Ideas for delivering medicine into a dog?
Josephine has her second bacterial infection (of the stomach and gut) in 3-4 months. Last time it was pretty mild, and although she was prescribed an antibiotic, essentially she had to rely on her own system cure, because we got virtually no medicine into her This one seems quite severe... lack of appetite for several days, and the vet can tell from the "feel" of her abdomen and x-rays that both her stomach and gut are quite inflamed. We have tried every technique known to vets and other humans to disguise the antibiotic pill. I think she can smell it and is immediatelu on to us. She even refused the "Greenies" pill pockets. Help!
Comments
What exactly have you tried?
If you're "disguising" it and she refuses to eat it/spits it out...sadly, you might just have to shove it down her throat. It sounds like this is a very important pill for her to take!
You do so by opening her mouth and dropping the pill in the back of her tongue, clamp her mouth shut...gently but firmly with your hands...and tilt her head up until she gives a few licks (but don't let her push the pill out) and seems to have finally swallowed the pill.
When they're feeling ok, the thing I find the best to hide food in is liverwurst. They love it, and it molds around the pill nicely.
and I'm sorry to hear about this, and hope for a speedy recovery for her.
Koda hates pills but amazingly those Pill Pockets get him to take them now. I did have to force pills down when he was a pup.
I hope Josephine feels better soon.
Good luck
With Bella's thyroid medication, it just take one of the Wellness Pure Rewards treats, kind of break it in half (so that it is still attached, but bends) and put the pill in the middle, sandwich the treat around it and give it to her. She swallows it in about 3 nanoseconds and never questions it. I have also wrapped it in cheese and smeared it in peanut butter. However, the Wellness treat approach has been the most successful.
Nola's melatonin and glucosamine are too big for the wellness treats, so they usually get wrapped in cheese. If I happen to be out of cheese, Nola unfortunately gets the force feed approach. She does pretty well and has learned that if she swallows quickly she does not taste it as much. But still, I try and make it as painless and yummy as possible.
Hopefully one of these methods will work for Josephine, but if not, then the force feed is what you will need to do. Just be gentle and make sure you give her a treat afterwards, if she will eat it. Hopefully it will wash the flavour out of her mouth!
I hope she feels better soon!
I do have to acknowledge the healing cannot be the result of any pill, however, as we have yet to be successful in getting any inside of her. She must be a very unusual dog as she does not like peanut butter, cheese or bread. (I haven't tried liverwurst.) That's why I was hopeful of the pill-pockets. And the "force method" has not worked for anyone with her, including the vet she saw on the weekend who prescribed the pills! Also, my husband, his brother and my son have all tried the force method. She is very adept at clamping the mouth, and managing to keep the pill in her mouth in spite of the swallow reflex being engaged.
Anyway, for this one it looks like she will heal up on her own. Our vet brother-in-law mentioned there is now an antibiotic shot for doggies. While its a bit more money than the pills, I think we will try that route next time. I'm sure there will be next time! She hasn't seemed to learn from the earlier episodes that it is not wise to eat decaying things...
For those dogs I think I've been able to "disguise" the pill in their food somehow...luckally they were eaters. I've use the aboved mentioned (peanut butter, cheese, bread, pill pockets - which I've actually found to be the least successful btw...not many dogs like it for some reason) as well as wet canned cat food.
I have yet to try this with dogs but I've done so with cats (who are THE WORST on attempting to shove a pill down their throat)...
...I'd crush the pill and mix it into a "potion" of already well mixed wet canned food, water and a meat based "stage 1" baby food. I feed as is or will then use one of those droppers (I forgot what the technical term is) and force that down their throat if they are really sick (it goes down more easily and they have no choice but to eat most of it).
Dropper "potion" must be "liquefied" = more water.
Feeding "potion" as is = less water.
I'm SUPER glad and relieved to hear that she is eating, thank goodness! If the pill is important to help "fight" the bacteria in her "tummy"...try my cat potion method - you *might* even wanna keep the wet canned a cat food, in my experience...dogs LOVE cat food.
Let me know how that goes.
GOOD LUCK!