From Yucky to Yummy: Teaching your Dog to Happily Take Pills

Getting a dog to take pills

The struggle is real! Getting a dog to take pills can be extremely stressful and challenging. I am very fortunate that my two current pups will easily take a pill with just a bit of peanut butter. However, I’ve also experienced life with a dog who could find a pill in anything and either refuse to take it or immediately spit it out!

In an ideal world, we’d teach all dogs to readily take medication long before the need arises.   

So how do you get a dog to take pills? I’d like to share the story of one of my dear client dogs, Joie, who found pills to be quite unpleasant. Through training with an incremental plan, always going at Joie’s pace, we succeeded in teaching her to take meds.

Pills are Yucky

A delightful long-term client dog, Joie, tested positive for Lyme Disease. As you can imagine, it was critical that she take the necessary medication. Unfortunately, it became more and more challenging to get this sweet pup to take her medication. The meds made her nauseous, so she could have learned the association between taking the pills and the awful nauseous feeling. We suspect the meds also tasted awful.

What My Clients Tried

My client tried layering the meds between different tasty foods with strong scents. This worked for awhile, as long as they switched the foods up regularly. And that only worked for so long. They tried the rapid-fire technique, giving her several pieces of a tasty treat in a row, then the treat with the meds, then more treats. Again, this worked for a little bit, but Joie caught on very quickly. They tried getting a different flavor and liquid version from a compounding pharmacy. Joie started becoming reluctant to take her monthly heart worm chewable. Things were getting worse instead of better.

Let’s Teach the Behavior of Taking Pills

The most dreaded part of the day was medication time. It was very anxiety-inducing for the humans to get this dog to take pills. But Joie really needed to take the meds. They struggled through until the treatment was over. Then my client contacted me for help in teaching Joie to happily take pills, as she’d inevitably need to take medication again in the future. (Super smart of them!)

We decided to try putting her meds inside a gel capsule to help hide any unpleasant smell or taste. (Isn’t my client brilliant for coming up with this?!?!) But we suspected she wouldn’t take the gel cap right away. We didn’t want to create a bad first impression, and we needed a starting place, a way to get our foot in the door. What would she eat, allowing us to then reinforce the behavior of eating, and then build up to eating an actual pill inside of a gel cap?

The Plan

(Adapted from the blog How I Trained My Dog to Take a Pill by Eileen Anderson)

1. Give a piece of boring kibble. Then feed something “better” to reinforce eating the kibble — something like turkey deli meat. We called this her chaser.
2. Give a partial/half gel capsule with a bit of turkey inside, followed by several pieces of turkey as the chaser.
3. Give a partial/half gel capsule with kibble inside, followed by several pieces of turkey, chicken, cheese or other amazing food.
4. Repeat with the kibble inside of a full capsule.
5. Add the verbal cue “Pill.” Say “Pill,” pause 2 seconds, then give the capsule with kibble inside. Reinforce with a fabulous food chaser.

If she readily ate the item 5 times in row, we moved to the next step or phase in the plan. If she hesitated twice in a row, we immediately dropped back to the previous phase.

Adding Real Meds

Once she was happily taking the full capsule with kibble inside, we decided to try it with her monthly heartworm pill.

Warm up with a couple reps of kibble-inside-capsule, each followed by a chaser as usual. Then give a capsule with part of the heartworm pill, followed by a fabulous chaser to reinforce eating the heartworm meds. Keep alternating/mixing up capsules with kibble and capsules with the actual meds. (Have everything prepared ahead of time!)

How Did It Go?

We found that the full capsule proved to be a bit too large and challenging for this small dog. The solution:  A partial capsule with the kibble or pill inside, and a soft treat plugging up the top/hole of the capsule.

This method worked fabulously for Joie. She learned that the behavior of eating an offered item on the cue “Pill” would always result in her getting something super yummy! We started with what she could already do easily — eat a piece of kibble — and built up incrementally to her actual medications.

Other Ideas for Getting a Dog to Take Pills

There are other ways to help with giving medication. As I mentioned, my own two dogs take pills very easily, with just a little blob of peanut butter. (We’re lucky with that, I know!) Some dogs do great with meds that are well hidden in food. The rapid-fire method that didn’t work well with Joie can work for many dogs. Getting a different version or different flavor from a compounding pharmacy can also be a successful solution.

Check With Your Vet

Always check with your veterinarian! Is okay to give food with your dog’s particular medication? Are there certain foods that should not be given with the medication? Is it okay to put the meds into a capsule? To grind them up? To mix them into something?

Here are some other resources on getting a dog to take pills:

• Getting Dogs to Take Pills by DogKind
• How I trained My Dog to Take a Pill by Eileen and Dogs