I’ve been dealing with pilling my dog with medications lately, so I’ve been reading every tip I see on social media on that subject. I asked animal professionals and experienced pet guardians on my Friends’ list for their simple suggestions that could be successful for beginners at pilling pets—cats, dogs, or other animals.
Here are the results, especially for novice pet guardians who’ve not experienced pilling yet!
Chris Nerison (Washington) Peanut butter.
Q: Does it work for cats?
Chris Nerison No experience in that area. See if the cat likes PB first and go from there. Cream cheese might work. Anything tasty that will cover the pill.
Amy Suggars (Ohio) Cats are very good at licking up the good stuff and leaving the pill!!
Tiffany Copley (Ohio) For animals who won’t take it in something, roll it in butter and push in directly into their throat.
Q: How best to keep the mouth open (dog or cat or whatever) so you won’t get bitten?
Tiffany Copley Hold it?
Karen Schlosberg (Massachusetts) For a cat, you have to maneuver your hand around the back of their head and hold the corners of their jaw open. It takes practice.
Amy Suggars My best advice for cats or dogs who won’t take a pill disguised with cheese or peanut butter is to crush the pill into a powder, mix with water in a plastic syringe and then squirt the slurry into the back of the pet’s mouth.
Laurie Schlossnagle (Nebraska) My beagle takes a pill every morning that she won’t chew. We established a routine. Treat, pill, treat. She knows when we are going to do it and she knows what’s going to happen. She has it down so well that she’ll go through the routine and take the pill from other people!
Photo by Laurie Schlossnagle
Jill Gibbs (Montana) For cats, invest in a piller. Keeps fingers out of mouth. For my dogs, I can wrap their pills in peanut butter or cream cheese. If they get the pill out, I repeat with peanut butter and scrape it onto the roof of their mouth. I then follow, instantly, with a piece of cheese or meat. They have to swallow to get the next treat. I have pushed it into a dog-safe meat stick as well.
Renée Lang Parker (Oregon) Crush it up and put it in a small quantity of their favorite food.
Toni Duralski (California) For dogs, I use baby food or cream cheese.
Amy Suggars One method for dogs who will take a pill wrapped in a treat, eat the treat, and spit out the pill is to have three treats available along with a treat + pill. Give the dog Treat #1, hold Treat #2 close to his nose while he eats Treat #1, give Treat #2 as soon as he finishes the first one. Hold Treat #3+pill close to his nose while he eats Treat #2. Give the pill combo as soon as he finishes Treat #2. Hold Treat #4 next to his nose while he’s eating the Combo. Finish with Treat #4.
Mark Cuilla (Washington) For a food-motivated cat (ahem, Franny) I put a little wet food on my finger and squish the pill in. She eats it right off my finger. For cats that aren’t food motivated … thoughts and prayers?
Jennifer Grant (New Mexico) Wrap in something the dog or other animal loves and follow with quick chaser balls of food. Animal will then rush to swallow and get the next one. Talk to vet about alternatives if bitter or terrible taste. Some pharmacies can deliver medication in different forms, even ointment rubbed on ear or in a tasty food bit. The smellier the food (example: canned cat food), the better to cover bad-tasting medication. Feed delicious food after any kind of delivery to help the animal at least tolerate if not like getting the medication. Neighbors have called on me to help medicate their animals. The struggle is real.
Karen Schlosberg (Massachusetts) The easiest way to do it is if they take it in food or in a pill-pocket treat.
Sandie Hanlon (Massachusetts) I use cream cheese and roll it onto a small ball. Open my dog’s mouth at the hinge, push with index finger in back of throat. Second option—pill pocket and freeze for a short time, then push into back of the throat.
Kelly Byam DVM (California) Just get ear gel for cats or get it compounded into something tasty. Tiny tabs can be hidden or ground in Churu paste or Catit paste, or even Kong Stuffing paste. Pilling a cat is really difficult for most people, and can harm the bond between you.
Kenna Stonefern (New Hampshire) I am mean … we either do it the easy way or the hard way! The easy way is in a nice piece of cream cheese or hidden in dinner leftovers or whatever. (I have found my dogs love Greenies pill pockets.) The hard way is I shove it down your head. I of course prefer to do it the easy way, but my Wolfhound absolutely can spot a pill a mile away and be pretty difficult. I also find that with her it is never just ONE pill because of her size, and honestly I just don’t want to fight about it every night, so sometimes for me it is just easier to shove it down her throat rather than have the argument.
