# Obviously she's feeling better...



## janababy (Jan 2, 2012)

So glad to hear that your "pup" is on the mend. I swear they have radar when it comes to finding pills in their food. One of my friends used "pill pockets" that can be found at pet food stores. You just tuck the medication into them. She had always had an issue with her dogs and medications. This seemed to work for her. Might be worth a try.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

I'm sorry to say your story made me smile. I know she needs her meds, but I sort of admire her stubborness. 

What about peanut butter? Can you take a little bread, put the pill in it and put some peanut butter on top? That was the only way we got pills into my old Golden when I was growing up.


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

I'm glad to hear she's at least feeling better


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## Nomes (Nov 7, 2011)

that's great that she's feeling at least a tiny bit better!  I will second what janababy said about the pillpockets....they are AMAZING! my old darling had to take prednisone and pheonabarb daily and they worked awesome! She looked forward to them actually! : you might give 'em a try...


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## Nomes (Nov 7, 2011)

GREENIES® Pill Pockets® treats for dogs They're made by Greenies, and can be found at just about any pet store in our area...especially the local mom 'n pop ones...


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## ragtym (Feb 3, 2008)

hehe- my mom and another friend recommended Pill Pockets as well. My only fear is that she will chew it and find the pill. If she just gulps it, then it should be fine.

She maintained her stubbornness this morning. I was out of that nasty Alpo stuff so I softened some of her dry food and then added pumpkin to it. She nibbled on the pieces that DIDN'T have pumpkin on them, spit out the ones that did and then finally refused to eat it at all. Evidently pumpkin is now on her DNE (Do not eat) list now!

So currently the DNE list stands at:
Paul Newman's good for her food and anything that it has touched
Pumpkin and anything it has touched
Bananas are suspect - they get spit out on the floor and nibbled apart
Green beans if they have been touched by pumpkin or the good food

The green beans were another addition I tried last night (I put them in some pumpkin) - same response as to the pumpkin covered dry food. I had green beans all over my carpet! However, that didn't last long as her nephew sucked them all up as fast as he could find them. It was kind of funny to see the look on her face though:

"Oh yay! I love these things." *nibble* *makes face and spits it out* "This tastes like that stuff those nasty pills were in!" *glare at mom*

She's slept very hard last night (so I snuck upstairs and slept in my own bed )and again this am. I know she didn't sleep well Friday night so I think she is probably finally making up for that. I think she also finally feels well enough to sleep deeply and comfortably.

Thank you for all the good wishes and giggles at my expense


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## Angelina (Aug 11, 2011)

Pill pockets are the way to go! Angelina is the same way and I give her a quick succession of food one after the other so she is gulping to get to the next one: pieces of cheese, meat, pill pocket, pill pocket with pill, cheese...gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp....um, ok more cheese, gulp!

Hope she continues to get better!


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

We are also a Pill Pocket household! 

I hope she's back to normal soon...they sure do worry us and then when they act like brats we are so relieved we aren't that bothered!


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## ragtym (Feb 3, 2008)

She's doing much better now and is a lot more active! In fact, she's a little TOO active - I've had to put a baby gate across the bottom of our stairs at night to keep her from going up and down them. She's supposed to be resting but she likes to climb up and down the stairs, particularly if it's nearly dinner time.  She's still not out of the woods yet though. Her last PCV was 24 so only a small improvement over the weekend. It's still considered to be critically low if it's under 25. We go back on Friday to have it retested.

She decided that she's had enough of the Sucralfate slurry *:yuck:* that I have to give her 3 times a day and the other day, she clamped her teeth on the syringe to keep me from putting it in her mouth! Luckily, she didn't apply much pressure to it so it still worked.This is a drug that I have to crush up and mix with water so it won't work with a pill pocket. 

She has also decided that wet food is okay as long as it's been nuked for a few seconds. That makes me think it was more of a "old nose can't smell so good" thing than a "it might be hiding a nasty pill" thing.

Thanks for all the good thoughts - the stubborn old lady seems to be on the mend.


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## MikaTallulah (Jul 19, 2006)

Can the pills be crushed? Buddy won't take pills whole but will eat them when crushed and mixed with wet food or anything he does not normally get.


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## mylissyk (Feb 25, 2007)

I know I shouldn't but I laughed. I have a foster dog who needs meds and will not let me put down his throat - potoooiiee. He does gulp down the ball of canned food with them in it, but I use smaller than a grape sized ball with only one pill in it.

Will she catch treats out of the air tossed to her? You could try tossing her some yummy treats then toss her a Pill Pocket with a pill in it. Usually my don't even chew when I do that.

You will figure it out, we are supposed to be smarter than them, at least I think we are!


