No more pills in peanut butter.
No more pills in almond butter.
No more pills in squeezie cheese.
No more pills in turkey if I please!
I do not like them Sam I Am!
Try to catch me if you can!!
Pippie has an autoimmune disease that requires adherence to a number of medications twice a day all of which he has suddenly decided he does not want to do!
slickhorrible
I have found that braunschweiger rarely fails
Kpupfly
I agree! My fussy boy stopped being tricked by pill pockets, cream cheese, deli meats, hard cooked eggs, sliced cheese, tuna, hot dogs, pretty much anything. But Braunschweiger. Especially if I put the pill in the night before. But he doesn’t have to have one every day. That much liver might not be good….
nicoleburleyNicoleB
😀 – was going to suggest liverwurst
Mary McKay
PUSH INTO. HOT DOGS….
Marcia
Awww That SUCKS! We have a dog who has to daily have pills shoved. She is really good about it though (Thank Goodness) She will actually open wide for me. After she gets a good scratch. Possibly look for something as a reward….it may help. Best of luck
Ann B.
Awwww poor Pippie! My cat Virginia went for Pill Pockets for a while…but I can’t say I blame them for wanting to avoid those nasty tasting pills!
Stormy
Try hiding them in mini marshmallows. Especially if it’s prednisone because that’s bitter and leaves a bad taste in the mouth for hours. It was the only way I could get my dog to take it. I gave him a couple of blanks too so he never knew which one had the pill.
melykin
I resorted to taking the pills to a compounding pharmacy and having them put in a flavored syrup (tootie frootie) which can be squirted directly into my pug’s mouth. She doesn’t like it, but she puts up with it. Nothing else worked, even putting the pills in meat balls
Zan Gettings
Try mini sausages 🙂
NPM
I can sympathize. I’m currently going throught the pill avoidance problem with my stubborn Italian Greyhound. She gets eight pills, at four different times during the day, and they all have to be shoved down her throat after I corner her.
Spring Dawn Reader Winnette
My mother used to roll the pills (dog had epilepsy) in hamburger balls then freeze them. She’d pull out the required lot, thaw them out and our dog would swallow them whole.
Kaytee
Get thee to a compounding pharmacy — the meds can be ground up and dissolved in a flavored liquid of your voice, made into smaller pills that your dog will not object to swallowing or any number of other of options. You can tell the compounding pharmacist about what you’ve tried so far and ask her to suggest options for compounding the meds in a way that your pup will happily ingest (and it probably won’t even cost you extra).
– daughter of a compounding pharmacist
Abbey's Mom
Our lab has horrible allergies, she is down to 3 pills twice daily, it had been 6 pills twice daily. If the peanut butter stops working we are screwed! She is on a restricted diet as well in an attempt to control the allergies and my fear is we are going to find out PB is on the allergen list…again…we will be screwed!
Dee
our poor fur-babies don’t understand that we give them the pills to keep them healthy and alive. Our 12 yr old French Brittany takes hers in rolled up cheese. So far no problems.
Amber Lamb
We put our elderly dogs medications in cut up turkey dogs, those do really well!
Jennifer Thompson-Rogers
Our Abby has the same problem. Ask if you can grind up the medicine and then add it to some wet food. That’s what we do when peanut butter isn’t good enough for her!
Illyria Mxo
I was also going to suggest either a compounding pharmacy to make the medicine into either a flavored liquid or a transdermal gel. Not all meds can be made into gels, but they are very easy to use (as long as your pet doesn’t mind having their ears touched) — they are applied to the inside surface of the ear and absorbed into the body that way.
JB
Our Pippi takes pills twice a day in small meatballs made of canned dogfood, low fat liver wurst, or any other smelly food available. He scarfs then down so fast he can’t possibly taste the pills.
girlguydogcat
We were have to give our girl pills twice a day too. She’s allergic to so much we use tuna or canned salmon and just roll it in a ball. She loves it! She comes running when the pill bottle shakes!
