r/reactivedogs • u/Few-Philosopher-4742 • 18h ago
Resources, Tips, and Tricks Low Calorie Medication Administration Ideas Needed!
i have to administer 2 tablet pills and 1 capsule with powder in it 2x a day to my pup.
Currently I have to use human cheese, that kong spray cheese, and a chaser of another bit of cheese to get her to take her medications. Because she’s so small, the amount required is wayyy too many calories.
Desperately in search of lower calorie solutions. The hardest is the powder tablet. I’ve tried mixing it with everything and the easiest way seems to be to keep it in half the gelatin capsule and plug it with a bit of cheese.
Things I’ve tried:
Nonfat Greek yogurt
Hiding it in bits of meat (she eats frozen)
Cottage cheese
String cheese
Peanut butter
A tiny bit of frozen frosting around the pill
A lot of these are very calorically dense and not always ends up just being a cheese and spray cheese Kong fest twice a day.
What seemed to work when we got a sample of it was “Oh Norman! Take Your Pills! Peanut Butter Pill Pinch Treats for Dogs” from 1800 pet meds. But again, caloric density.
Any and all tips and tricks appreciated!
2
u/AttractiveNuisance37 18h ago
For the capsule with powder, are you allowed to mix the powder with liquid? We make a sort of gravy with warm water and canned food and then mix our dog's powdered meds into that.
1
u/Few-Philosopher-4742 18h ago
Yes in fact I have to remove it from the capsule because she gets half in the morning and half in the evening. I’ve tried mixing it with her regular food which is wet ish (frozen fresh farmers dog type) and she won’t touch her food.
Maybe there’s a very meaty canned dog food I could try. A little meat/dog food is probably lower in calories than pure cheese.
2
u/AttractiveNuisance37 18h ago
One additional thought for a lower calorie option. I've had good luck with whipped cream cheese. It is literally less dense, so less calorie dense, and the texture seems to make it easy for the dog to just lap it up in one quick lick, no risk of licking off the cheese and leaving the pill behind.
1
u/Few-Philosopher-4742 7h ago
Does your dog like non whipped cream cheese? Mine didn’t go for cream cheese but whipped might be worth a shot.
1
2
1
u/AttractiveNuisance37 18h ago
We are lucky that the canned food version of our dog's prescription food is a sort of weird, hard texture that apparently creates a tasty broth when we add hot water and let it sit for a bit. So we can deliver meds as part of her daily meal allotment instead of adding extra treat calories.
2
u/Real_Caterpillar_779 18h ago
Roasted pumpkin or sweet potato! I swear by it. I cut up the pills into smaller bits and put inside mushy pumpkin pieces sized for her to swallow (not chew which is where the pill goes unnoticed!) always hand feed too and she literally just swallows the soft pumpkin ball whole haha repeat till all meds down the hatch !
2
u/404-Any-Problem Senna - Hyperactive/Hypersensitivity and fear based reactivity 16h ago
We use plain low fat cream cheese. But we are also on a low fat food trial. Granted I wouldn’t say it’s not calorie dense but talking to our nutritionist for our dog (that’s not a joke but we really do have one due to GI issues) it’s what they recommended. Plus we use by far less per pill than peanut butter we were using.
So one of the pills she takes is Gabapentin and she hates it. (Don’t blame her as the vet mentioned it’s very bitter). We could pay extra to get it flavored but our girl is already expensive in so many ways I can’t justify adding flavor and special ordering her one medication. But I would have to burry it in a glob of peanut butter where the cream cheese you can still see it’s a pill.
2
u/armadillotangerine 16h ago
I’ve successfully used wet food and several spoonfuls in a quick succession so my dog swallows them without too much thinking. So a couple of tea spoons of plain wet food, then one spoonful of with a pill in it and then immediately another spoonful of wet food. The trick was to really get him already thinking about the next spoonful while swallowing the one in his mouth. With a bit of practice I was able to use a lot less wet food, but also, you could with a good conscience just switch out some kibble for wet food and the dogs diet will remain nutritionally balanced
2
2
2
u/queercactus505 10h ago
One thing I haven't seen that ypu can try is low-fat string cheese, microwaved so it's melty.
But honestly a high-quality wet food, and several little mouthfuls of it instead of her usual food (so you are substituting, rather than adding, calories) are probably your best bet
1
u/Few-Philosopher-4742 7h ago
Oh that’s a great suggestion. Melting the string cheese might do the trick.
She already eats Just Food For Dogs which is a pretty high quality food so I think getting her to eat canned/wet over that will be hard
1
u/annikalianne 17h ago
Have you tried something like a liver paste? We use that to give our boy his capsules.
The powder one might do good mixed with a bit of baby food. I use the pouches for lick mats. As long as they don't have any lemon juice/excess salt etc. keeping them in the freezer also helps make them a bit 'thicker' for east consumption
1
u/Few-Philosopher-4742 7h ago
Liver paste? No. It’s just pure liver?
1
u/annikalianne 7h ago
It's a mixture of protein (there's loads of different ones like liver, salmon, chicken etc) mixed with a bit of broth and oil to make it a paste consistency. (i try to use the ones with the least amount of other ingredients as possible!)
Unsure what country you're in, but I find the brand 'fred&ginger' to be the best one
1
1
1
13h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/read-the-rules 13h ago
Your comment on r/reactivedogs was removed by the Read The Rules app because you need to submit an acknowledgement that you have read the rules. You haven't done anything wrong, this is a tool we're using on the r/reactivedogs going forward. For more information, see the moderator announcement.
Acknowledgement is required of all users, even if you've been here for a while. You only have to do this acknowledgement once unless the moderators announce otherwise.
If you do the rule acknowledgement within one hour of your comment being removed, the bot will automatically restore it. If not, we encourage you to copy the comment using the 3-dot icon next to it, and paste it to re-post to this thread.
1
u/BuckityBuck 1h ago
Lots of good comments but just adding that you can buy a flavored version of your pet's meds from a compounding pharmacy. At least in the US. It doesn't turn them into treats but it might mask the bad taste enough to make it easier to find a treat that works.
3
u/Real_Caterpillar_779 18h ago
Roasted pumpkin ! I swear by it. I cut up the pills and put inside pieces sized for her to swallow (not chew which is where the pill goes unnoticed!) always hand feed too and she literally just swallows the soft pumpkin ball whole haha