Tony Cruse (United Kingdom) I’ve had dogs who are experts in locating medication and spitting every single piece out. Jean Donaldson taught me an amazing method she calls “pilling.” Hold a bit of kibble (represents the pill) in the fingers and a bit of cheese in the palm of the same hand. Gently open the dog’s mouth, drop the kibble at the back of the tongue and as you remove your hand, put the cheese in the middle of the tongue. Repeat once. Now the dog’s throat is lubricated up. Repeat BUT with the pill in your fingers of your hand instead of the kibble. Again drop the cheese, pull your hand out. Works well!
Mark Steward (Washington) We use paté on a spoon with the pill inside. Then we give both dogs a little paté mixed with their dry food. They covet the paté, so she swallows her pill easily. Granted, her pill is small. Don’t know if it would work with a larger pill.
Mary Ray (United Kingdom) Peanut butter for dogs.
Beth Bowles (Pennsylvania) Pill Pockets or a pill popper. I had a cat that could only be pilled with a pill popper. The advantage is that you can get the pill way in the back of the animal’s throat without being bitten, and they’re a lot less likely to be able to spit it out!
Photo by Manolito Daniel
Donna Wilson Wolff (Michigan) Check out Deb Jones’s book Cooperative Care: Seven Steps to Stress-Free Husbandry.
Alisha Ardiana (California) I make a habit of rolling up a small ball of American cheese to just hand the dog on random occasions. And then, when I have to pill her, I wrap the pill in American cheese. We have a Papillon, so whenever possible, assuming it is a drug that can be cut, I also will cut it into smaller pieces.
Shannon Thier (North Carolina) Play a game where you toss rolled-up cheese for the dog to catch. If your dog doesn’t catch, practice with Zukes or rolled cheese very closely until dog catches, then get a little distance.
This is how I got Tonka to come over and open her mouth when she’d hear me shake her pill bottle:
I’d make 7 to 10 rolled-up balls of American or Colby cheese, the same size as the pill or increasing in size toward the pill size if large. Start by tossing one cheese ball after another for the dog to catch, either directly at dog or in an arc, depending upon how dog best catches and swallows. After the fifth treat, the dog should be just catching, scarfing down/swallowing without chewing. Toss the pill in surrounded by cheese as the sixth toss then immediately follow with the seventh so the dog doesn’t have time to think about that sixth swallow. Continue with three final treats to end with just the cheese aftertaste.
I found that when I’d shake the bottle then follow with this process, Tonka began to come over when she’d hear me shake the bottle, as if it were a treat jar, and simply await my tossing treats into her mouth. As she got older and could not have as much cheese due to pancreatitis, thankfully she’d been conditioned to come over and simply open her mouth, upon which I’d drop the pill into the back of her throat and she’d learned to swallow it.
Darcey Byrne (Washington) The chickens are tricky. I use a syringe for liquid meds, and depending on the size of a pill, either wrap it in cheese or put it in the back of the throat and hold to help get it down the hatch!
Ronnie Simon (North Carolina) My puppy recently fractured her leg. Antibiotic medication was easy-peasy! One-quarter of a pill buried in a bit of cheese. For those not having any luck with regular ol’ people cheese, maybe squeeze cheese in a can. No experience with that when it comes to giving pills. However, the puppy was in heaven licking that gooey mess off a tongue depressor (or whatever happens to be the veterinary term) while the veterinarian was busy doing necessary procedures. Wouldn’t mind advice on administering liquid medication. I feared I’d break her jaw prying it open to administer pain medication.
Barbara De Groodt (California) Don’t let them get sick! Or wrap in something tasty. Give a piece without a pill, have one ready to go so they just swallow to get the next one. Good luck!
Frania Shelley-Grielen (New York) For dogs, wrapping pills in yummy foods—peanut butter, cream cheese, cold cuts—can work. For cats, pilling a pill rolled in paté or baby food is possible if you can move fluidly and get the pill back into the cat’s mouth. To avoid pilling a cat, try buying smaller gel caps. They go up in number the smaller the size; #2 is a good size for a cat’s smaller mouth. Fill the gel cap and roll it first in something to coat the capsule (like whipped cream cheese). Next, roll the coated capsule in freeze-dried chicken or salmon. That dry coating is important. You now have something you can offer them on a spoon or plate they will eat and not lick. Little bit of effort but once you have this down, way easier with cats and something they will come to willingly accept.
