Give Your Dog Meds? Try Homemade Pill Pockets
My dog, Rudi (who just turned 9 — happy birthday, big girl!), takes quite a few pills each day. We have anti-seizure medications, pills that help with the side effects of the anti-seizure meds, some supplements to support other old dog health issues, and, of course, every month or so it seems like we have her on something else to deal with whatever new and exciting health issue she has going on.
Senior dogs, man — they are the best, but sometimes they are not the cheapest.
Not much I wouldn’t do for this sweet old girl.
Now, if it were a challenge to get her to take her meds, this would be straight up awful, but it’s actually a total piece of cake. Erm, biscuit? And that’s because we tuck all those pills into a Pill Pocket — they’re soft and mushy and I can cram a bunch of pills in them, then Rudi gobbles it up like it’s her favorite treat. It makes life really easy, but you know how I mentioned that bit about old dogs being a little pricey (although totally worth it, obvs)? Going through a couple of these a day doesn’t really help in that department.
We’ve tried peanut butter (xylitol-free, of course — be careful about that!), cheese, cream cheese, etc. And sure, they all work in as far as the fact that Rudi gobbles it all up. But the convenience factor is not be forgotten — pulling a moldable treat out of a bag and just having to wash your hands is far easier than getting out a knife and a jar of peanut butter, slathering a pile of pills with it, squishing them together (and, of course, getting tons of PB on your fingers, which you probably can’t even lick off because you’ve been handling medications), then having to wash the knife and put away the peanut butter afterward. It’s not like it’s rocket science or anything, but it requires more steps than I really want to take two or three times a day.
Seriously, it is not hard at ALL to get this pup to eat a treat.
Enter: DIY pill pockets! (How did I not think of this sooner?)
Dogtime shared a recipe from Chef Henry the Dog, and, well, the video is worth a watch, but the best part is that it just includes brown rice flower, coconut milk and peanut butter (again, check the label for xylitol!). Just mix it, form it and refrigerate. Sounds awesome, right? I’m so giving this recipe a try, like, this weekend.
Do you give your dog pills? What do you use? We used to have to give our kitty medication and, well, that never went quite as smoothly. —Kristen