Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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I use the Pill Pockets for Tazzie's pills because I can cram a lot of pills in them and then put them to the back of her throat. I can get all of her capsules/pills in 2 Pill Pockets and they all go down the hatch in 1 gulp. I give her artemisinin in Velveeta cheese cubes and she eats those right up.
Tramadol is extremely bitter so maybe he tasted that once and now doesn't trust any treats. In that case you might need a Pet Piller which is like a plastic syringe (also called a pill gun). The only probelm with these is that you can only do 1 or 2 pills at a time.
Pam and Tazzie
Thanks! I'll be looking into the Pill Pockets and Pet Piller ASAP!
Yoda&Mom united: 9/5/06 …….… Yoda&Leg separated: 6/5/09……… Yoda&Leg reunited: 10/14/09 ……… ……………….………….………….……. Yoda&Mom NEVER separated! …………………….….……....….…… Though Spirit Yoda currently free-lances as a rabbit hunting instructor for tripawds nationwide
Found the Buster Pet Piller online at Shop.com.
And Entirely Pets has bulk savings on 6-pack Pill Pockets for dogs.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Not sure if I can add much to the excellent advice/tricks that have already been proposed. With Cherry, I had to stuff nearly morselof food during the two months of chemotherapy. She was actually very good about the process. As long as I would get the food past the point on the tongue that she could taste it, she would take the food and present it back to me. I had a much harder time with my first dog, Chrissy, because she was a cocker/mini poodle mix and had an extremely small mouth. I would crush her pills and mix them with some home made cherry jelly (more like cherry syrup) before presenting them to her. I worked extremely well because the sweet syrup would hide any bitter taste, and it was much thicker than the sugar water suggested in the video above. I would probably work with the infint syringes shown in the video.
Good Luck,
Bob & Cherry
I second (or is it third?) the Pill Pockets. McGwire won't take most pills in food, but throw it in a pill pocket, and dwon it goes. It's better (for me) than peanut butter or butter because he'd always just like that off and spit the pill out. It's easy, clean and portable (which is helpful if you have a lot of pills to take). I have been known to make up 3-4 days worth of stuffed pill pockets from time to time. There are two sizes, the capsule is the bigger of the two and I can put 2-3 pills inside. There's also a chicken and beef variety, I haven't found too much difference between them. Good luck! How'd he do this weekend?
Hey Mac's Mom,
Do you put McGwire's pill pocket in the back of his throat or does it work for him to just take the pill pocket and he doesn't taste the pills? Yoda really likes the taste of them, but I played it safe and doing it the way Pam recommended, putting it at the back of his throat. If he manages to taste the pills in that, that'll be one more treat he runs away from. Still, I was curious how Mac takes his pill pockets.
I don't think I should have bought the larger size though, seemed like it was too hard for him to swallow it. But it's so moldable that I could probably cut the size in half and still seal all the pills in. All his pills are small.
He is resisting less violently - yay!
Yoda&Mom united: 9/5/06 …….… Yoda&Leg separated: 6/5/09……… Yoda&Leg reunited: 10/14/09 ……… ……………….………….………….……. Yoda&Mom NEVER separated! …………………….….……....….…… Though Spirit Yoda currently free-lances as a rabbit hunting instructor for tripawds nationwide
Hello:
Tika is not thrilled about pill taking either. I finally gave up on food incentives because she would spit them out, or better yet, walk away from me and spit them out later.
So, here's what we do with the 85 lb baby. I try to catch her off guard (like Jerry) say howyadoin', and as quick as possible, stand behind her, grab her mouth, get my fingers behind (behind!!) her molars (that makes them usually reflexively open their mouth) and bam the pill and my two fingers are down her throat. Pull out hand quickly, clamp muzzle shut, keep head with muzzle pointed up and rub her throat to make her swallow.
Yeah, the fingers have got smushed a couple of times, but if you can get back behind the molars it's not too painful. Every once in a awhile she manages to get the best of me and gets the pill back up, but overall we've been successful without stressing her out. What Tika hated is when we had to wear gloves for her chemo pills. I don't blame her.
Of course when all is said and done, she gets her favorite treats and praise.
I just wish she was like our other dog who's been on some form of pill from puppyhood, I say, "Caya, pill time." She runs up and OPENS her mouth for me to pop the pill in. I really need to video that.
Good luck, I know your body language has a lot of influence, and it's hard to overcome that.
