Feeding your dog medication can prove to be quite the chore if you don’t know what you are doing. Newbie pet owners often try improper techniques, which lead to spectacular failures. You also cannot scold your pet for not eating a bitter medication. Dogs, for example, have a highly developed sense of smell, which tells them what’s tasty and what’s not. This means you can scream or scold them all you want if they don’t want to have something, they simply won’t. Improperly shoving the medication down their throats can also lead to choking or can cause the pet to react undesirably. To help you out, here’re 4 proven tips for feeding pet meds to dogs.
First, Few Words of Caution
A lot of new pet parents unknowingly try to self-medicate. This is a very bad idea. Many over the counter human medications are highly toxic to pets. Even if you get the medicine right, you can end up harming your pet by getting the dosage wrong. Don’t take a chance, go to a registered veterinarian and always buy genuine pet meds online and from stores.
Use Needleless Syringes for Liquid Medications: If the vet recommended a liquid medication, you are in luck. Liquid medications are far easier to administer than tablets and pills. Apart from being great tools for administering liquid pet meds, the milliliter markings on syringes make measuring the dose a lot easy. All you need to do is go to the pharmacy and pick up a disposable syringe. Without attaching the needle, draw in the right dosage. Open your dog’s mouth just so the mouth of the syringe can go in and then steadily squirt in the liquid dose. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Learn and Practice the Standard Pill Administering Technique: Now, that you know how to feed your pet liquid meds it’s time to graduate to solid pills. There are a few ways you can go about it. You can hide the pill in your pet’s food, use a pilling tool, or you can simply buy a flavored med that the pet gobbles up on its own. However, if you want to feed your dog without the help of food or tools, there is one proven technique you can trust. Sit your dog down and secure it in position between your two legs while you remain in a standing position. This way your dog won’t try to wiggle its way out when you are administering the med. Hold its top jaw and then gently open its mouth. With the other hand, place the pill at the back of the throat and close the mouth. Keep the mouth closed with two hands and wait for the dog to flick out its tongue. This means the dog has swallowed the pill. This technique needs a fair bit of practice. We recommend watching a few tutorial videos and practicing till you become a pro.
Use a Pilling Tool: A pet pilling tool looks just like a syringe. The only difference is that it’s geared for administering pills. These tools are commonly available at online pet pharmacies and stores. Use the tool just like you would use a syringe to feed liquid medication.
Turn it into a Game: One of the safest and easiest ways of getting the dog to have a pill is getting it excited about it. Move your hand side to side while holding the pill in your fingertips. Continue doing so till the dog starts to eagerly follow the movement. It’s also a good idea to supplement the movement by saying things like “what is this” or “what do I have in my hands” in a curiosity-inducing tone. Once the dog is all revved up and ready to go, throw the pill toward the dog. If you do it right, the dog should snap at it and eat it before the pill hits the ground.