calliecritturs
Posted : 10/9/2012 11:09:20 PM
Don't try to 'hide' it. TELL HER. But put it in something that is **slippery** and easy to swallow.
Try liverwurst. In the deli section (or near where the hot dogs are in the meat case). Liverwurst is a liver 'sausage' -- depending on where you grew up/family background you may never have heard of the stuff. It's a deli sandwich meat -- sort of like pate? It's made of liver (which at least it does have iron in it). But it's basically ground liver.
It can be a tad high in fat, BUT they absolutely LOVE it. You can cut it in slices and then wedges and it's soft enough that you can just push a pill in it and they gulp it down.
I was talking to Al's Mom on the phone the other night (and I'll give the link below this for elsewhere in this big thread I've described how I do this) -- but I actually teach them two opposite commands. (Sort of like teaching a dog to "speak" to then teach them to be "quiet"??) -- I teach them to "chew GOOD" and then I also teach them "just swallow". Essentially - I never hide medicines. NOT EVER.
I show them the pill. Then I give them a piece of the liverwurst plain so they can see how yummy it is. Then I SHOW them (in Daisy's case TELL her) -- I put a pill in the glop of liverwurst, and have a 2d piece in my other hand. I say "This is your pill -- JUST SWALLOW" and hold it up. But before they can try to suck off the meat and spit out the pill I offer the OTHER piece in my hand -- so they have to swallow it quick in order to get the other piece.
I literally give them pill after pill after pill this way (just keeping them coming) and reinforcing this is "swallow".
But then I will haul out bits of steak and HOLD ONTO it as I offer a strip -- so they have to nibble at it to get it in their mouth. "That's GOOD -- CHEW GOOD!!!" -- and continue offering it while I hold onto it so they have to nibble and chew it in order to GET it.
Eventually they get it. That you are putting the vile stuff into something YUMMY. but when something is good -- you make sure they know to CHEW it (which makes it last longer).
I give mine all sorts of stuff -- mine will eat watermelon or cantalope **and chew it** (so stuff I'd ordinarily think might give them a stomach ache doesn't because they DO digest it). But at the same time, they snarf down pills because they know I put it in something yummy.
You can use doggie **greed** here as well -- let the others have a small piece of liverwurst -- but when she senses the others WANT what she's getting it should make her more prone to eat it quicker.
After liverwurst the other one I always keep in my "bag of tricks" is BABY FOOD. Meat baby food -- or I will mix a container of baby food veggie with baby food meat (in a small Glad container?). Then, I drop the pills in the mixture and scoop it out with a spoon.
Same as above -- they actually lick it right off the spoon. Most baby food meat is pretty irresistible. I stick with beef, lamb, turkey, chicken, veal -- no ham. But again it's slippery and goes down EASY.
I avoid using stuff like peanut butter -- it's sticky. So they wind up trying to get the stuff OFF the pill (and their mouth is too stuck together to swallow sometimes). But the liverwurst and baby food really DO work well. Peanut butter, cream cheese, liquid cheese? They tend to be too sticky to go down the hatch easy.