Getting your pet to take their medication the easy way

Administering medication to our pets is never an easy task. Our inability to break through the language barrier and communicate the importance of medication makes ‘pill-time’ a stressful time for humans and animals alike. They have no idea what we’re doing and we have no idea how to explain our decidedly odd behaviour to them.

Obviously pet owners report the most difficulty administering large pills. Anyone who’s ever tried to jam a colossal tablet down the throat of an increasingly outraged cat will have the impressive scratch marks to show for it. Often we resort to crushing pills and adding it to pet food, however clever pets have a way of sniffing out medication-laced treats and either rejecting them or eating some but not all. The latter scenario makes it hard to know how much medication they’ve had. What if they didn’t get much at all? If you try to give them another pill, will it be too much and will it make them sick?

One way that some pet owners are finding success is through having their pet’s medication made up as a liquid by a compounding pharmacist. This liquid can then be administered straight down the throat with a syringe (reducing the risk of injury!) or can be added to something delectable like milk, cream or custard. Hopefully they woof it down before they cotton on!

Cats and dogs in particular have highly sensitive noses that enable them to detect a tiny pill in a mountain of bacon. To counter this, a compounding pharmacist can also make up medications in flavours and smells that pets find appealing – increasing the odds of the medication making it to where it needs to go.

The specialist compounding pharmacists at National Custom Compounding can work with your vet to make up your pet’s medication as a liquid and/or in pet-friendly tastes and smells. We regularly work with vets across Australia to do just this. It’s easy to organise and in most cases it won’t cost any more than your pet’s regular medication. Just ask your vet to give us a call for an informal chat.

For more information on how to get your pet to take their medication the easy way contact National Custom Compounding on 1300 731 755 or drop a line to [email protected].