This is a video of my 14 year old Sheltie mix, Skeeeeeter!, at pill time. She is taking four individual pills and she couldn’t be happier about having the opportunity!
I started out like everyone-I hid her pill in some food. She started spitting out the pill and scarfing down the food. I got more creative. I tried disguising it in cheese, a hotdog, cream cheese, a marshmallow, pepperoni, meatball, etc, etc. The more creative I got, the more she started distrusting any food item I handed her. Then I moved to pill pockets which worked great for a week or so before they became “poisoned” as well. Nope, no way was she going near a pill pocket. Sigh. She was always an easy dog to manually pill, but since she has a tumor at the top of her head and her jaw muscles were affected by her cancer, it made it difficult to open her mouth to cram a pill down her throat. Poor girly.
I turned to the internet. I’m a professional dog trainer-surely I could train a dog to eat a pill. Err-right? Laura VanArendonk Baugh has a short video on a dog taking a pill for a chip. Wow-just what I needed! Between that and Deb Jones cooperative care, I designed an easy training protocol for Skee.
First, I needed something Skee would eat but wasn’t particularly crazy about. Popcorn! She will eat it, but has never been thrilled about it. Mmm, OK, I’ll have a one or two, thanx bai. I started by giving her a piece of popcorn and immediately swooping in and following it up with something she really likes-cheddar cheese. I did that several times in a row once or twice a day.
Practicing without actually giving her a pill allowed me to work on my timing and placement of reinforcement. I found it was easier for Skee if I made the process extremely predictable. I call her into the kitchen before each meal and lay out all my treats. I always use my left hand for the popcorn and feed the good stuff with my right. I use the same stand-by for more information verbal cue “Ready??” When I have her full anticipatory attention, I say “Take.” Then I present the popcorn and immediately swoop in with the cheese both to reinforce the take and to make sure she got the popcorn down.
In behavior-land, we call what I was doing utilizing the Premack Principle. The Premack Principle states that a low probability behavior (taking a pill) can be reinforced by a higher probability behavior (eating cheese). Skeet totally understands there is her very favorite food treat if she takes the pill in her mouth. If she chooses not to take the pill, she doesn’t get any cheese.
Skeeeeter! (she really does need each of the five e’s in her name and the exclamation mark) was diagnosed with cancer in April of 2019 with a poor prognosis. She has a squamous cell carcinoma tumor located under her skin above the ridge of her left eye which is a extremely uncommon presentation. Surgery and palliative radiation followed. She was placed on twice daily capsule of Gabapentin, in addition to liquid Metacam, to minimize pain. After her diagnosis, we put her on the anything you want to eat diet. This was a big hit! She gained 5 pounds in 3 months. Oopsie. In any case, she had an array of ridiculously named canned foods to top off her kibble. I switched to a canned food she really liked for the special food reinforcer and picked the ones that were more fillet shaped because it was the easiest to deliver to her. Plus, she loved it. She was noticeably more excited to do her “take” of popcorn when I switched to something she really really wanted that followed it up.
The last thing I did before trying her “take” with a capsule was to switch from popcorn to a piece of her regular kibble. With her new weight, ahem, she was less enthused about kibble.
Altogether, it took about three to four weeks of training two times a day before she reliably and eagerly took any pill handed to her. We had a few capsules get mangled and had to be thrown out, and twice I discovered a capsule in the living room ten minutes after I thought she had taken it. I still don’t know how she managed that!
In October, Skee’s new oncologist wanted to try a chemotherapy drug, Toceranib. It would be an additional three pills three times a week. Plus, a new challenge-I had to wear gloves to administer it! I went back to practicing taking with low value kibble and the same very high value canned food but while wearing gloves. Skee handled it like a pro. She even helped me out by really trying hard to get the kibble or pill, even if my glove was a little slick. The behavior seamlessly transferred to my husband giving her pills as well as a dog-sitter. She has the behavior of take nailed.
This encouraged me to train this behavior with my other two dogs. With any luck it will be a very long time before they need an array of pills, but now they have this as a behavior in their toolbox. If given the opportunity, why not have your best friend look forward to pill time? Especially when it’s end of life choices, the struggle to get a dog to take medications is so terribly sad and poignant. This is a much better way.