buglady wrote:
"zxcvbob" wrote:
She does love cheap "milk bone" type dog biscuits. That's
why I thought I might bake some special cookies...


..................Get a pill gun.
http://www.entirelypets.com/pillgun.html




I've got a couple of those, the bigger goat-sized ones, for giving
pills to the lab ("Gilligan") although it's usually just easier to
wrestle his mouth open and do it the old fashioned way. If I try to
trick him, he figures that out pretty quickly and then I can't get him
to take his Heartgard or anything for a while.

Gilligan is really smart, although he acts dumb; I really think he
likes to be underestimated. And he has convinced my wife and daughter
than he is deaf. He's not deaf, he was just ignoring them, and
figured out when they were just testing him. :-) He hears just fine
even when he's looking the other way when he wants to.

-Bob

If you understand how the glucopolysaccharides (how's that for a big
word), of which glucosamine is one, work, it's easy to see why liquid
glucosamine is NO more effective or quickly effective than the pill
version. I'll use "G" instead of typing out the word all the time.

The G changes the amount (more) and viscosity (thicker and "slipperier")
of the fluid in the joint capsules. It also reduces irritation. When
you start giving it, the joint capsule is already full. It takes TIME
for it to completely replace itself with the "newer, better" fluid....
about 6-8 weeks, but slow changes begin at once, so some dogs show
aspects of good results well before the end of that time. The end
result, of course, is less irritation in the tissues lining the joint
capsule, and rough, arthritic surfaces grinding against each other less,
and moving smoother. If you stop giving the G, the reversing of the
process also takes the same amount of TIME. You can even miss a day's
dose without any apparent change in the dog's comfort because the change
in the fluid in one day is minimal, and would probably require chemical
analysis to tell the dose was missed. However, if you miss a week's
doses, or a month's, the changes may be visibly apparent to the owner.
With no other type of medication is there this lag time situation.

The last two times that Consumer's Union tested human G products, they
also tested some made for pets. BOTH types of products had overall poor
reports for containing the amount of G stated on the label, although
some were okay. My purchases are guided by their results, and I buy
human versions (price per dose is usually lower than for pet products)
that they approved.

About the fish oil gelcaps. Piercing them and squirting over the food
came as directions from several vets. The hard, thin gelatin capsules
used for powdered substances dissolve quickly. The much thicker, soft
coverings used for (oily) liquids take much longer.... As in humans,
the oil must be available by the time it reaches the point in the small
intestine where the gall bladder releases bile to process it and release
the active ingredients in the oil for absorption. The dog's GI system
is shorter both in actual length and proportional length, so a gelcap
given to a dog is less likely to be dissolved by the right time than one
taken by a human. But both types of capsules get gooey on the outside
if drooled on or in liquids in food, and stick to the bowl
tenaciously.... and often get left behind.

I've only had one dog that had the eye-mouth coordination to catch
food/pills..... {groan} And even my boss's Boxer boy, Slider, with his
huge maw, misses almost 1/3 of the treats she tosses to him in training.
So I stopped suggesting that as an easy method of pilling.

Some years ago, I tried a plastic piller. It was easier to pill even a
small dog the classical way with fingers..... so for me, that's a
second-round suggestion....

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia, USA

"Jo Wolf" wrote in message
...
About the fish oil gelcaps. Piercing them and squirting over the food
came as directions from several vets. The hard, thin gelatin capsules
used for powdered substances dissolve quickly. The much thicker, soft
coverings used for (oily) liquids take much longer.... As in humans,
the oil must be available by the time it reaches the point in the small
intestine where the gall bladder releases bile to process it and release
the active ingredients in the oil for absorption. The dog's GI system
is shorter both in actual length and proportional length, so a gelcap
given to a dog is less likely to be dissolved by the right time than one
taken by a human.

............Source of this information? It doesn't need to be completely
dissolved, only weakened enough to release contents.
If there really was a problem "opening" these caps, we would have heard
about it by now.
Yes, the digestion system is shorter in a dog, but the stomach acid is
higher.

buglady
take out the dog before replying

About the fish oil gelcaps. *Piercing them and squirting over the food
came as directions from several vets.

Our cattledog simply chews them, self-piercing if you will. The sense
I get from him is "tasty, but a bit chewy."

Our lab and the cattledog both eat anything and everything in their
bowl, so pills just get dropped in with the kibble. If it's something
with a really bad taste like an antibiotic, I might have to dip it in
peanutbutter first, at the most.

Our akita used to be a nightmare to pill, which made treating her
arthritis an adventure. Peanutbutter, cheese, mushed into soft bread,
bread-with-butter, bread-with-peanutbutter, bread-with-cheese,
roastbeef or other deli meat, pill pockets, all might or might not
work depending on her mood that day. Bread-with-beef-stew worked the
longest. It got to the point where she would chew the treat off the
pill and spit it out, if she took it at all. All with that wise look
and the little bobble of her fluffy curlicue tail as if to say "I know
what you're up to."

So we took her to her breeder one time for boarding when we were about
to go on a trip, and were telling her the rigamarole.

"So did you get her to eat her pill this morning?"
"No."
"Why not just do this?" and two seconds later her mouth had been
popped open, pill dropped in, and throat rubbed, all in one quick
simple-as-you-please motion...made it look effortless, and my dog's
expression of "what just happenned here...?" was probably as amusing
as me scraping my jaw off the floor. "It just takes a little
practice," she said.

Since then, I've managed it a time or two when needed, but haven't
needed to call on the skill with our current crew...but it really does
work, even when nothing else does.

I will also note that our vet has a compounding service. Any
medication can be compounded to make a more palatable pill (bacon,
cheese, liver, tuna, whatever). Depending on the medication or
supplement, you might want to see if your vet offers something
similar.

--Glenn Lyford

buglady - On the piercing/cutting.... Just going by what my vets have
told me, and friends report that their vets have told them. But if you
have a dog that will chew or chomp the gelcap.... so much the better.

Glenn - Great that your rascal will chew the gelcaps! Wish my dogs
would! I can sympathize with you about the problem of pilling your
Akita. Eons ago, when we gave heartworm pills daily, I tried handling
the situation like I would with a child.... all the coatings, coverings,
mixing crushed pills into applesauce, etc.... and it frustrated both me
and the dog. Then a neighbor told me how to pop it in and rub or
blow.... Max could use his tongue to move the pill over into a cheek,
then spit it out, so I just started poking it down a bit deeper. But
don't ever ask me to pill a cat!!!

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia, USA

OOPS! When I said that G was the only medication with that lag time
before results are seen, I forgot about the psychoactive drugs such as
anti-depressants......

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia, USA

"Jo Wolf" wrote in message
...
OOPS! When I said that G was the only medication with that lag time
before results are seen, I forgot about the psychoactive drugs such as
anti-depressants......


..............glucosamine is a nutraceutical. They all take a while to work.

buglady
take out the dog before replying

I never heard this before that dogs also suffer with this problem. I have pity for him. Poor dog.

Is it true that small dogs are more prone to arthritis than larger dogs? I've heard this from a breeder two days ago.

__________________
Pekingese training is not a joke. You need to have patience, dedication, perseverance, and heart. Do you have them all???