Getting a Difficult Pet To Take a Pill

   2019-09-12  Posted in Dog & Cat Library, Techniques & Tips

Getting a Difficult Pet To Take a Pill

This will be a ‘developing’ article because as owners share their best ideas and successes with me, I’ll update this with those breakthroughs.

Part of the “essence” of giving a pill to a “difficult” pet is the crushing of the pill. There are LOTS OF PILL CRUSHERS

But this (at left) is the one we use at the office and it works fine, considering the low price.

To give some medicine, here’s a successful technique: Kelly will melt a mild cheddar cheese (but Gouda and other mild hard cheeses work) to a ‘liquid’ consistency and mix the necessary pill powder in the melted cheese and knead it into the cheese. As it forms up again, while it is still mushy and soft, she offers it to the dog. It works. Just make sure you’re not using that technique for a dog with pancreatitis.

You can also mix the powdered pill in gravy. It makes it syringe-able. So you’d mix the medicine in a teaspoon of gravy and then use a syringe to dose it.

Another customer shared REMARKABLE success with Chic-Filet Chicken Salad (Recipe). Says the dog was absolutely impossible to fool until he tried that. Well done!

Pilling_A_Difficult_Dog_Or_Cat

 

 

Author: Dr. Erik Johnson
Dr Erik Johnson is a Marietta, Georgia Veterinarian with a practice in small animal medicine. He graduated from University of Georgia with his Doctorate in 1991. Dr Johnson is the author of several texts on Koi and Pond Fish Health and Disease as well as numerous articles on dog and cat health topics.