SUMMARY: And here's the latest episode in Tika's meds saga.
On Friday I reported how Tika partly rejected the cream cheese pill hidings. Friday night, no problem, she took plain cream cheese and all the pills wrapped in cream cheese.
Saturday morning, she wouldn't take even plain cream cheese right at the beginning, just sniffed suspiciously and turned her head away. I gave it to Boost, tried another scoop with Tika. She took that, so I wondered whether maybe I had contaminated the other spot of cheese in the container with a molecule of pill somehow. She took most of her pills with cream cheese after the initial refusal, but I had to resort to peanut butter again for the last one.
Saturday evening, no problem with the cream cheese.
Sunday morning, no cream cheese for any reason whatsoever, plain or fancy or offered to boost first or nuthin' nohow. So everything went down with peanut butter.
Sunday evening, took a little cream cheese but then refused all with any pills in it, so back to peanut butter.
Back to peanut butter after failing with cream cheese all day Monday. Today I didn't even bother with the cream cheese, just went straight to PB. So far so good.
Meanwhile, getting lots of suggestions from other sneaky owners on how they sneak their dogs' meds into their little digestive systems:
- Almond butter as an alternative (thanks Elayne)
- Pill pockets (thx Cedarfield and Tervpack)
- I thought about using pitted dates in which to hide the pills, so I
offered her a small piece of date during the day to see whether she'd
eat it. Nope.
For a food-motivated dog who'd rather eat than anything else, she sure is picky! - Marshmallows (Tervpack again)
- Kraft Easy Cheese (thx Channan)
- And of course I know that I can resort to grinding up the pills to make them harder to recognize
At least she seems happy and active, enthusiastically running and playing. Yay, Tika!
Kong makes a spray can liver paste like the spray cheese but liver instead. I've seen it at Target, Petsmart, etc. Works pretty good as well but not as dense/sticky as the nut butters.
ReplyDeleteThanks again. I'm beginning to think that many of these would work for one pill at a time, but 4 or 5 twice a day--dog catches on.
DeleteThey are so smart. How they can find a tiny pill in the midst of a glob of their favorite stuff is beyond me. Especially since they usually just scarf the stuff down...
ReplyDeleteDogs sense the world so differently, don't they.
DeleteI could never hide pills more than once with my old girl, so I resorted to just popping down her throat by hand. I got good at it and it took far less time than trying to convince her that I wasn't hiding things in her food...she also ate better! But if you need to continue hiding pills, I found that the best way to disguise pills in food is to 1)not let her see you prepare them, and 2)not hand the food-hiding-the-pill to her...toss it in the air and make her catch it. To make it exciting, toss one first to your non-pill-needing dog, then a non-pill meatball to your pill-needing-dog, then swap with a pill-meatball, non-pill meatball, etc.. I wish you luck, I know it isn't easy :)
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and you could use real meatballs for hiding pills or make meatballs from canned food they normally wouldn't get. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI knew it! There really ARE a lot of sneaky dog owners! ;-)
DeleteMy older dog can't eat a lot of things, including peanut butter, so I use canned pumpkin as a pill hider and it works great. He LOVES the pumpkin.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to do a new post with all these additional suggestions. Thanks!
DeleteWe found that mixing things up helped. a couple days of peanut butter followed by cream cheese and a day of meatballs. Whatever variety you can manage might keep her guessing.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I told my renter a couple of days ago that I ought to do. I'm so lazy, though--and then of course today she started out refusing to take peanut butter. Guess I'd better take my own advice, especially now that you've validated that idea! Thanks.
DeleteWhen Gracie was on the Doxy for two months (twice a day) Mum pinched some of that DogPawR around the pill, Gracie would take the pill and then keep licking Mum's fingers and Gracie never even knew she swallowed the pill. She loves that stuff. If you still have any left, you may want to try it in the mix of goodies. Other things that work for us, white cheddar cheese, yogurt, stick it in a mini penna pasta too (oddly enough).
ReplyDeleteOh, pasta! Cooked or uncooked?
DeleteNot surprising to me that they know there's a pill in there. They can smell something like one part per *billion* of certain scents so they can certainly snmall a big stinky pill in a little cream cheese.
ReplyDeleteYes, I know, but why it's OK for a while and then not--dunno. I think she's getting pickier about everything edible as she gets older, which I still think is weird for a highly food-motivated dog.
DeleteWhat works for me is to play off my multiple dogs' greed & "sibling" rivalry. I set up a bunch of whatever the food will be, with one containing the pill. I make sure the dogs see there are "alot" of treats - usually by having a bunch in my hand. Then, we "sit" "down" or whatever to get them into "I deserve a reward mode" - because the other dog(s) is there, the one getting the pill swallows quickly so s/he can be ready for the next treat - which, of course, follows right away so lots of swallowing happens. This works well as long as the dog being medicated isn't too sick to play the game.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good idea but once Tika has decided that she's not going to eat something, it doesn't matter whether boost and I are both popping them into our mouths (depending on the substance, of course)--if I hand it to Tika, she might take it and spit it out, or not take it at all.
DeleteMost recently, canned dogfood seems to be working just fine. She was kinda OK with canned pumpkin but not enthusiastic.