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Tips on Giving your Pet Pills

Giving your pet oral medication can be a painstaking process. Here are some tips to help make that process much easier.

When giving your pet oral medication, it is important that your pet is in a sitting position.

Never give pills to an animal that is lying down since they could choke.

Avoid giving oral medication to any animal that is having a seizure or is unconscious, vomiting or behaving aggressively. Giving Pills By Hand Use one hand to pull the pet's snout up slightly toward the ceiling. This will force the lower jaw to drop a bit. Next, using your free hand, gently pull down on the front most part of the lower jaw and put the tablet or capsule on your pet's tongue, placing it as far back as possible. Then close your pet's mouth and hold onto his snout to keep his mouth closed until he has shown evidence of having swallowed the pill. Gently stroking a pet's throat or blowing on his nose will make him swallow the pill more quickly.

If your pet won't swallow the pill try these other methods The following methods will also make giving your pet their needed medication or supplement much easier:

Turn pills into a tasty treat with Pill Pockets or Sneak-a-Pill

A pill gun makes it easy to give your pet medications. The pill gun in the mouth will generally stimulate the swallowing reflex. A good thing about the pill gun is that the pet can bite all he wants on the gun and it will still work.

Use a pill crusher/splitter to mash pills into powder form. Pill crushers work well with medication that can’t be given in pill form. They are great for prescriptions that require only part of dosage. Some tablets don’t have score marks therefore breaking the pill in half or cutting it with a knife will be difficult and/or dangerous. Pill splitters can safely and effectively cut the pill to proper size. After giving your pet their medications reward them with a new toy or treat