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## ragtym (Feb 3, 2008)

MikaTallulah said:


> Can the pills be crushed? Buddy won't take pills whole but will eat them when crushed and mixed with wet food or anything he does not normally get.


The one pill that she takes has to be crushed and given as a slurry and it can't be given with food. Her thyroid pill and her Gabapentin she'll usually just swallow if I throw them in her food. She won't eat her food if I put her Tramadol in there though. The other pill for her ulcers has to be taken with food. I'll ask the vet on Friday if I can crush the ulcer pill though.

She's always been very crafty about pills put into stuff. I have put pills into hot dogs, cheese, Wonder Bread, different types of dog treats, and about 100 different other things to get her to take them. If she bites a pill in something, she will drop it on the floor and if the other dogs don't get it first, she will usually nibble small pieces of the food item off and leave the stupid pill laying on the floor! I'm not sure she didn't teach my male Golden and my terrier that trick because both of them pick allergy meds out of their food bowls and drop them on the floor now!



mylissyk said:


> Will she catch treats out of the air tossed to her? You could try tossing her some yummy treats then toss her a Pill Pocket with a pill in it. Usually my don't even chew when I do that.


Unfortunately, she doesn't see very well anymore so if I toss something to her, it usually bounces off of her face and then onto the floor. If it's not immediately hoovered by one of the other dogs, I have to show her where it fell because she can't find it on her own. I'm usually giggling uncontrollably at the look on her face by this point. It's kind of a mix of "what the heck did you do that for?" and "I don't know what it was but now I really want it!"

I'm going to try the Pill Pockets but I have a feeling that they will fall victim to her uncanny pill-sensing powers.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

ragtym said:


> She decided that she's had enough of the Sucralfate slurry *:yuck:* that I have to give her 3 times a day and the other day, she clamped her teeth on the syringe to keep me from putting it in her mouth! Luckily, she didn't apply much pressure to it so it still worked.This is a drug that I have to crush up and mix with water so it won't work with a pill pocket.


I totally understand your frustration with Sucralfate! We also go through the that war after dissolving it and putting it in the syringe. There really is no better way to give it to them since it's such a bitter pill to swallow, literally! We ended up gagging our Toby last week, then he woke up at midnight and started wheezing and throwing up. We ended up dropping it and just going with Pepcid instead for his acid reflux while on Rimadyl, and attributed the vomiting to the Denamarin we added to protect his liver from the Rimadyl. Our vet told us later that many dogs need to build up on the Sam E portion of the Denamarin so we are cutting tablets, hiding them in tasty pill pockets.


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## ragtym (Feb 3, 2008)

Dallas Gold said:


> We ended up dropping it and just going with Pepcid instead for his acid reflux while on Rimadyl, and attributed the vomiting to the Denamarin we added to protect his liver from the Rimadyl. Our vet told us later that many dogs need to build up on the Sam E portion of the Denamarin so we are cutting tablets, hiding them in tasty pill pockets.


Faith gagged on it for the first time this am but didn't do it when I gave her the 2nd dose at lunchtime. It worries me that I might get it into her trachea but she seems to swallow it quickly enough.

I hadn't heard of the Denamarin before. I might have to try that with her once I figure out what to replace the Rimadyl with. Of course, that will just add another pill to the pile.


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## Dallas Gold (Dec 22, 2007)

ragtym said:


> Faith gagged on it for the first time this am but didn't do it when I gave her the 2nd dose at lunchtime. It worries me that I might get it into her trachea but she seems to swallow it quickly enough.
> 
> I hadn't heard of the Denamarin before. I might have to try that with her once I figure out what to replace the Rimadyl with. Of course, that will just add another pill to the pile.


The Denamarin is just 425 SamE and 35 mg silybin A+B and for a dog up to 65 lbs it's one tablet per day, over 65 to 120 it's two tablets. If a Golden is over 120 lbs (wow) it's 3 tablets. It's a very expensive product and I think/hope I can duplicate it with human Sam E and Milk Thistle and make it more affordable. Toby's acupuncture vet told me she recommends it highly for all her geriatric patients simply because the Sam E is such a powerful anti-inflammatory and both ingredients support the liver so well. I made the mistake of buying a milk thistle with added ingredients, one of which would be counter productive to his hypertension medication. I found a better single ingredient formulation when I went back to the pharmacy.

Toby has so many eye drops and pills now i feel like a pharmacy. I actually must put two of his meds on Google Calendar to remind me because one is dosed once per week and the other one twice a month. Thank goodness for Google Calendar!!


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## ssteuart (Feb 2, 2012)

Glad to hear the old gal is doing a bit better. I had to smile when reading this post, we have a 12 year old, that is bratty like that sometimes too. Just really made me smile. Keep us up to date.


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