How To Get Your Dog To Take Pills

[Yonjuro]

For those that have troubles with getting their dog to take pills :) Probably won't work with all dogs

This is also a good training game for focus, it is worth investing some time in training so it is super easy if pills are required

Tips.

1. Use high value soft meaty treats

2. Throw a couple before hand if you need to

3. Break up tabs if too big.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Yonjuro

[westiemum]

Same here Snook - I have up to 4 pills buried in cheese that Mac can sniff out at 500 paces! Mac is a piggy too!!

[Yonjuro]

I have used mozzarella and that work great too, as you can squish it around a tablet :D

[Dame Aussie]

Mine just get them thrown down their throats. I'm a meanie :laugh:

[Yonjuro]

I haven't needed capsules, I wonder if you can squash the smaller ones and then wrap something around it. OR - get a cube of cheese and a chopstick or similar and make a hole in the cheese or even palony and then push the cap in.

[Staff'n'Toller]

I find tablets super easy but find it really hard to get cheese to stick to capsules. I can still do it but it seems to take an awful lot of cheese by comparison. Are there any foods that work really well with capsules?

Slade compounding pharmacy in melbourne make a tablet putty. I'm sure you could order in online with them. :)

I use cheese slices - the crappy processed ones that stick to each other - the 'real' ones are too dry.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Staff'n'Toller

[Yonjuro]

That's a hard situation Snook

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Would peanut paste or sardines in olive oil (or spring water) work - Snook.

My dog is pretty crap at catch. Sometimes she catches the treat and sometimes it just bounces off her head.

She's better than she was as a puppy but still not 100% reliable.

So I wrap the stinky tablets up in a coating of peanut paste - takes about half a teaspoon of smooth and then stuff that inside a piece of sardine. neither peanut or sardine work by themselves on a canex tablet - but the peanut seals the canex and the sardine makes it slippery enough to slide straight down no chewing.

Otherwise evil hound sort of sucks the peanut off and then spits the tablet out. Sardine by itself - just breaks the canex up and spreads the iky pink yukky ness. Hmm, maybe I should make a paste of that stuff and put it on her leg wound so she won't lick. Except then I will have icky pink mess everywhere she sits down - sigh.

She gets sentinel chews now so no tablet drama anymore. But I might have to figure out how to get sardines back in the diet more regularily without them.

With some of the small tablets - I only needed the peanut paste. Remember to check the jar for xylitol in case the American "sugar free" recipe crosses the pacific.

[ness]

Spoon of peanut butter??

[trifecta]

Snook, how about sticking a capsule in a chicken heart? I did this for fish oil capsules before they realised there was something yummy inside them :laugh:

[*kirty*]

Snook I melt a bit of cheese in the microwave then mould it around tablets. :)

[denali]

Mine just get them thrown down their throats. I'm a meanie :laugh:

Henry's too. Mind you his are only the flea and worm tablets. Maybe i'd be nicer if it was everyday.

But he is the master of spitting them out, so i dont even try hiding them anymore.

Just shove 'em down!

The others are smart (stupid?) enough to just eat it in the chicken/cheese/bacon or leftovers they're given.

[Xyz]

Those processed cheese triangles work well too! Very soft.

[JulesP]

Mine just get them thrown down their throats. I'm a meanie :laugh:

Henry's too. Mind you his are only the flea and worm tablets. Maybe i'd be nicer if it was everyday.

But he is the master of spitting them out, so i dont even try hiding them anymore.

Just shove 'em down!

The others are smart (stupid?) enough to just eat it in the chicken/cheese/bacon or leftovers they're given.

Amber has 3 lots of tablets daily. I just shove them down. :) She comes and sits and waits for the shoving so it obviously doesn't bother her too much.

[westiemum]

Peanut butter could work so long as it doesn't stick in his throat and make him lick or chew it. I'll give it a shot. Using a combo of peanut butter and sardines for 4-6 capsules twice a day might be a bit too much on the calorie front. Chicken hearts a pretty high in calories too so it would be fine for occasional use but I imagine it might be too much for the amount of have to give him.

I'll try a thinnish coating of peanut butter and plastic cheese and see if either one is more effective. :)

Snook thats a toughy but I find the cheap processed Home Brand cheese slices work best. The Coles brand ones are too brittle and don't mould anywhere near as well. I skilfully get up to four tablets at a time into a mound of cheese slice and then down the hatch it goes.

Mac needs Cisapride/ranitidine, doxycycline and his anti-convulsant twice a day, and then he has a gabapentin at night and a dose of loxicom in the morning. So the cheese slices are a life saver with this medication regime. To have to fight it twice a day, sometimes three times a day would be awful.

The trick is to artfully mould a ball of the stuff around the pills carefully so its covered. One slice here does about three or four doses. You get practiced at it - and then in Mac's case he sniffs the cheese and then down the hatch it goes, no grief , no stress.

ETA: Oh and don't be stingy with the cheese - it needs to be generously moulded around those slippery little things! The things we become good at!!

Edited August 16, 2015 by westiemum

[JulesP]

I just went and operated on a cheese Stringer to see if they might work. They were pretty easy to hollow out. I cut it in half and then hollowed it. Didn't squish back together super well but they are capsule shaped. Might be worth a go.

[Scottsmum]

I thank the gods above that Scottie is totally OK with a pill hidden in a mince ball.

Guin, my girl before Scott, was terrible - to the point where we spent more to have some of her meds mixed at a compounding chemist so we could just squirt it down her trap twice a day "for the rest of her life". It was worth every penny.

[Staff'n'Toller]

I find tablets super easy but find it really hard to get cheese to stick to capsules. I can still do it but it seems to take an awful lot of cheese by comparison. Are there any foods that work really well with capsules?

Slade compounding pharmacy in melbourne make a tablet putty. I'm sure you could order in online with them. :)

I use cheese slices - the crappy processed ones that stick to each other - the 'real' ones are too dry.

Hmmmm.. I've still got about three quarters of the capsules left but when he's due for a refill I'll ask the pharmacy if they can do some kind of tablet form instead. Thanks for the idea. The VB did say that once we have the optimal dosage worked out for Justice that she can write the prescription for a higher dosage so it requires less capsules to be given at once.

I might grab cheese slices tomorrow too and see how they go instead. :)

Yep, Slade do a tablet putty that I assume is quite salty, I think they do it because we used to have 'tablet pockets' for dogs and cats from Waltham's, but they stopped making them.

But Slade can pretty much make any medication into a flavoured something (tablet, syrup, transdermal). :laugh: They can also do multiple medications mixed together and flavoured, although they sometimes struggle with very bitter medicines.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

I reckon if you dipped the peanut pod in some olive oil - it wouldn't stick to the dog's mouth... Especially if the oil was sardine flavoured.

PS Corvus (I think it was Corvus) once suggested that you train your dog to eat the pill naked and receive a yummy reward straight after.

A bit like training a dog to be happy about claw trimming...

Edited August 16, 2015 by Mrs Rusty Bucket

[FHRP]

I use raw mince for tablets and capsules, sticks to both well. I line up about 3 balls with the tablet/s in the first one or two and feed them in quick succession so the dog gulps the first without finding the tablet/capsule and has one or two mince ball chasers :) They would easliy eat more if offered. I never throw the mince balls as I have four greedy dogs wanting the food and none of them are particularly good at catching so without doubt the wrong dog would get the tablet