Pills Pills Pills

I’m lyin’ here on the floor where you left me
I think I took too much
I’m crying here, what have you done?
I thought it would be fun…

I think I’ll get outta here, where I can
Run just as fast as I can
To the middle of nowhere
To the middle of my frustrated fears
And I swear you’re just like a pill…

Remember that Pink song? Haha okay seriously though—getting off the floor. Let’s do this thing!

Three pills here. 1 – 2 – 3

Morning            Paroxetine, Propranolol, Trazodone
Afternoon         Paroxetine, Trazodone
Evening             Paroxetine, Trazodone
Future               You will never have a social life again because you must administer medication

My advice: Use different colored highlighters on these pill bottles that look the same. It gets monotonous and easy to mess up what you’re using. Plus, you don’t want to accidentally take your dog’s meds!!

Hey Diego, remember that time I tried to dilute Benadryl into your water dish and have you eat the cheese at the bottom, only to be outsmarted as you scuba dived into the bowl and blew bubbles for a clean cheese retrieval? Me too. How are we going to do this…? If one more person tells me peanut butter—ugh, I know they’re trying to be nice. It just doesn’t work.

That’s right, my dog doesn’t like peanut butter. He’s distrustful of everything. He picks up food and spits it out unless it is high-end meat suited for the king he is, and even then, he would rather see someone taste test it and get poisoned before he considers taking a bite. Rightfully so, since the first week I was following the suggestion to give it to him in wet cat food and he vomited.

Here are the ways I have managed to feed him pills that sometimes work and sometimes he decides he is over it.

Fresh meat
I often slow cook a bunch of chicken breasts so that I can shove pills into them. I try to disguise the pill inside as much as possible, giving him bites of meat with nothing in it before and after. I have him run around the house doing tricks so that he focuses less on what I’m giving him.

He has projectile spit meat out of his mouth when he knows it’s medication time and then digs around the pill. This is sooo awesome as I have to give them on the daily. I really love doing it before work. Ahem…that’s sarcasm.

I have tried holding his face up while he chews it sometimes, now that I don’t think he’ll bite me when I do it. He uses his tongue to move it to the side of his mouth while he swallows the meat and lets the pill fall out. Little sheister.

Freshpet Food
These rolls of dog food come ready made. If you’re training your dog and feeding them high reward treats, you might share my experience of concern for its health. I don’t want to make my dog chubby, but it’s more important that he learns to cope with some of his triggers. Giving him pills in Freshpet rolls of meat, vegetable, and grain combos offers part of his meal at pill time. It is still high reward and good for him. This is also great to stuff in a Kong, up until your genius dog throws it down the steps because it’s the most efficient way to get the food out and you have meat on your walls.

Dog treats with Kong spray cheese
The pill texture is masked between the crunchy beef liver and smelly soft cheese that keeps it attached. I was in a pinch on a long drive and managed to get him to eat this. The downfall—it’s really messy if he spits it out.

Lunch Meat

This wonder has been working in recent days because I can wrap it around the entire pill, and it won’t slide out right away. It’s thin enough where Diego doesn’t get suspicious when I pop it in his mouth. If you have a big pill that is hard to mask, it’s worth trying.

Chearleading
I cheer for Diego like a crazy lady when he’s doing something right. It takes all of my enthusiasm that I have to give on the hard days haha, but I’m his woo girl.

Diego keeps me on my toes. Half the battle is giving pills, but the other half is observing how it is affecting him.

Dr. H told me that he might seem more tired than usual at first. I noticed that he smiled less. He wouldn’t jump happily at the door as often when we were about to go on a walk. He wasn’t quite as excited when I would come home. Those parts were a little bit of a bummer for me, but I also recognized that sometimes the smiling and jumping with intense panting was anxiety. He was crying less outside my bathroom door which was a plus. The medication was meant to help him, and we always had the option to adjust. You just don’t know until you try.