BellaDancer
Wow. So many terrific ideas! I will try them if my current method fails. I use whipped cream cheese and scrape the cream cheese with the pills behind the front teeth and it always works. If I just put the pills in cheese or meat they separate the pills and spit them out, but licking off the back of the front teeth has been working every day so far.
Good luck!!
Karin Bond
Liverwurst works for my dogs – never got an argument
. . . unless I am too slow
Freetoflyagain
We have a papillion who is too smart for her own good that does the same thing! She’ll eat dead birds out of the yard but refuses to take pills wrapped in tasty treats. She also hates cheese. We crush them between two spoons and then mix them into a small amount of baby food. Turkey and sweet potato flavor is a favorite!
Diqui
Wiki got to the point where I put the Tramadol in an empty pill capsule (got them at a health food store) then put that in liverwurst
Juliana
I used to try and hid my girl’s pills in cheese, bits of ham, peanut butter, etc but she always found a way to nibble the good stuff and spit out the pill! The vet taught me to put the pill on the back of her tongue and gently hold her mouth closed until she licks her licks (which means that she swallowed). Easy peasy!
Kimberly
Poultry flavored doggie toothpaste works everytime and it only takes a teeny bit! My dogs get suspicious of anything else, like cheese or lunch meat… LOL
Ana Clara
Loved his name!!!
Sammy
My lil JRT, Sammy, has had a seizure disorder for the past 6 years. He needs to take a pill twice a day which has thankfully controlled his disorder. Sammy just can’t resist thin sliced deli honey turkey. That’s how he gets his pill and were both happy 🙂
Karen
I am sure this has been a suggested all ready but I will try… I to have a dog that needs pills everyday and I usually stick the pill in between 2 dog treats (chewy kind) and the we go and sit in the living room or bedroom just someplace different then the kitchen 🙂
Caspian's mom
I have a cat who refused to take pills – no matter what. I finally started taking them to the compounding pharmacy to have them made into a transdermal cream. I’d just rub it into the inside of his ears –and who doesn’t like a good ear rub? (would probably work for dogs as well)
mb
So many can relate! My little one started fishing her ientsy-wientsy tiny pill out of everything and when I thought she had swallowed it, she would nonchalantly mosey out of the kitchen and spit it out in some hidden location. After finally realizing she hadn’t been taking her meds and she seemed to be doing “okay”, the vet ran more tests and realized the dosage was wrong. Seems the pill was making her feel bad. I started listening to her much more closely after that!
Lisa
I mix things up for my smart lil fur monster. I smash up her pills and mix it in yogurt, applesauce, frozen yogurt puppy treats, its not the best but if I’m out of everything else, strawberry milk.
Gail
I have a whippet with Valley Fever that needs meds twice a day that didn’t like taking her pills. When we got her a Chihuahua that was excited about pill time everything changed. Now they both run to see who can get peanut butter first. The whippet doesn’t seem to notice she is the only one getting the pills with the peanut butter.
Star Bricker
FIG NEWTONS!!!! We quarter them, the pill goes inside, down every time. Every dog we’ve had loves Fig Newtons. And it doesn’t matter what brand, although we always went with the real ones because we like them, too.
Kim
Jell-O shots (without the booze, of course). Suspend the mess in the middle of a piece of jello. Mine swallow it whole!
Kim
Umm. Make that “meds”. Stupid autocorrect!
Cheryl
I’ve tried it ALL for my 15 1/2 year old!! Now I just stick them between the gaps in her teeth on the side (no missing teeth, just different heights),
squirt in a small amount of apple juice and hold her mouth closed for a few seconds until she swallows them down! Works like a charm!
george
The trick is finding something the dog/cat REALLY likes, but this can be different for each animal. Mine just LOVES left over bits of hot wings. You need something the animal will just Gobble up without chewing/thinking.
Cheese works well with mine also. But she needs three or four small balls, so she doesn’t find the one with the pill.
just have to get createtive.
Maggie
100lb picky eater labradoodle melted down to now 85lbs from idiopathic endocarditis. 7 pills twice a day for 4 months led to many creative pill/medication tactics.
