How do I give medication to my dog?

There are a lot of ways that we get pretty creative here. Many of you who are clients know that we love peanut butter and spray cheese. It's fabulous for getting pills in, and Buddy agrees. With many dogs, what we'll do is either hide it in a pill pocket—a little bit of peanut butter or a little bit of spray cheese. Unfortunately, some sneaky little dogs are very in tune and know that you're hiding stuff in pills or the pill pockets. Those little dogs, what we'll have to do, Buddy will be our little example here. He's like, "Oh no." What we will do as my poor Buddy dog is going to show us, is we're going to open their mouth, and we're going to pop that pill right down there, just like that. He's very embarrassed now. But there are a lot of different ways to get pills in their mouths. If you have any worries or any trouble, and it's just not working out in your household, certainly give us a call, and we can teach you some other neat little tricks that we have in getting medications in pets because it can be a chore sometimes.

As far as giving the medication, there are many little helpful treats out there. There are pill pockets, the type that will mold around the treat. You can use cheese, peanut butter, marshmallows, or something like that to stuff the pill into. But you also may have to end up getting a pill popper or even popping it down your dog's throat if they are absolutely against taking it.

You can give medication to your dog, usually by mouth. Sometimes you may have to hide it in something which is like a pill pocket, or, depending on the dog, a little piece of cheese or something like that. There are also liquids, which we sometimes have access to if you have a dog that does a little bit better with something on the food or squirted in the mouth. There aren't so many available for dogs, but there are also some transdermal options. We tend to use those more in cats because their skin's a little thinner. We can also help if you have to give it by mouth, without any of those extra things. We can help teach you how to do that. In fact, I think we have a video or will have a video on how to peel your dog. We give injections in the clinic, and then there are a few kinds of medications that are considered nutraceuticals. One of them, Adequan, is injected, and it can help with chronic pain as well. There's a variety of alternative therapies that we can use to help with pain as well.