Helping wriggly dog get used to eye drops

[FieldNotes]

My lovely dog has been diagnosed with dry eye and needs eye drops and ointment everyday for the rest of his life. So far we are really struggling to get the drops in as he won’t keep still. I’ve watched countless YouTube videos for the technique, but all the dogs in the videos keep still!

Has anyone got any tips, or been in this situation and can give me some hope it will get easier? I just want to do my best for him, but I’m feeling very down about it at the moment. I need to get to the point where I can do this on my own for the days when DP isn’t around to help me.

How big is he? I only have experience of cats but I kneel on the floor and sit back on my heels then wedge the cat between my legs, open his eye with the finger and thumb of one hand and put the eye drop in with the other. The vet said if he was very wriggly to wrap him in a towel but that wasn't necessary. Fortunately he's a sweetheart.

The cat not the vet!

He’s a cocker spaniel. Thank you I didn’t think of a towel. He’s so lovely in every way but just won’t tolerate this at all!

Ive got a border collie, to get eye drops in I ended up with him sitting down, and I straddle him so I could grip him with my knees !. I could then put the drop in over the top of his head. If I got it on the first aim he was ok, bit of I faffed about he would get too squirmy. This was followed by lots of ham!

Our dog was terrified of his eye drops at first so it helped to have two of us to do it.

One of us wrapped him in a big towel, gave him a lovely cuddle and fed him bits of cheese while the other administered the drops.

The main things were to get his legs tightly wrapped to stop him kicking and wriggling, and then getting the drops in quickly.

If you practice wrapping him up and feeding him treats without the drops he won't bolt every time he sees the towel.

Our dog still needs his drops but it's so much easier now he knows we're not going to hurt him.

To clarify, he doesn't need the towel and cheese anymore!

Thanks all. Some useful tips here and some hope that it won’t always be this hard.

I had a slightly different tactic you might want to try. I had to slowly get her to cooperate and restraining her wasn’t getting us anywhere she would just run and hide if she thought I was going to restrain her. So I got her to sit, then I said “eye” so she knew what I was going to do. Then quick eye drop. Then treat. Initially I didn’t actually administer drop but just touched around the eye area. And slowly slowly built up. She liked the routine aspect of “sit, say “eye” touch the eye area, treat” as I think she felt she knew the routine and there was a treat at the end.

never heard of the towel trick that may work for you , but just in case you want another way to try

This sounds worth trying, thank you.

Look up the bucket game on Facebook. Helps you to train your dog for things like this.

Mine had eye drops for a sticky eye. I just get her to sit then hold her by the hair under her chin with one hand and plop drop in with other hand. It’s a firm but gentle hold that makes her keep still but doesn’t hurt.

also the treat had to be better than usual treats so she really wanted to be good

Hold the animal with his/her back to you - tilt head up. This is how I got my dog to take eye drops.