[Anke]

My 5 year old foxterrier has just had major emergency surgery to remove a (neatly folded up) crisp packet from her small intestine... no idea how long it has been there, but she became unwell on Thursday and was operated on on Friday. The vets are hopefull that she will pull through... but I now have to feed her three different antibiotics and a painkiller, all several times a day. She has not eaten anything since Wednesday night and has been re-hydrated by the vet through a line. I really need to get her eating again, and she has eaten this evening three small pieces of cooked pasta... Just tried to feed her a macaroni with a tablet hidden in it (that's how she takes her worming tablets) and got badly bitten. Seems she is blaming me for her pain and time away from home...

She is flat out and asleep now...
 I wish they had given me the antibiotic as injections, I could have done those much easier (as I do for the sheep and goats).... but I guess that's not possible for dogs/pets...

How else am I getting these tablets into her?

[jaykay]

It is possible to have antibiotics as injections for your dog - it's just most vets think people don't like to do injections.

I feed tablets to dogs by taking a cube of cheese (cheddar or Edam types) and making a hole in it to take the tablet and then squeezing the cube closed so that the tablet really is enclosed and can't be removed from the cheese easily.

My dogs, including the ultra-suspicious and could-get-a-tablet-out-of-any-food Maia, always used to wolf down the cheese way before they realised it had been adulterated.

Hope this works and very sorry you've been bitten 

[YorkshireLass]

second vote for strong cheese

Poor thing

[Sandy]

I use cheese too, they seem to just taste the cheese!! poor you and poor dog, hope you sort it out soon!!

[Brucklay]

Cheese for me too although I use a cheap cheese slice - Sasha my GS had cancer and I had a combination of tablets for a year every day and she would just walk up in the morning for her cheese parcel and it became a game - I would throw it and she'd catch/eat/swallow - I wish the cat was as easy!!

[Sandy]

Sometimes you need to excite thier taste buds with something smelly and tasty, what about fish, sardines or mackeral, I use those too but always end up with the smell on my jumper....stinks but the smell and taste overpowers any food..I also noticed either omlet or pancake a good parcel too although RHum our lab who has pups is no trouble at all, she eats what ever I give her!

[SallyintNorth]

If the dog likes Marmite, would she eat the pills if they were smothered in it?

[doganjo]

I suppose I've just had dogs so long it doesn't bother me to open their mouths poke the tablets down and hold the mouth closed with one hand while stroking the throat with the other. And I've done that with a terrier too!

But if it really is a problem then your vet should be able to help by giving injections.  If she will eat cheese give her cheese.  My Dad was ill years ago with a  stomach operation which went wrong, they couldn't get him to eat anything but cheese - he went up from 6 stone to 8 stone in about a week.  Hmmm  on reflection, maybe the Guinness helped too. 

[Fleecewife]

You should be able to get antiBs in liquid form, then you can just squirt it into her mouth from a syringe, while holding one of the strong-tasting foods in front of her nose.  That might work better than injections as she will soon get tired of those.
I hope she is better soon.  Don't dogs wolf down the strangest things.  I suppose the crisp packet was too slippery to pass through.

[SallyintNorth]

Don't dogs wolf down the strangest things.  I suppose the crisp packet was too slippery to pass through.

I had a stray dog who'd nearly starved to death when I found her.  Which, I always felt, excused her attitude to food.  Which was, "If I can swallow it, I eats it.  If it stays down, it was edible."

And we had a labrador once, spewed up a 'pebble' the size - and shape as it happens - of a mango.

Hope your girl makes a good recovery - and you get to keep all your fingers as you help her get there!

[Bionic]

Smelly sardines work for my dog. 

Have you thought about grinding the tablets down?  Once they become a powder and mixed with the food its much more difficult for the dog to leave them out.

Sally

[Small Farmer]

 I wish they had given me the antibiotic as injections, I could have done those much easier (as I do for the sheep and goats).... but I guess that's not possible for dogs/pets...

How else am I getting these tablets into her?

The vets only don't because most pet owners can't do it so it doesn't occur to them.  Our farm vet does a couple of sessions of small animal surgery every week to keep her hand in.  She says the mindset is just so different.

[Anke]

Thanks I will try the cheese trick once she is eating properly again - at the moment she is just licking bits of the spoon of the pate type food the vets gave us... Not interested in her usual stuff, but then I guess she is still in pain and her stomach/bowel are not functioning that well...

We have resorted to one person holding her and the other popping the tablets into her mouth. I need to wear thick gloves though.... she is really in a grump with me (very unusual for her, and I hope she comes out of it soon).

I'll ask the vet for injection/dripping into her mouth tomorrow, he is my farm vet too so knows I can do injections!

And there was me hoping not to have a vets bill in January.... this will be a big one!

[knightquest]

I don't think for a minute that she holds you responsible and please don't feel that you are responsible or too sorry for her. Just treat it as a normal thing to do.

I do the open mouth and put the tablets right in and massage the throat thing too.

Hope she makes a swift and full recovery 

Ian

[Sandy]

I do the throat massage too but only if they do not take the tablets in cheese or meat etc.....also, if you have to give medication often they know whats comming and can pick up your concerns....you have to remember not to make a lot of fuss either......good luck!!