Dog will not take pills

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I have tried hiding them in all her favourite foods, crushing them up into food and forcing them down the back of her throat and keeping her mouth closed. Today it’s taken me until 4pm to force her to swallow 1 tablet and she’s meant to have 5 a day.
She’s had many seizures simply because I cannot get meds in her then we have an awful 12+ hours. It’s not her fault but I’m rapidly running out of patience and go from feeling cross with her to feeling awful ☹️

We put our dogs epilepsy meds in a spoon of pate. We also make it exciting like he's getting a treat so he sees meds time as a good thing.

What foods have you tried? Butter is a winner for one of ours, and peanut butter for another.

have you tried a short sharp blow on their face when the pill is in the back of their mouth? It makes them swallow.

Fast feed her treat treat treat treat pill treat treat treat etc.

If she likes the game of changing food throw the food as above .

For clarity - blowing air from your mouth (best directed to the nostrils of the dog), bot a short sharp blow with a baseball bat!

What drug is it ?

^ This

This is what we do with ours. We wrap the pill in a small piece of chicken. Then we give one, two, three, pieces of normal chicken quickly, then the one with the pill in, and then follow that one quickly with another normal piece and then another.

The fast treating and swallowing makes my dogs eat the chicken pieces so quickly that they are more concentrated on the next piece of chicken coming in that they swallow the one down with the pill inside quickly and without even noticing.

Mine were AWFUL taking pills but now this method works every time.

This is a good point. I assume this is something new? Ask for a liquid version - there usually is one - and that will enable you to direct it into the bak of the mouth forcing a swallow reflex.

I think you dog is related to mine - he's rarely needed to take any pills but he is way to smart to be conned by any strategy known to man. Liquid is the only way to go.

I second pate, I get tubes of dog training pate as it doesn't contain onion, garlic, etc. Or a little Dairylea also works for us.

If you get them to the back of her mouth hold her head up and gently rub her throat that makes her swallow but the other methods here are better interspersing with tears quickly is well worth trying but I would pu the pill in a bit of sausage or as suggested chicken as well and don’t let her see you getting the pills out and hiding them.

I put my dog's tablets on peanut butter or cheese then as I hand it to him I back it up with some sausage or ham so he wants to swallow the first thing quickly to get the second thing.

For a particular tablet he avoids I go to extreme measures.
I get two long ribbons of ham, put one across the other side it makes a +, then a blob of cream cheese, then the tablet pushed completely into the cream cheese, then wrap it up with the 4 sides of the ham so it's completely covered.
I give him this then immediately offer him some cream cheese on my finger or spoon so by the time he's licked it off he's definitely swallowed the tablet.

My dogs have their pills in a curl of butter. If they're suspicious they have a piece of plain butter first (or maybe 2nd too) before getting the one with the pill in - by that time the butter simply slips down and they don't know that there's a pill in there. You might need to prepare the butter in advance.

In order to keep this as an easy way of feeding pills we do pay a butter tax when using the butter - he gets a bit each time - if this makes it easier to get him to eat a pill at a later stage, it's worth the amount of butter he has.

(I hasten to add that he only gets a small amount and he's definitely not overweight).

@Cinderelala I tried that. He managed to eat all the good stuff and still spat out the tablet 😂And not immediately either. He sneaks off to spit it out - which is how I know he hasn't swallowed it, because he would never sneak off if he had.

It’s levetiracetam and she’s been on it since December and she’s on cushings medication. There is no food strategy to get her to take pills. I haven’t been able to get her to take a single small piece of cheese, chicken or hotdog without a pill in today let alone with. It isn’t a health problem we’ve been back and forth to vets. Never met a dog like it.

I can't get mine to eat anything that she thinks is suspicious. I have to open her mouth, put the pill to the back of her tongue and wait till she swallows.

And then scrub the saliva off my hands...

My method has always worked so far. Zap some small lumps of cheddar in the microwave (10 secs prob enough). Lift the resultant melted splats off while still warm and smelling deliciously cheesy. Don't let them get too cool or they will lose appeal. Roll a splat round a pill and seal it and whack it onto back of dog's tongue whilst telling him how lucky he is to get a yummy cheesy (so he catches the excitement and doesn't suspect the contents). Make sure the cheesy lump is small enough for him to swallow in a gulp. Mine never realised, once I had perfected this. Sometimes I gave him toasted cheese sandwiches with no pills to retain his great passion for toasted cheese.

It was the vet who told me they prefer hot cheese.

Wow that's commitment 😂 my boy is a greedy tinker and can't believe his luck at so much ham, peanut butter and cheese, I think he thinks he best swallow it quick in case he's not meant to have it!

This, it really works because they're so focused on making sure they're getting the next treat, they wolf the one with the pill in down quicksmart.
I used to have a dog with epilepsy on the same meds ( and others ) that one was always the worst to get into him.
Try smelly sardines or fish paste round the pill then show her the roast chicken or something that is her absolute favourite thing as you pop the stinky pill in her mouth.

I had the same problem.
I bought empty capsule shells and broke the tablet up put it in the shell they can’t smell it or taste it and put it in his food.
it work really well. They sell them on Amazon and EBay

Can you increase the size of chicken, hotdog etc? I know some dogs can't tolerate more human food.
Its a nightmare when it's so important.

Have you tried jam or cream cheese, they are sticky and need a lot of licking which is meditative to a lot of dogs, calms them down to a more receptive state.

Liver pate sandwiches worked for our epileptic dog. Helped that she loved revoltingly stinky food. Her idea of a high value treated was a discarded kebab she found in a gutter.

Like others, feed lots of bits of sandwich with no meds so it's random for the dog.

Wrap in Parma ham. It is basically meat clingfilm - he won’tt be able to get it undone

I used to use cheese but BiteyDog needed to go on a diet and it was my vet which suggested using lick-e-lix for cats. We now pop a big blob of a chicken flavour one on his pills in the palm of my hand and he licks it off then he gets another blob without any pill in it (but ssshhhhh don’t tell the cats).