Yoda, baby, be a good boy for your momma! You need to take care of her!
--Kim and Tika
Kim and Spirit Tika http://www.tika.....ogspot.com
Has your dog ever gone on a swallow strike? It got to the point where I was stuffing the pills into Tazzie's throat during the first chemo time. Despite getting the pill in, holding the nose up and rubbing the throat so that you'd think he would have to swallow, he ended up spitting it out 2 mins later when we let the head down. Thankfully the appetite returned so we have not face that hurdle since. I'm sure it will happen again. good luck! It was those tiny 50 mgl tramadol tablets that turned the tables against us - the big 100 mg capsules were fine. I am still wondering how Pam knows that the tramadol is bitter. . . 
I just give him the pills in the pill pockets. like treats. Even awful antibiotics (cephalexin makes me gag when I just open the bottle-can't imagine how it actually tastes!), go down smooth as can be, but I agree that if he's going to stop eating them all together if he tastes the pills then I'd use the Pam method. (Didn't know you'd have a method named after you did you, Pam?!) If they are too big, then you can split them, I've done that before and it's cheaper! Now that I'm thinking about it, I'd also consider getting both flavors so that it keeps him guessing. Good luck, and hope it continues to work!
I should mention that smaller dogs might only be able to take 1 Pill Pocket at a time. My Pitbull Kona really hates the Tramadol and has a great gag reflex so I give her a Pill Pocket followed by 3 cc of water with a syringe to make sure it goes down.
One of our techs at work takes Tramadol for fibromyalgia and she told me how bitter it is. I licked a tablet and almost gagged! No wonder they hate them...
Pam and Tazzie
The peanut butter ball with the pill inside didn't work for Emily today so I bought her McDonald's and put her pills in her cheeseburger. I know its not good for her but better than no pills. Maybe McDonald's is to Yoda's liking too.
Debra
Debra & Emily, a five year old doberman mix, who was diagnosed with an osteosaecoma. She had a right rear leg amputation on May 19, 2009. On November 10, 2009 she earned her wings and regained her fourth leg.
Tazzie said:
Has your dog ever gone on a swallow strike?
Yes! It has been like that with Yoda. He has fooled me several times into thinking he must have swallowed it and then spits it out. Blowing in his nose has not consistently helped get him to swallow and neither has massaging his throat. He has been quite stubborn. He is even taking this pill now (the anti-nausea one - not Cerenia) which I'm blanking on the name of just now, but the pharmacist told me this tiny little pill would dissolve in his mouth almost instantly! So I wasn't to worry about getting him to swallow it. I just had to get it into his mouth. Well, I have gotten that into his mouth and held it shut for 20 seconds and he has spit it back out in near perfect condition. So Yoda has also gone on saliva strike at times. (Holding his mouth shut for closer to a minute, or until he swallows/licks his nose, is long enough though).
That said, getting his pills down is going much better. It's nowhere near so stressful for either of us now. The best solution for us has been to get those pills as far back in the throat as possible and hold his mouth shut til he swallows them. The blowing in the nose and rubbing his throat doesn't hurt, so I always do that too, though it hasn't been super effective with Yoda. Then I offer him treats right after to help with the bitter taste in his mouth from the pills. But I have to make sure I offer treats that I never tried to hide pills in or he won't have anything to do with them. Also, since it's just me and Yoda, and it was initially so hard to hold him still enough to get the pills in on my own, I was able to stay with my parents for a few days and enlist their help in holding Yoda still. This gave me a chance to refine my technique and I think it also persuaded Yoda that resistance was rather useless and now when I give him his pills on my own, he doesn't thrash about. He does still resist, but not hard enough to get away from me. (This seems to be a rare instance in which learned helplessness is a healthy thing).
Thanks so much for everybody's help with this!!! Yoda loves the pill pockets as one of his after-pill treats (surprisingly that is one treat which he had pills in, but is not afraid of). So they're not going to waste 
Yoda&Mom united: 9/5/06 …….… Yoda&Leg separated: 6/5/09……… Yoda&Leg reunited: 10/14/09 ……… ……………….………….………….……. Yoda&Mom NEVER separated! …………………….….……....….…… Though Spirit Yoda currently free-lances as a rabbit hunting instructor for tripawds nationwide
FYI: In today's Dolittler blog post, Dr. Khuly wrote about Drug delivery methods for picky pets and why they matter
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
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