It's not so easy especially if your dog has a very discerning palate when it comes to anything that she puts in her mouth. In most cases I am actually quite pleased that my dog is a finicky eater because this means that she isn't constantly getting into stuff and eating things that she shouldn't.
As you are aware my dog recently had a string of very unfortunate events when she first ate some chicken bones and then got mis-diagnosed by an incompetent veterinarian that nearly killed her. Thankfully, we got a second opinion from another, more expensive vet, and we are on the track to recovery. The only problem now is that we have a mountain of pills that have to be administered on a daily basis and there is no way that she is going to eat these in their raw form.
Each day, she has to take an antibiotic which is actually quite a huge pill, an anti-inflammatory, and some mystery pill that is meant to help with kidney recovery. There is no chance she is just going to eat these on demand and after trying to hide the pills inside of some soft cheese I found out that she just licks around the cheese and leaves the pills behind. I needed a new strategy.
Thankfully, I have some experience from my college days of turning solid substances into a fine powder that could be ingested by humans for not-so-medicinal-purposes.
Yeah, that's right. I did drugs in college and I never thought that this knowledge would end up being extremely helpful to keeping my doggie in good health. I haven't used this technique in many years but it involves a bill of some sort, a spoon, and a plate. I think you can put the pieces together about how it was that I got this knowledge and what I used it for, and if you don't, well you are probably better off not having this information.
Anyway, once you get it down to a fine powder you can mix it with wet dog food that has an overpowering smell. The jellied chicken and liver wet dog food works wonderfully for this as it all just becomes one disgusting-looking lump that apparently dogs find irresistible.
Once this was accomplished Nadi gobbled it down like there wasn't even any pills in it. She didn't even hesitate.
This process apparently is exhausting because shortly thereafter she was fast asleep. There are no sedatives in this mix, my dog is just lazy even when she isn't feeling under the weather and recuperating from horrible neck wounds.
A lot of people simply shove the pills down their dog's throat and this is something that I would normally do with Nadi as well. However, seeing as how her throat is the most sensitive part of her body right now and where the wounds are at the moment, I thought it would be a terrible idea to send a pill with potentially sharp edges down the hatch, especially when she doesn't want to eat it. She would resist and probably damage her throat in the process.
Thankfully my somewhat dark past has come in handy in times like these and I have had no problem getting her to take her pills. A spoonful of chicken liver jelly helps the medicine go down, in the most disgusting way!
At the moment Nadi is spending 90% of her day sleeping and this is exactly what the doctor ordered. I don't know if the pills are contributing to this fatigue or not but she hasn't had a coughing fit in a few days and this is exactly what I was hoping for. The few times I have taken her out in public she "gassed out" pretty fast so I'm thinking we have a bit of a long road ahead of us before she is back at 100%.
We'll get you back out there just as soon as we can pooch!
