WOW, I am distressed or is it stressed?!!!! Have you ever tried to get medication down the throat of a resisting canine? Such was my plight this morning.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love these "hounds" of mine. But this morning I almost threw them out to the "dawgs", er I mean the wolves! I was trying to get two things that they really need down their resisting little schnauzer throats. I dreaded it because I had gotten resistance the last time I tried with Comfortis.
Let's go back in history(???) a few months. Last summer we seemed to have a little trouble with the effectiveness of Frontline Plus so the vet had me also using Comfortis. Comfortis is anything but cheap --- can't remember the true cost but it seems to me in my pea-sized brain that it averaged about twenty dollars per tablet depending on the strength and comes in tablet form. As luck would have it, these two girls of mine are definitely different sizes, therefore, I need to buy two different strengths. (Tablets are different sizes.) When I picked up a new script at the vet (last week) I also picked up a package of Pill Pockets. When my Sassy was so, so, sick I usually could use these plus cheese cubes to get meds down her when she would really rather not. I also purchased a pill shooter in the process as I worked with her. Sometimes I could succeed with getting them in the back of her throat and stroking it to get her to swallow before that wallowing tongue could force the medication forward and out of her mouth. But this morning there was no winning with these two!!
These tablets are supposed to be chewable and a "doggie" flavor but I learned early K & P didn't like that. So I broke the tabs into parts, clothed them each in a piece of pill pocket and with all of the faith of a Sunday School girl tried feeding them to first Kami. She spit it out, played with it, put it back in her mouth and spit the pieces out again. So next I try it with Piper. Kind of the same....ate the pill pocket somewhat but ending up spitting the pill parts out coated with pill pocket. So next I try crushing the pill parts up, put it in the pill pocket and feeding it to these ungrateful domestic hounds! They smack it all around their mouths enough to get it all really sticky and out it comes. By now, I am truly frustrated but I pull out a new package of Peanut Butter Zuke's Little Training Treats and break up the Pill Pocket mess and add the training treats to see if I can make a go of this. As one would expect "we" will eat the training treats but "no, thank you" for what we should be swallowing.
I kept at "it" until I got most of "the mess" down each of them such that I felt my forty dollars or whatever wasn't totally wasted! Next I try to get their Heartgard chewables in their little tummies via the mouth. Piper was good, chewed hers up and swallowed it just like always. Kami bit it into, spit it out, and each time tried to get it down her she turned her smart little head away -- would not have it. It is in a bowl awaiting my next assault on her.
Such a fiasco!
As I write this these two mongrels are stretched out in a doggie bed pretending to snooze 'cuz I still got murder in my eyes!!!! Meantime, being the conniving humanoid that I am----I am doing research on how to approach this next. Any helpful ideas??
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