How to Give a Pill

I recently received a very nice email from a fellow dog owner who asked me whether I would mind writing a post with instructions on how to best give a pill to a dog. Her dog had recently been prescribed a series of pills for a medical condition, and she was finding it difficult giving the medication, as her dog would “eat around” the pills if they were mixed in with his food, or sit them out if she was trying to give them hidden in a treat of by themselves. I thought this would warrant a separate entry, so that people looking for the same information would be able to easily find it via Google.

When I have to give pills to my dogs, the method I use largely depends on two factors – the size of the pill and how likely my dogs are to eat it.

There are some types of medications and supplements in pill or capsule form that are very easy to give because they smell and taste well from a dog’s point of view. Among those are fish oil capsules, which I have never had any trouble with. My dogs simply love them because they’re fishy. Yum!

Most types of medication, however, don’t fall into the “yummy” category and a little bit of extra effort is required from the owner’s side to get the dog to take them. After all, I can’t just reason with my pups. Any please of, “Come on, this will make you feel better – I promise!” tend to fall on deaf ears since my dogs have a limited understanding of the English language and my tone alone does not convey “please please take this”. With those pills, the size of the pill is the deciding factor on how I give them.

(One note – Since I have two large dogs, what might be a small pill relative to my dogs’ size may be very different for us than for owners with little dogs such as Yorkshire Terriers or Chihuahuas, so I do ask that you keep the size of your dog in mind when trying my method.)

Small Pills

I consider small pills to be pills such as Benedryl or safety-coated baby Aspirin, both of which are available over the counter and very commonly used for dogs. Baby Aspirin is a good pain killer if used sparingly for occasional pain and soreness, and Benedryl is used for a wide variety of allergic reactions, from allergies to specific types of plants to treating a variety of bug and spider bites. In any case, please let me make it clear that you should always consult with your veterinarian before medicating you dog – this should go without saying.

When I give small pills, I tend to hide them in food items that are “too good to pass up”, such as bits of hot dog, shreds of string cheese, and other “people foods” that might normally be off-limits to my dogs except under special circumstances (such as training a new command or giving medication). The smaller the pill hidden inside and the higher value a treat, the more likely it is that the pill will simply be swallowed without any kind of fuss or issues.

A word of warning: If you try this method and your treat or pill are too large, the dog may end up chewing the treat and biting the pill in half. If that happens, chances are pretty good that the bitter medication taste will hit your dog’s tongue, and he will spit out what’s left of both treat and pill. So this method is best used with small pills and small treats.

Larger Pills

When I have to give larger pills – one example would be Drontal Plus dewormer – I find it easier to bypass any attempts of getting my dogs to take the pill voluntarily along with a yummy treat, and instead force them to take the pill, then follow up with a great treat afterward for putting up with the forced medication. Please note that forcing a dog to take a pill should not equate rough-handling your dog or otherwise hurting them for the sake of getting a pill into his mouth!

When I use this method, I first ask my dog to “sit”, then praise and pet them for sitting.

I next take my dog’s mouth with my left hand, tilt his head slightly upward, and open his mouth. This is easiest done by using my thumb to push the upper lip toward the space between my dog’s teeth, basically toward the inside of the mouth. Done gently, this will cause your dog to open his mouth and prevent him from closing it again, since he will not want to bite on his own lip.

With my free right hand, I place the pill as far back on my dog’s tongue as I can get it, toward the beginning of the throat, and then I let go of his lip and close his mouth, gently holding his muzzle with one or both of my hands. Now that the pill is in there safe and sound, the only thing left to do is to try and get my dog to swallow.

Most vets recommend rubbing the dog’s throat to cause him to swallow, but I have found that this method does not usually work that well, and after a couple of minutes of sitting and rubbing, it starts to feel like that pill is never going down and like the dog is just hanging on to it, waiting to spit it right back out the second you release his head. What has worked very well for me has been to gently blow air at the dog’s nose, or touch the dog’s nose with one of my fingers. (My husband calls this “touching the lick button”, as it tends to cause most dogs to lick their noses.) At that point, the trick is making sure to head stays up while the dog licks, and, voila, the pill has been swallowed.

Additional Tips

If you are dealing with particularly large pills – or a very small dog – using a pill cutter to cut the pill into two or more pieces may be a good way of addressing the size issue and getting your dog to take the pills. One thing that has never worked for me has been crushing the pills and attempting to give the crushed pill in “people food” or sprinkled over the dog’s food bowl – most types of medication taste quite bitter, and when crushed, they both smell and taste bitter, which almost always will cause a dog to either spit them out or eat around them.