Perfect Puppy Care Book – Chapter 7 – Puppy Health Care (Part 13)

Chapter 7 – Puppy Health Care (Part 13)

How to Give Medication

There may be times when you have to give your puppy medication. If you practice these procedures ahead of time and make them pleasant, your puppy is less likely to be afraid or balk at medication later. For practice, you don’t actually have to apply any medicine—just go through the motions. Use treats throughout the practice runs and praise your puppy for calm behavior.

Clean and dry your puppy’s ears so that the medicine can reach where it needs to go. Gently pull her earflap up and over her head. Insert the end of the medicine dropper or nozzle in the ear but only as far as you can see. Squeeze in the prescribed amount of drops or ointment. Fold her ear flap back over and gently massage the base of her ear to distribute the medicine. You’ll probably hear a squishy sound, and that’s okay.

To apply eye drops, steady your hand holding the medicine against your puppy’s head. Otherwise, drops could splatter everywhere. Use your other hand to gently hold your puppy’s head still. Tilt her muzzle up, then squeeze the prescribed amount of drops in her eye.

To apply ointment, gently hold your puppy’s head still with one hand, using your thumb to draw down her lower eyelid. This will create a little pouch where you want to squeeze the ointment. Steady your hand holding the medicine against her forehead, and be careful if she jerks her head. You don’t want to poke her in the eye!

To give a puppy a pill, the traditional method is to open her jaws, put the pill in the back of her throat, close her mouth, and rub under her neck to make her swallow. In some cases, this can cause puppies to become afraid of your hands. You should teach your puppy to accept your hands in her mouth if you ever have to fish something out of there, but there are also more pleasant ways to administer pills.

Get several marshmallows. For toy or small dogs, you can use miniature marshmallows. Slice one of the marshmallows and put the pill inside, closing the halves together over the pill. Give your puppy a plain marshmallow. Next, give her the one with the pill in it, quickly followed by another plain marshmallow. (Of course, make sure that it’s okay to give the specific medication with food before you use this method.)