Tim Beau (Oregon) Stick it in some La Vache Qui Rit cheese. Works every time. I’ve tried the pill pockets, but Lalo, the pickiest ever, won’t touch a pill pocket. They’ve worked for my other dogs, but not Lalo.
Trish Ryan (South Carolina) My gal takes thyroid medication two times a day. Hubby makes low-fat peanut butter cookies for her. He cuts them into tiny squares, puts a little bit of peanut butter on them, adds her pill, and she always gets her meds. She comes running when she hears her cookie jar open.
Julie Ellingson (California) I employ abject greed in my favor. Works exceptionally well when you have multiple dogs. Line up treats of choice and line up your dogs. Now make with the trick and treat routine:
Trick. Everyone gets a treat.
Trick. Everyone gets a treat.
Trick. Everyone gets a treat but pill dog gets a loaded treat.
Trick. Everyone gets a treat.
Repeat until all pills are distributed. Encouraging a little greedy competition works in your favor here. Frankly, the vast majority of my dogs didn’t need a wrapper. They’d swallow a pill and look for more!
Eyes and ears are pretty easy. I brush and comb daily on a raised surface and it’s just a matter of adding on the treatment there.
Kim Campbell Thornton (California) I used to do a similar thing with Twyla. If I wanted to groom her or give her medication or whatever, I took Harper first, started doing the grooming or whatever, handed out treats lavishly, and then Twyla would be right there, demanding her turn.
Rebecca King (Ohio) Condition them for voluntary pill-taking behavior.
Donna-Leigh Rowley (Ontario) Well, my dog gets his meds in liverwurst or rolled up in meat slices; some are mixed in his food. Now for a cat, I learned that if the medication is liquid, put it on their paw. Cats are clean freaks and don’t like anything on their fur and will clean it off. When it comes to pills, that’s a different story. I’ve had very limited experience with that.
Beth Brown Ccbc Cpdt-ksa (Texas) Get a pill popper. You can use small kibble or empty gel capsules as practice “pills.” Cover the popper in some sort of treat like Churu or wet dog food, teach them to put the popper in their mouth and then shoot the pill down their throat while they’re enjoying a tasty snack! Or if it’s one of my dogs, accidentally drop the pill on the ground—then it’s a forbidden treat and they will all go for it.
Trillium Schlosser (Oregon) Raw chicken hearts. They come with their own pill pocket, and the smell/taste is enticing enough for a dog to ignore the pill. Dunno about cats though.
Teri Stripes (Washington) Dogs do well with pills hidden inside their favorite morsel. Cats are best with a cat pill gun, unless it’s a chewable they like. Transdermal meds work well rubbed inside the ears.
Donna Elliott (Georgia) Teach your dog to catch treats in mid-air. At least three. After the dog understands the game, then start putting the pill in the treat. Pill goes in the second or third treat. Sometimes I roll the pill in soft cheese and then roll it in liver treat dust. Got to get creative! If I had to force the issue, I would put the pill in butter.
Cindy Lewis-Bruckart (Oregon) Ask your vet if it comes in liquid form.
Marla Cooper (California) For a dog, put pill in something they really like (example: string cheese). Give dog a few bites without the pill in rapid succession. Then give the one with the pill while dog can see additional pieces to follow. (In other words, hide the pill in the middle of a bunch of rapid-succession treats.) For a cat, drop pill in cat’s mouth and tap cat’s tongue. Cats have an auto-swallow reflex. Easy peasy.
Lee Charles Kelley (New York) Cheese.
Michael Fisher (Washington) Our chow hates taking pills. She is on a daily pill for itching and allergies. We have to put it at the back of her mouth and hold her mouth closed until she swallows it. She gets a “cookie” or other treat afterwards, of course.
Toni Vignogna (California) I tried everything! Then came the miracle of Braunschweiger! I could drop a rock in it and I suspect she’d swallow it. Now, every time I say “Pill?” she is right at my feet, waiting for it.
Jamie Robinson (Florida) I swipe pills in butter, works every time. Don’t have to handle the pet at all.
Lori Leah Monet DVM (Colorado) Grab the nearest technician. Say “Go pill that animal.” Works for me. Seriously. Get the shots for cats.
Karen Reardon Taylor (California) Treat, treat, pill-stuffed treat, treat, treat. Fast! Don’t let them smell it!
Jamie Wilke (Washington) Butter!
Photo by Sodonnia Wolfrom
