Ideas for delivering medicine into a dog?

baantonbaanton
edited April 2011 in General
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

  • ShikokuSpiritShikokuSpirit
    edited April 2011
    Aww...I'm sorry she is going through this =/.

    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.

  • HalcyonHalcyon
    With the loss of appetite she may just not want to eat anything, more than smelling the pill and not wanting it. I've had to give Kira and Chloe pills before and when they doesn't have any appetite I have to do what shikokuSpirit describes and just shove them down their throat. When they do have a good appetite they are easy to pill, Chloe will eat any pill in a bit of bread, and Kira likes them in a bit of hotdog or cheese.
  • shibamistressshibamistress
    edited April 2011
    Yep, I've had to do the forcing of the pills quite often with dogs who had no appetite or nausea. When her head is tilted up you can also gently massage her throat light downward stroke, which helps her swallow. I will say some dogs get really good at avoiding this: both my Shibas got into the clamp down the jaw thing so I had to really force the mouth open. And Toby would somehow hold the pills in his mouth sometimes and refuse to swallow. But usually I could make this method work.

    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.
  • dlrobertsdlroberts
    Ditto on the force it down approach. With all the pills Lucy gets, I can't give her all the extra calories necessary to disguise them in treats. Not to mention her food sensitivity. I open her mouth by gently curling her upper lip over her teethe and applying slight pressure. The pill goes all the way in the back of the the throat and then, while holding her jaw shut, I gently blow on her nose to get her to swallow. Sounds like poor Josephine needs the same treatment. I hope she feels better soon!
  • tjbart17tjbart17
    I've had to do the force pills. It sucks but once you do it a couple of times you get used to it.

    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.
  • tsukitsunetsukitsune
    I either have to force it, or wrap it in liverwurst. No dog ever questions liverwurst!
  • brittkbrittk
    I had the same problem when we first brough Kaiya home and she was on meds. We had to force them too. She got used to it after about 2 days and was ok.
  • sukoshi_momsukoshi_mom
    Don't know about the pills you are giving. Another idea is to grind them into powder and put it into food. (Liverwurst might work well, or cheese.) If you are using pill capsules, taking them apart, and mixing the powder with food might work.
  • HeidiHeidi
    You can get a pill crusher, and then the powder is easier disguise than a whole pill.
  • aykayk
    I coat the pill in peanut butter and do the force feed that everybody's described.
  • AraksAraks
    Sevuk refuses to take his thyroid meds unless it's in a piece of cheese, coated in peanut butter, or in a piece of cooked meat. If you can't get it down disguised in food, then I would force it down too, although I know very few dogs who don't like cheese :)

    Good luck
  • sunyatasunyata
    I guess it depends on how big the pill is.

    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!
  • baantonbaanton
    Thanks for all the support and ideas, everyone. Josephine seems to be coming around today. She is behaving her more cheery self, the tail is wagging with lots more vigor, and she even tried one of her favorite games of stealing my husband's glove for a game of keep-away this morning. Also, she has consumed small amounts of rice and ground beef today at least 3-4 different times with no vomiting so her energy is returning.

    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...
  • ShikokuSpiritShikokuSpirit
    Hahah...little brat. I've had client/boarding dogs who are fully aware of the "force the pill down throat" method and "lock" their mouth shut. THAT or they hold the pill in their mouth and refuse to swallow (I could be there for several minutes!). Damn super stubborn smart dogs, lol.
    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!
  • shibamistressshibamistress
    Glad to hear she's making a recovery, even without her meds. My Shibas did do the clamping down thing, and when they wouldn't eat, it was hard. Eventually, if you absolutely have to, you can get the mouth open and the pill down, but it takes more force than I enjoy (and sometimes repeated tries and even starting again with another pill if the first one is now beyond use).....I did have to do it though with both Shibas when they were very ill.

  • McYogiMcYogi
    I must be the only dingbat on the planet that likes pilling animals. One of the cats has tapeworm right now (goodie!) and the vet said he would just administer the first round of pills but I asked if he wouldn't mind letting me take them home. He was surprised, and also said it would save me the $4 medicating cost. Who knew I enjoyed doing a service most people would pay for!
  • sukoshi_momsukoshi_mom
    Canned ravioli w/ tomato paste can be used as disguised pill pocket. Cut the ravioli to pill /small bite size and stuff the pill in the ravioli. (Lots of dogs like tomato paste.)
  • shibamistressshibamistress
    oooooh....ravioli is a good idea for a dog who will eat....
  • HeidiHeidi
    Glad she's doing better. So is the shot more effective or just easier to administer? Back when I had nasty mastitis, when surgery and oral antibiotics didn't work, I had to have a week of IV antibiotics and that was the only thing that finally got rid of it. They're able to give a higher dose through IV. That's what made the difference in my scenario, so I'm just curious.
  • baantonbaanton
    Well, I'm not sure about the shot and its efficacy. But it seems to me a shot would deliver the med into the bloodstream much more quickly than taking a pill that has to dissolve and then be absorbed. Something like an IV, but not nearly the dosage, I guess? Josephine seems to be getting near to normal again, but she did eat some grass and then throw up this morning (nothing major)... so it seems she is still struggling with a slight amount of stomach upset. On another note, has anyone heard of dogs spreading their illness to humans? My hubby now has had the same symptoms as Josephine for 2-3 days!
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