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Edited on Sat Aug-20-11 04:37 AM by TorchTheWitch
The trick is doing it right to make it a comfortable experience for the dog. For many months I had to give literally handfuls of pills to my dog every day, so I can appreciate any anxiety you'd have about this.
First things first... is your dog comfortable with you handling his head, being able to open his mouth, etc.? That's the first thing you need to be able to do. It's really important that any dog will allow its master to handle him in such a way. He may not particularly like it, but he must be able to put up with it without any struggling or fussing. This is so important because at some point in any dog's life he'll have to let you look in his mouth at his teeth, gums, etc., swallow pills, or take something out of his mouth that is bad for him. If your dog struggles or otherwise tries to pull away when you want to handle his head, open his mouth, etc. you can get him used to that pretty quickly by starting off with handling his head (particularly the snout area when he's relaxed and calm. At first just do it for a few seconds, and if he stays still for it, praise him (and maybe give a little treat if food bribes work better than just praise). Each time you do it, do it for a little longer and a little more invasively.
Opening their mouth the right way is important, too. Be careful that you get your fingers under the upper lip first so they don't accidentally bite their own lip. Right behind the upper canine teeth is a bit of a gap where your finger will most comfortably fit. The tooth in that space is either non-existent or very small, so this is just the right place that is most comfortable for your finger for both the dog and you. What you're wanting to do is put the flat of your hand on the top of his muzzle, slip your finger under the upper lip and find that spot behind the upper canine tooth. With practice you'll know exactly where the spot is and can put your hand on the top of his muzzle, flip the lip, put your finger in the space and open his mouth in two seconds or less.
When giving a pill it's REALLY important that your hands are totally dry. One thing I've noticed is that any kind of capsule or coated pill will want to stick to your fingers even when you've dried your hands thoroughly on a towel... just the slightest moisture of the skin makes the damn pills want to stick to you. Damned annoying. So, if you've just dried your hands wait a few minutes until your hands have completely lost all moisture before handling the pills.
As for giving the pill, you want to open the dog's mouth and THEN point his nose straight up at the ceiling. With practice you can do this in one smooth movement in two seconds or less. Look in there and you'll see that there's a "hole" which is the esophagus right at the very back of the tongue. As quick as you can, drop the pill straight in the "hole". The dog won't even have to swallow at all. The tricky part about this is the second you get his mouth open and pointed at the ceiling his tongue will be bobbing around because this position triggers an automatic swallowing response. It's a hell of a lot easier to do this with a large dog that you can easily get your hand in his mouth, and the "hole" is a hell of a lot bigger. You might have to experiment with how best to hold the pill so you can get it to the back of his mouth. Try this a lot without using a pill just to see how best to get your hand in there. It would probably help to practice with tiny bits of food, too. That may help in fooling the dog that doing this game of you opening his mouth and putting your hand in there is a yummy experience. I've found that it's easiest to hold the pill on the tip of two fingers with the pill in the little canyon between the two fingers to keep it in place, slip the fingers in his mouth and just drop the pill down the "hole". My dog was a big boy, and I'm a rather small person, so when he was taking all the mega-meds for his cancer every day I was literally putting my whole hand in his mouth and "pouring" a handful of pills at once straight down his throat. No problem at all. Took all of a few seconds. Since this is a small dog two fingers is probably the most you can get in there. Imagine that your two fingers held together is a long and slim spoon with the rest of your hand and arm as the spoon's handle.
Another trick about the bobbing tongue problem... I've found it's easier to make sure you drop the pill(s) straight in the hole if you very lightly touch the back of your finger holding the pill (where your fingernail is) on the back of his tongue. This triggers a swallow, but immediately after the swallow the "hole" opens up wide. This takes all of two seconds, so, it's sort of like you want to think in two beats - touch AND drop. You'll get the hang of the rhythm to that. In practice you can watch this and you'll see what I mean.
Very important... make pill time a nice experience for him. It's really important that you are calm and even upbeat like this is a fun thing. I got in the habit of calling out "Pilly Time!" whenever it was time to give the dog his meds in a happy tone as if it was a game we were going to play, and he'd come running from where ever he was to take his pills. Being a dog owner you know that your dog can pick up on your every single little feeling no matter how much you think you're hiding it. So, it's important to be calm and treat the whole experience as though it's a fun thing to do. Ever notice that if you laugh at something your dog does he'll want to repeat it even if what they did caused them discomfort? That's how much dogs want to please their masters. Treat the whole experience like a fun thing, and he'll start seeing it that way, too - even those times when you screw it up and the pill sticks to your finger or plops in their mouth wrong and they gag and spit. As long as you treat the whole thing like a fun game - even the times you screw up - he'll still feel like it's a fun game, too. And screwing it up occasionally is going to happen no matter how good you get at giving him pills... sometimes the pills don't cooperate and it doesn't go well and you have to find the pill on the carpet or somewhere floating around their mouth and try again.
For those times that you do screw up and don't get the pill down it's going to be damp from the inside of their mouth. Let that pill dry out and use a dry one for that pill time and use the pill you screwed up with for the next pill time otherwise you'll have the same problem with dampness making the stupid thing stick to your finger.
EVERY time after you give his pills praise him a lot when he swallows it down even if it didn't go well and treat the whole experience as though it was a wonderful but brief game. You can teach your dogs to enjoy all kinds of things they find scary or unpleasant by treating it like a fun game - if you act like you enjoy it, they'll enjoy it just because you do even though it's not so fun for them.
You'll get the hang of it, and before you know it he'll come running for his pills, and you can give them to him in a matter of seconds with very infrequent mishaps, and he'll think it's a fun game.
As for giving daily meds, I also found it was really helpful to make a chart of what times the dog got which pills and on top of the chart for each time slot I used the cap of an old pill bottle for a little cup so that dosage was in the cup ready to go. Each day after I got up I'd dole out the daily pills into their "time cups", and throughout the day I could tell at a glance what he was to get next and at what time since everything was all set up ready to go in the little cups. I could breathe a lot easier doing it that way since I never had to panic wondering if he got the last dosage at the right time and the right pills. With the chart and the little cap lid cups I knew at a glance he got what he was supposed to get at the right times. Granted, my dog was getting eight different pills in a day at four different times of the day of various amounts of each one, but I still wish I had done this for those times in his life that he only needed to have one pill twice a day for a week or something like that since I was ALWAYS panicking "Oh no! Did I give him that pill or not and what time did I do it???" The peace of mind is definitely worth it. I've even started using the chart and cap lid cups for my own daily pills.
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