Reply #11: I have pilled plenty of dogs, [View All]

[necso]

large and small. (And cats too.)

Sometimes you just have to get those pills in them, whether they feel like it or not.

Here are the steps that I use (a variant of an earlier post). And use rubber gloves to avoid damaging tissue with your fingernails (or whatever). You can also cut the pills as necessary.
1) Restrain dog as necessary.
2) Hold his head with muzzle facing up.
3) Open his mouth.
4) Push tongue down lightly.
5) Pop or place pill as far back as you can.
6) Push it a little further back if you need to.
7) Close the dog's mouth and hold it closed, still pointing up.
8) Massage the throat from top down until the bastard swallows. (Repeat steps as necessary until all pills are "swallowed".)
9) Tell him what a good dog he is and give him a scratch or a treat.
10) Keep an eye on him to see where he spits the pills out. (Repeat steps as necessary.)

Now this may seem a little harsh, but when you are dealing with a crafty dog (or a big tough one), he may well not make it easy on you -- and he may come up with just about as many tricks not to swallow those damn pills as I imagine a child might.

And you can get the process down to where it just takes a few seconds and causes essentially no discomfort. And you can get to the point where the animal knows as well as you do that this is going to happen -- no matter what. Makes it easier.