl.

I would not, however, freak if he doesn't get it for a couple of days. It's not ideal but it's not terrible.

 

[Lillith]

Can you grind them up and put them in wet food or is that frowned upon?

I can't offer any advice as to what to put them in, because my dog has no problem with pills. He can't be bothered to eat around them. But when we started and I didn't know how he would take pills I would freeze little globs of peanut butter with pills inside so he basically just swallowed it.

 

[Canyx]

I second the canned food trick. Maybe even get some canned cat food and hide the pill in a couple dollops of that. My dogs will just about anything and I usually look in the fridge for something safe and easy (yogurt, tortilla wrapper, bread, cheese, meat, etc.). What I'm doing right now for probiotic pills is I put a TINY sliver of cheese whiz on it and down it goes.

One thing that I find helps is having a chaser. The harder medication to get down my dogs was an antibiotic powder (tylan) that's very bitter. I would make a canned food slurry but when I was out of canned food, I made a tiny 'burrito' with the powder in it. Even Soro-the-pig will spit out something with tylan if he can taste it, so I would give him the burrito and then immediate offer 2 pieces of tortilla (or other treat) with nothing on it. I use chasers for shelter dogs too. They get so excited for the next treat that they swallow what they have more quickly

 

[Marvel]

We did try chasers, but no luck! We always treat with his favorite treats right after. He really takes his time to pick out those pills if they are there, though. I don't even know how he knows half the time, but he knows!

I'll try the wet food, but even with wet food he is usually excited on day one and by day two it is "boring" (we tried wet food to spice up his kibbles when he wasn't eating...worked on day one, by day two it was meh). That's good to hear CptJack...I find of was wondering how bad it would be if he misses a few days and figured it probably wouldn't be that horrible. If they can even trick him to eat it once or twice, great! It isn't as if it is a life or death medication.

Quill takes them SO willingly as a force fed glob of peanut butter because he LOVES his treat he gets after...but a huge part of that is the "force fed" and therefore unable to spit it out part.

 

[MarieLovesChis]

I usually crush them and then add it to something strong and tasty. Green lipped mussel powder mixed with some water to create a gravy usually works. As an added bones, she already takes green lipped mussel powder daily anyway. If the pill can't be crushed or it is just too nasty for food to mask it, I simply put the pill and any tasty food item in her mouth at the same time and hold her muzzle until she swallows. Usually doesn't take more than a couple of seconds because she wants the food. Pill always ends up going down with the food.

 

[makenna]

I tested out the treats sans pills for awhile to make sure that Chisum liked them - I don't think he even realizes there's a pill in there

Missing the dose for a couple of days shouldn't be too bad, but I wouldn't go for too long or he could start going through withdrawal. I take an SSRI myself and have missed a few days - the results are not fun.

 

[Marvel]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I decided to try wet dog food with a bit of water frozen into a tiny cube. For now at least it is a success (just did a tester for the afternoon before putting all his pills for the week in them), so we'll see if it can last the whole week while I'm gone (or at least get pills in him for a few days before he figures it out!). I also made some without pills so I'm hoping maybe they can give those as an occasional treat to try to throw him off the trail ha!

I figure I'll give him his pills Monday afternoon before I leave, so it will only be 6 days of needing them to give them so I have six pre-frozen wet food ice cubes.