Here they are:
-Greenies Pill Pockets – worked on their own for a few weeks, then came in handy later on
– hot dogs stuffed with pills – lasted 2 weeks – tramadol is stinky and blew that one
-banana slices stuffed with pills – also ruined by stinky tramadol
-crush tablet, or empty capsules, and mash into Spam (various favors) – worked 3-4 weeks, add baby food and lasted 2 weeks more.
-compounding pharmacy mixed bacon and chicken flavored meds – he wouldn’t take them by mouth straight from the dropper but poured carefully over an English muffin, then delicately covered in meaty baby food worked for a few weeks
-leftovers mixed with compounded meds – when lazy on my birthday I gave him leftover Kobe beef burgers mashed with drugs. Scarfed them down.
-canned tuna or salmon – didn’t try this but I bet it would work like a charm. Would make for stinky dog breath but I’m sure they’d work for quite awhile
What drove me batty? I’d explain the situation to people and every time, every freaking time, they’d say “did you try peanut butter? My dog scarfed up his pills in a little peanut butter”. Lady, I’m looooong past peanut butter.
Now that my dog has amazingly survived a rare and most often deadly disease, he is down to 2 pills twice a day. I tuck them into a single Greenie Pill Pocket and gently push them into the back of his throat. The Greenie just makes the pill slippery – easier to push back than the pill by itself. Follow that Immediately with his favorite treat. Now, he loves pill time. He jogs up to the counter, tail wagging, sniffing at my fingers as I pack the Pill Pocket around the pills. Pills shoved down his throat followed by treats did the trick. No problem.
Grumpy
Nothing works with my Terrier. She’s too smart to be duped like that. She has no problem skipping eating anything & everything for a day if she feels that you’re trying to trick her.
Dog food, pill pockets, peanut butter (doesn’t like it anyways), cheese, mixed in with hamburger, mixed in with grilled chicken, hot dogs, mini sausages, mashed potatoes, etc. etc. etc. She won’t be tricked! Even those beef flavored heart worm preventative meds can’t trick her when mixed in with doggy sausage.
Gotta catch her, force open her mouth, drop the pill in, then hold her mouth closed so she’s forced to swallow. She still manages to spit them out on a regular basis. The ones that are little pellets inside a gel coating are the worse! They dissolve in your hand if she manages to spit it back out. Its a nightmare anytime she gets sick.
Donna DeWeese
Have three capsules each morning for canine cognitive dysfunction, so far squeeze cheez rolled in bacon does the trick. Such a sneaky dal boy, never could figure out why I would find one on the floor when I was POSITIVE he swallowed them all!
Melissa
My Boston terrier, Phoebe, has to take a daily steroid for allergies. I eagerly read this thread & took notes – so many good ideas!!! Shoving the pill in a slice of hot dog topped with squeeze cheese is – knock on wood! – is still working, but she is starting to give me the *stink eye* pretty regular which I know is her way of letting me know that trick is running its course.
Cyndula
I have to give my terrier many pills each day and he also is wary. I switch it up once he nixes the current treat. Depending on his suspicion level, the following have worked for me: banana slices, hot dog slices, chicken, cheese, pill pockets (from Costco), hamburger balls. I also recommend throwing in some ringers – ie no pill. My dog is 14 and though he’s been a sport in the past, he now refuses to allow me to place any pills in his mouth – he’s done with that! Good luck!
stacey
Have you tried crunchy peanut butter and a little bread or something? If it’s every day, you might want something other than bread (my doofus would gladly eat peanut butter on cheese if that’s what I had – he doesn’t get any people food other than peanut butter (stuffed into a bone or toy) and a little piece of bread if I need to stuff a pill in the peanut butter), but he’s sure he would love it all), but the crunchy peanut butter helps hide the pill; instead of having a pill in a smooth food like peanut butter or cheese or hotdogs, the crunchy texture hides it better.
Of course, this also means they have to be willing to eat the crunchy peanut butter.