Pill popping: Your veterinarian makes it look so easy

July 19, 2011

Do you dread hearing your veterinarian tell you to give pills to your dog or — even worse — your cat? Dr. Marty Becker and Gina Spadafori tell you how to make it as easy for you as it is for the vet  in this week’s Pet Connection newspaper feature:

Your veterinarian makes it look so easy: Pill. Pet. And like a magic trick, suddenly the pill is inside the pet, and the pet seemingly none the wiser.

If only it were that easy for you.

You go home, and you can’t even find your cat when it’s time for medication. Under the bed? Maybe. Behind the couch? Maybe not. How does the cat know, and how is he able to disappear as if by another talented magician?

Your dog is only marginally easier, maybe. Not quite as fussy as your cat, he’ll eat the pill if it’s hidden in something yummy, or so you think. But later you find the pill on the kitchen floor, and you realize he was somehow able to extricate the yummy stuff from the medicine and hide the pill in his jowls for spitting out later. Outsmarted again!

You figure it’s a victory if you get half the pills in for half the number of days they’re prescribed, and you hope that’s good enough.

Problem is, it’s not. One of the biggest problems veterinarians have in helping your pet get better is … you. If you aren’t able to follow through with medications, your pet will likely be back at the vet.

Do you dread walking out of your veterinarian’s office with pills? Here are some strategies to make the pill-popping easier. (Read more…)

And from Dr. Marty Becker and Mikkel Becker:

New guidelines recently issued by the U.S. Army in Afghanistan alert military doctors on how to provide medical care to military dogs injured in combat. There are seven teams of military veterinarians in Afghanistan and two veterinary clinics. Since May 2010, six dogs have been wounded and 14 dogs have died in combat.

Before being treated at military veterinary clinics, injured dogs are transported by helicopter to field hospitals. The new guidelines inform military doctors on the differences in human and dog anatomies, which include dogs’ heartbeats being about 20 beats per minute faster and their temperatures being 2 to 3 degrees warmer, with similar blood pressure. The guidelines also address post-traumatic stress disorder in dogs.

Read all that and more here!

View the original article here