[Dailydrool] Pilling hounds

[Pamela McQuade]

I feel as if I'm an expert on pilling difficult hounds. Our Belvedere, who now has the most pills to take, detests certatin pills--usually the ones that taste like fake liver. Remember, he has that basset, second-best-in-the-dog-world nose that can scent out anything, and he has tastebuds to match. He may not see well, but he can surely smell and taste nasty pills.

My advice, if you can avoid the liver-scented pills, do so.

Then wrap the pills in something tasty. This includes:

Cheese (cream cheese, Velveeta, or whatever)
Canned dog food
Peanut butter
Deli-style Muenster cheese, sliced very thin
Deli-style turkey, sliced very thin

This is an ascending scale of things that have worked with Bel. We began small, but once he tasted any of these with fake liver, we had to move up the scale. As long as he did not taste anything nasty, he'd eat the item, but once he tasted that artificial flavor, he'd refuse to eat that food again with any pills at all, even the unflavored ones. No one can spit pills out like a basset--they come out slimy and sometimes broken, which is particularly devastating with capsules.

Peanut butter worked quite a long time. I would wrap the pills in it--very messy; so I graduated to putting it between a couple of crackers. A real mouthful, but he liked it for some time. Until the flavor thing happened again. When he discovered that peanut butter was hiding those nasty pills. I despaired of finding something else that would do the job. For a while I pilled him the way you would a cat--opening his mouth, pushing the pill to the back of his throat, and rubbing his throat until his tongue sneaked out between his lips, indicating he'd swallowed. Well, you can imagine what a chore that was! Finally I learned that if I gave him a treat just after the pill went in, he would swallow both without complaint.

Then one day I decided to carefully wrap his pills in deli-style turkey. I didn't have much hope, but the flavorless pills went down without complaint. It took me a while to try the liver pills, since if he caught on, I'd be back to pilling like a cat. But so far, if I do them separately, the turkey overcomes the liver flavor--or at least he's willing to suffer the liver flavor for his much-loved turkey reward.

The vet wanted to put him on vitamins, so the other day I went to pick them up. Imagine my dismay that they were--you guessed it--liver flavored. Not only that, they are immense! I'd choke him if I pilled him like a cat. But for the past few days these too have gone down wrapped in turkey. He HAS to taste it, but he's not complaining. I only hope this lasts.

My vote is for turkey. It certainly works for us.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets