The Peanut Butter Plan: A Safe, Palatable Solution for Dogs Who Resist Pills

Recently, Patricia McConnell wrote a great post about giving a dog a pill. If you haven’t read it, especially if your dog is a Pill Ninja, go check it out!

These guys take a lot of pills. Emmett has his thyroid medicine, his liver medicine (the size of a horse tranquilizer… that one’s a toughie), two different chemo pills, an acid reducer… and that’s just at breakfast! With the exception of the giant liver pill, the rest get mixed in his food (Dr. McConnell’s first suggestion!) along with his supplements. Which we’ve switched to powder form. Due to the million pills.

Lucas takes his joint medications and, periodically, a doggy aspirin or eight. Really, for his weight, the current formula we have suggests eight. That’s a lot of pills. And he doesn’t like them. At all.

Of our three, Lucas is the only one who’s earned Pill Ninja status. Before we found a daily that he liked, he used to pick it out of his kibble, finish eating, then carry the pill off to spit out – presumably thinking he was pulling the wool over our eyes.

Over the weekend he hurt his foot. It wasn’t his joints, like he was stiff or sore, but his front right foot was clearly aching. He hobbled around. Cried a bit. Paced (because climbing in his bed wouldn’t make us feel bad). Stared. Hobbled some more.

We knew it was time to give him his Pirin Tablets (please tell me someone else loves that movie, too???). Our go-to solution with him has been a peanut butter lollipop!

Instead of smearing the pills with peanut butter – he sees right around that ruse – we LOAD a spoon with peanut butter, then tuck the pills deep in the mound of yumminess. He can’t resist it!

Three crazy adorable pictures to illustrate:

Is your dog a pill ninja? Or, like Em, can you just toss them in your dog’s bowl? What’s your go-to pill technique?