Giving meds to your PON

Most canine medications aren’t user friendly, but there are some strategies you can use to try to medicate your PON when needed.

Naturally, it depends on the form of those medications and the actual temperament of your PON and whether your PON is agreeable to taking medicine.

The easiest strategy, when dealing with PON puppies offering medication with their food. Just mix it in their food bowls and it is done - I never had a PON that wouldn’t take medicine that way. Pumpkin (or squash) is a perfect food for including meds.

PON puppies may be given their liquid medicine from a dropper. Just slide the dropper between their teeth and cheek and slowly give the medicine. Care has to be taken to make sure you choke your PON puppy by giving medicine too quickly.

Advice for medicating adult PONS are very similar as long as your PON will stay still. Stabbing a dropper into it's gums won't make your PON willing to take liquid medicines in the future. If you are going to be giving your PON liquid meds, ask your family veterinarian if it comes with a dropper and be sure to get one.

Pills often come in two different versions. The most appealing one is often meat flavored and your PON just chews it up. However, most pills shouldn't be chewed and you have to find another method to get your PON to take them.

The most popular strategy for medicating your PON when giving pills is to hide them in food. Some accepted foods for this are cheese, bread and meat, pumpkin.

There are also pocket shaped treats that you can buy to actually hide the pills in. If you are going to medicate your PON this way, you need to ask the veterinarian which types of foods can be used with each medicine because not all human foods agree with dogs.

Most PONS prefer peanut butter, which can be messy but works every time. Some people even put peanut butter on a small piece of bread, wrap the bread around the pill (so that it is covered in peanut butter) and give it to their PON. Typically, you can just use creamy peanut butter by itself and put a heaping spoonful on a plate, or sometimes just on the spoon, and then insert the pill. PONS just lap up the peanut butter, pill and all. This technique has a high success rate.

If this doesn't work for you, and you have a calm PON, you can slide the pill between cheek and gum and slowly push it back behind the teeth. The PON's swallow reflex will usually help get the pill swallowed.

I do not recommend trying to push the pill down your PON's throat if you don't know what you're doing. Ask your vet to illustrate how to give your PON pills the next time you visit. Good luck !