puppy needs medicine

Hi Chaz. I was wondering if anyone could give me quick tips on getting Wanta to take her medicine. It's proving incredibly difficult, especially since now she has that silly cone hat.

Essentially, she was spayed yesterday. The problem is, she needs to take her liquid medications (1cc each dosage). I have -no idea- how to do this now. I always assumed she would just sip it up like when she was a puppy (well...a -younger- puppy anyways). nowadays, she completely avoids my hands/syringe. I don't know how to get her to take it, back then I would even squirt it into my hand b/c she would lick it up. But even that isn't working anymore. Do I really have to hold her head still, b/c she really struggles, etc.

Tips would be great, thx :hail:

To clarify, she essentially -jerks- her head to avoid the syringe completely. I don't see any way to make her take her meds unless I were to hold her head still, but this somehow feels forceful and I don't want to do it unless it is approved first/the last resort. Thx

I would wrap her in a towel. Try and give her a piece of hot dog or something, and when she takes it just squirt the medication in her mouth!

You could try mixing it with a couple spoonfulls of canned food or baby food or something else really yummy - even some people food.

*cries* oh no.

ok so I tried doing the towel trick. I gave her her favorite treat. She was all read to eat it, but I just can't squirt it in. Now she avoids anything I have in my hands completely, violent jerking around, that my brother could hardly keep her in the blanket.

Then I just got desperate, so tried to blitz it. I gave her the treat, and when she ate it, I squirted her. It was an epic fail, only 10% got in her mouth, the other 90% splashed around her cone-guard thing. This is -impossible!-

Mixing it with food might be the only resort left but I don't really have anything like that around here. I've also looked on website and they say to grab her mouth or something and all that. The technique is incredibly difficult to replicate, it's total fail for now.

This is BAD! Wanta needs to take her pain medication for the spay and the antibiotics, but she is VERY good at avoiding it. It's completely hopeless, she struggles INTENSELY against the syringe even being close to her mouth. I really don't know what to do now, but she needs her meds. I don't see any other way besides forcing her, but even then, I don't know if I could manpower this.

I'm assuming members had to do this before as well. Help would be life-saving right now, for me

Can you call the vet and get tablets? They'd be much easier to work with. You can shove them into a ball of canned food or wrap them up in a piece of cheese.

i suspect that the best idea at this point is to use food-trickery. The vet assistants that I got a hold of on the phone were extremely unhelpful. Basically just told me do some sort of dog-pinning trick that didn't work in the slightest bit.

My brother brought up a good point, however. he said that Wanta was probably feeling threatened at this point by having any foreign object near her face. Seemed like deception is the only card left. Like literally mixing it with a high power treat in my hand for example....and bringing it -very slowly- to her, letting her sniff it, and seeing if she'll take the bait.

I don't see mixing it with food as a last resort. It's my first choice for giving meds.

Can you go to the store and buy something? Do you have ground beef? Sometimes pouring it on kibble with a little water to mix it in - but that usually won't work if the dog's picky, you would need something tastier and more mixable.

Immobilize her by kneeling over her, right against a wall, so she can't "back out" of it. You're not sitting on her, just eliminating her escape route. Tilt her head up towards you, restraining her from under her chin. It doesn't take much from this angle, so it's not bad, as far as the "forcing" goes. Stick the syringe in the side of her mouth, while holding her snout shut (so she can't flail and spit it everwhere) then blow in her nose gently before releasing her. It will force her to instinctively swallow.

Yeah I was thinking along the lines of using my most high powered treat and squirting the medicine into my palm with it. that way she may slurp up my hand thinking it's part of the treat. this is my #1 plan as of now.

she'll be fattened by lotsa treats for the next week or so, but it's alrite I think

Maybe melt some cheese or butter and mix it into that?

Thx for the tip, but I'll probably have to avoid this one. It's because it sounds quite difficult to pull off, I might not be pro enough.

Also, the advice the vet's helpers told me was quite similar. Wanta is surprisingly strong for a little dog, and you'd be surprised how hard it is to do what you just said in practice, while it seemingly seems so easy in our heads

perhaps. I'm actually -horrible- with feeding dogs anything besides dog food/treats. I think it's because I'm afraid I'll feed her something poisonous akin to chocolate :yikes:

It's not so bad. I've had to do it to my 60lb wiggle-butt.

Mind you, I think anyone who's ever had to de-worm half-wild horses of ridiculousness out in the middle of a field, would agree that dosing a dog is a cakewalk by comparison. LOL

I agree, mixing meds with food should not be a last resort, it should be the first option. I don't understand why you are reluctant to do this method, it completely removes all aversives out of the picture. 1cc is not much liquid, either, it should be simple to mix in a few tablespoons of something. I'd probably use chicken broth and kibble.... let the kibble soak up some of the chicken broth/meds mixture, and then give it to her for her dinner/breakfast. Simple.

If you feel like you need to try force-feeding her again, TAKE THE E-COLLAR OFF first. They're great to keep dogs from messing with sutures, but dogs are usually extremely stressed out wearing them, at least until they're used to them. Plus she has no peripheral vision while she's wearing it, so she will be extremely wary of people behind her that she can't see. AND it will give you a better hold on her head if she's not wearing it.

In fact, when I have a dog that will mess with sutures and needs to wear an e-collar, I'll keep the collar off the dog as long as I'm supervising him and distracting him whenever he starts focusing on the sutures. I only put the e-collar on if I can't distract him or supervise him. No reason to stress the dogs out more than is necessary.

Thx everyone. I think I'm definitely going with the food mixing. I do like how it removes almost all adversities out of the picture (the forcing is just not fun/intuitive to me)

Btw Lizzy, the reason why I was reluctant is simply due to dilution problems. I assumed (wrongly apparently) that diluting the medicine into food would render it ineffective. For example, "taking the medicine alone would result in it being more powerful". Given your response, however, I suppose my assumption was false.

Um, right.

Unless your vet told you specifically that the meds need to be ingested on an empty stomach, you can assume that they can be taken with food. In fact, most antibiotics and pain killers (don't know what meds you're giving but it must be one of the two) should be given with food because otherwise they can cause stomach upset. Other meds work faster when taken with food because they actually digest better; the food adds bulk that makes your digestive system work harder and you'll fully digest the meds.

Lizzy, this is the internet so I'm asking to make sure.
I'm detecting a passive aggressive tone from you. Did I do something to upset you?...Please be honest with me, for our 'old-times' sake.......

(and what I mean by this is that I can totally handle criticism from people I don't necessarily trust. But from people I see as 'allies', a 'backstab', I do not swallow nearly as well)

No, I'm not upset at all.

I was just a little confused as to where you'd get the idea that meds would be stronger if they were not diluted by food. I've never heard that before so I was kind of taken aback. And my suggestion of mixing it with food was the same suggestion CP gave you 11 posts before. Sorry if I offended you, that was not my intent.

Oh, and I meant to say before: For the record, I give liquid meds to dogs very often, and I will testify to the fact that it is much harder to squirt liquids into a small dog's mouth than a large dog's! I don't think it has to do with the strength of the dog so much as the fact that larger dogs can't move as fast, there's more body to hang on to, and their mouthes are larger which makes it easier to get the syringe in there. So don't feel bad that you are having a hard time with this!