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from "How To Live With A Calculating Cat"

An Easy Pill to Swallow: Training Dogs to Take Pills the Easy Way

    This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series An Easy Pill to Swallow
    from "How To Live With A Calculating Cat"
    from “How To Live With A Calculating Cat”

    There’s a fabulous cartoon series on how to get a cat to swallow a pill, in which the feckless humans tried to plead with the cat,  ratchet the defiant jaws open, disguise the pill in delicious food, etc., all without success.* I have to give the dogs pills occasionally, and I’m far too lazy to want to go through a hassle each time — nor can I count on always having a food product gooey and smelly enough to disguise the offensive pill.

    So I’ve taught the dogs to take pills plain, on cue.

    An Easy Pill to Swallow, Training to Take Pills the Easy Way, Part 3

      This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series An Easy Pill to Swallow

      It’s been a while since I mentioned this, but this is a skill which we often wish our dogs had, but rarely teach them before we need it. Mindy had to learn it early, when a urinary tract infection required antibiotics.

      So here’s a short video of Mindy taking her undisguised pill on cue — and not only taking the undisguised pill, but leaving a fun puzzle toy full of kibble to do so.

      Still An Easy Pill To Swallow

        This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series An Easy Pill to Swallow

        I’ve written before about training my dogs to take undisguised pills on cue. There’s a host of benefits to this:

        • I don’t have to worry about hiding the pills
        • I don’t have to worry about coming up with ever better tricks as my dogs get better at finding hidden pills
        • There’s no loss of trust when I hand my dog something she thinks is a treat and it turns out to be a pill (cue extreme side-eye)
        • I don’t have to guess whether the pills been actually swallowed or saved to spit later