In preparation for Little Bear’s dental surgery on Monday, he has to be on antibiotics for three days; three pills each day. Anyone who’s ever had to trick a dog into swallowing a pill knows this is no easy assignment! When I gave him his first pill this morning, I broke it in half and tucked each half into a small cube of ham. I threw the piece of ham to him thinking he’d gulp it down as he normally does when you throw bits of food his way. No such luck. Little Bear loved the ham but found the pill and spit it out!I picked up the pill, tucked it into another cube of ham and threw it to him again. Again, he didn’t gulp it down but chewed it but this time I could hear the crunch of the pill being chewed along with the ham and he didn’t spit anything out – hooray, success! He did the same thing with the second half of the pill, chewed it up with the piece of ham. I certainly hope the rest of the pills are this easy to get Little Bear to swallow, but I have a feeling he will forever be suspicious of ham now just as he is suspicious of cheese since he was on antibiotics a few years ago and I used cheese for this trick.
I might have to be inventive and find something else to tuck the pill into over the next couple of days. Any suggestions?
I never thought of ham! That is a great idea. We have to give Tucker a pill every week for his allergies. We just put the pill on the top of some peanut butter. I don't know how well that would work for Little Bear since his pills are fairly large. With my old dog Gizmo my Mom used to smash them up and spread it on a little bit of bread and butter. Gizmo loved bread and butter, so it was not that difficult. You will have to let us know what works best.
ReplyDelete