If you are the owner of a pet that has recently been diagnosed with an illness requiring a daily course of tablets, and you do not know exactly how to trick them into taking them without much trouble, we will give you some very useful tricks to manage it.
The best tricks for giving medication to dogs
Our dear furry friends are perfect playmates, blanket and sofa companions and, of course, real gourmets when it comes to delicious treats (as long as they are not bad for their health). However, taking a little pill with a rather off-putting smell is something they still have on their list of things to learn. That said, and much to their dismay, when they grow older and develop illnesses of a certain complexity (such as leishmaniasis) they are forced to go through this difficult moment.
Mixing it with their kibble
One of the most widely used tricks nowadays consists of trying to place the tablet (the smaller it is, the better) among their daily kibble. Whether this works will largely depend on your dog, or rather on their sense of smell, detecting with greater or lesser skill the intrusion of a hidden treat among their food.
The stuffed-treat game
Its very name says it all: try to give them an extra treat, that is, something we do not usually give them, such as their mini biscuits or snacks. For example, try giving them a piece of sausage or a little bread, into which we have previously inserted the tablet. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. If your dog gets impatient enough over the treat you have in your hand and wants to grab a bite without waiting, they may not have time to taste the unpleasant filling you have put inside.
Mixing it with wet food
To do this, we must first crush the tablet very well until it blends with some kind of moist canine pâté that you know your dog loves. It is a method that usually works, since the strong smell of the pâté manages to mask that of the medicine.
Traditional manual method
And you will think, where is the trick here? Well, nowhere. When, having tried everything mentioned above, you have not achieved any result, you have to resort to the most traditional practices. This will consist of holding, using moderate force, the lower part of your dog’s jaw with one hand and, with the other, the upper part. Next, you will insert the tablet so that you force them to swallow it. Honestly, it sounds worse than it actually is.
It is all a matter of patience, and affection, lots of affection. For your part, as the owner, what you will have to find is the simplest and most fun way, using all your ingenuity and cunning, to turn giving the pill into a daily game so that your dog does not realise it is taking its medication.
