How to Teach Your Dog to Take a Pill: give your dog a pill without struggle or trickery

I don't like tricking my dog. Being the sensitive pup that she is, she doesn't take kindly to surprises. Discovering there was a yucky pill hidden in your favorite French cheese is punishing. Kind of like finding a hair in your favorite take-out. You're not going to be ordering that again any time soon.

She's also a quick learner and tends to become suspicious of things that have produced undesirable consequences. Now the stinky cheese becomes yucky.

This is how, if these factors come together – a sensitive dog, a particularly yucky pill, and a botched attempt at hiding said pill in something yummy – you could end up spiraling out of options to conceal the bad deal.

Or even worse, you might feel like some kind of forced intervention to MAKE your dog swallow the pill is the only remaining option.

Yes, sometimes squishing that pill in a glob of peanut butter, wrapping it in a fat slice of bacon, or smushing it in some delicious paté is the only way to go. Yes, it can work well.
EVEN THEN, sometimes, for medical or other reasons, you might not be able to use food to hide the pill. Then what?

By teaching cooperative care skills and voluntary participation in husbandry behaviors you build up trust –not suspicion–around inherently non-fun events such as inspecting ears or cutting nails. Taking a pill becomes just one more thing that’s no big deal – with reliably enjoyable consequences.

💊 ❤️ 💊 Here’s how I taught my dog to take a pill. 💊 ❤️ 💊

✅ You’ll need:
High-value food
Low-value food
Something edible your dog doesn't particularly enjoy and something she would not eat that isn’t the actual pill or medication.
Options include
1. A bland food your dog doesn’t like very much such as vegetables: you’ll need one kind he eats, but not in the presence of better stuff, and another kind he’ll spit out
2. Nutritional supplements your dog takes regularly: one that is flavored and that he’ll eat, another that he’ll spit out
3. Fillable gelatin capsules (available online): empty capsules are a good extra step to transition from the options above to using the actual pill

✅ Prerequisite:
Your dog should know a marker signal (verbal, visual, or tactile) that tells her she will receive a piece of food.

1️⃣ STEP 1 - Grease the Wheels
Start with the high-value (HV) food in one hand and the low-value (LV) food in the other hand.
Feed a piece of LV food.
Mark.
Immediately feed a piece of HV food.
Repeat several times.

2️⃣ STEP 2 - Test the Waters
Take the HV food in one hand, the bland, non-desirable edible item in the other.
Feed the bland item.
Mark.
Immediately feed a piece of HV food.
Repeat.

3️⃣ STEP 3 - Trial Run
Take the HV food in one hand, the safe, edible item your dog doesn’t consider food in the other hand.
Feed the undesirable item.
IF your dog sniffs, licks, or spits out the undesirable item.
Mark.
Immediately feed a piece of HV food.
IF your dog swallows the undesirable item.
Mark.
Immediately feed SEVERAL pieces of HV food in quick succession.

4️⃣ STEP 4 - The Real Thing
Take the HV food in one hand, the pill or medication in the other hand.
Feed the pill.
Mark.
Immediately feed several pieces of HV food.

5️⃣ STEP 5 - Look Ma, No Hands
If you really need to be able to give your dog a pill without even the promise (i.e. presence) of food, slowly fade the HV food from the picture. For example by moving the HV food from your hand, to a container on the counter, to the fridge.

Troubleshooting
Go through all the stages. Keep a rhythm. Feed the good stuff immediately after you mark. If, despite following the steps and keeping a quick pace, your dog struggles at a certain stage (refuses to eat the thing, repeatedly spits it out), go back a step or try to come up with an intermediate step (using a less yucky thing).

Pro Tip
Feed from above your dog's head so they have to angle their head upwards, throat stretched out, so the pill and food can go down easily. You want them to swallow the pill, not chew or bite it.

❤️🐾 Have fun playing ! 🐾❤️
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