Think creatively when giving your pet medication

Seeing medicine clutched in your hand, pets are often as unwilling and fearful as young children are when it comes to taking wonder drugs.

But it’s up to pet parents to dutifully, gently administer them.

I receive a lot of mail from pet owners who want to know how to properly medicate their furry friends.

Luckily, with the new generation of pharmaceuticals and tricks to pilling pets, a pet parent’s job has become much easier.

To avoid chasing Sparky or Fluffy throughout the house, here are several ‘prescriptions’ to alleviate the frustration of medicating your pet.

Topical treatments

Topical treatments, including parasite preventatives, antibiotic creams and ointments can be easier to administer than pills, liquids or injections. With the advent of products such as Advantage for cats and K9 Advantix, flea, tick and mosquito control for dogs, external parasites and the diseases associated with them (flea allergy dermatitis, Lyme disease and West Nile virus respectively) are easier to prevent.

Since application methods vary among topical parasite preventatives, always read the instructions first.

Oral medications

The best method for giving your pet a pill is merely to open its mouth and insert the medication quickly.

Open your pet’s mouth, slightly tipping their head back, and with the pill between your fingers, place the medication as far back as you can over the top of the tongue.

Then hold their muzzle shut for a few seconds and either blow some air into their nose and face (causes them to swallow) or squirt a bit of water into the mouth with a dropper.

“Cats especially, should have some water after a pill, because dry pills can remain in the esophagus and cause irritation,” said Dr. Marilyn Stiff, vice president of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

To help administer pills to cats, there is a new product, cleverly named the Cat-A-Piller, that delivers a small drink of water simultaneously with the pill. It’s available from Creative Pet Products at (877) 269-6911.

If you’re afraid your pet will bite you by using the conventional “stuff your fist down the pet’s throat” approach, I recommend the Dr. Hanson’s Bullseye Pill Gun, which is the safest method I know for giving capsules or pills to pets without the worry of dropping the medicine or harming the pet. It’s available from Veterinary Concepts at (800 826-6948.

Don’t forget the power of rewards. You can get a lot further if your pet learns that it gets a yummy treat for approaching you when you have the medicine in your hand.

Break the process down into a lot of small steps, and reward all the steps in the process, and you can convert a “run and hider” into a “what else do you want me to do?” cooperator in no time.

You can try to disguise the pill.

Try placing pills in something like cheese cubes, hot dogs, meatballs or peanut butter. If your pet’s prescription is a capsule, you can try sprinkling the contents over a small amount of food.

Either way, you need to keep a close eye on your animal, making sure it eats everything — medication and all. This may not work with medications that have a strongly bitter flavor.

As a last resort, you might be able to dissolve the pill or capsule in water and administer the medication with a needle-less syringe or pill plunger from your veterinarian. Owners should check with their veterinarian prior to dissolving in water, as some pills are enteric coated for a reason, and dissolution prior to passing through the stomach may adversely affect the absorption and efficacy of the prescription.

Remember the old song lyric “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” from “Mary Poppins”?

Some new oral medications are pet scrumptious.

For example, the nonsteroidal osteoarthritis product Metacam is a honey-flavored oral suspension that can be added to food or given directly to the dog.

There are even tablets that near-instantly dissolve in the pet’s mouth.

“All you have to do is place the tasteless tablet on your pet’s tongue and close the mouth for four seconds to ensure the tablet has disintegrated,” explained Dr. Steve Garner, a board-certified veterinarian with Safari Animal Care Centers in Houston. An example is a new pet arthritis medication called Zubrin.

Ear me now

Sometimes medication isn’t available in the optimum form for your pet. For example, you need a more conveniently-sized pill or more flavorful liquid.

Don’t fret; your veterinarian can contact a compounding pharmacy to customize the drug to fit your pet’s needs.

Of first and foremost importance is administering all doses of medicine as prescribed.

“Because of busy schedules, it is easy to overlook our pet’s medication. There is also a tendency to discontinue medication when our pets appear ‘cured,”’ says veterinarian Kelly Diehl, diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine at the Veterinary Referral Center of Colorado.

“It is very important that owners adhere to their pet’s medication schedule for the entire time prescribed. For example, bacterial resistance to antibiotics can be a result of inadequate treatment duration.”

The easiest way to keep on schedule is to write the doses down in your home calendar and check them off when given to your pet. This way you give all the doses for the proper amount of time.

Be sure to store all pet medications out of reach, not only from any children in the household, but from your pets as well.