Giving a dog a pill sounds incredibly easy until you’re standing in the kitchen watching your dog happily swallow the delicious treat you carefully wrapped around her medication, then spit the completely clean pill onto the floor.
I’ve become far more experienced at this than I ever wanted to be since Freya started taking heart medication. At first, hiding her pills in something tasty worked. Then she’d figure out what I was doing, so we’d move on to something better. She’d figure that out, too.
Eventually, we stopped trying to outsmart her and started giving her pills manually. Surprisingly, that’s turned out to be easier for everyone.
If your dog needs medication, though, there’s no reason to start there. Here are several ways to give a dog a pill, beginning with the easiest tricks and working our way up to the method we ultimately use with Freya.
Important: Always follow the instructions that came with your dog’s medication. Some medications need to be given with food, while others may have different requirements. Never crush, split, or open a medication unless your veterinarian or pharmacist confirms that it’s safe to do so. The FDA specifically recommends against cutting, crushing, or breaking pet medications unless instructed by your veterinarian.
What’s the Easiest Way to Give a Dog a Pill?
For most dogs, the easiest method is hiding the pill inside a small amount of something they really like.
Start with a pill pocket or another soft treat (my vet recommended cream cheese) that completely surrounds the medication. If that doesn’t work, try a higher-value food or use the three-treat trick to encourage your dog to swallow rather than carefully investigate what’s inside.
If your dog consistently finds or spits out the medication, you can try a pill dispenser or give the pill directly by mouth.
The important part isn’t how your dog takes the medication. It’s finding a safe, reliable method that makes sure the full dose actually gets into your dog.
1. Start With a Pill Pocket
Pill pockets exist specifically for this job, which makes them a logical place to start.
They’re soft, moldable treats with a hollow center. Put the pill inside, pinch the opening closed, and hand it over.
Something like Greenies Pill Pockets come in tablet and capsule sizes, along with several flavors. Their soft texture lets you pinch the treat completely around the medication.
If your dog happily gulps treats without examining them first, this may be all you ever need.
The problem comes when you have a dog like Freya.
Some dogs eventually realize there’s something suspicious inside their special treat. They may start chewing more carefully, eating everything around the medication, or outright refusing something they previously loved.
That’s when it’s time to get a little more creative.
Made with real chicken as the first ingredient, these ingenious pill pockets are an easy and tasty way to hide your buddy’s pill. Designed with a built-in pouch and shapeable texture, they can hold most large capsules.
2. Try the Three-Treat Trick
This is one of my favorite tricks because it takes advantage of something most dogs understand extremely well: there’s another treat coming.
Prepare three small treats:
- A regular treat with nothing inside.
- A treat containing the pill.
- Another regular treat.
Give your dog the first treat and immediately have the second one ready. As soon as your dog takes that, show them the third.
The idea is to keep things moving quickly enough that your dog swallows the medicated treat because they’re already focused on getting the next one.
You can even occasionally run through the whole routine without medication so your dog doesn’t decide that getting three treats in rapid succession automatically means you’re up to something.
And keep those treats small (but big enough to fully hide the treat, obviously). A huge chunk of food gives your dog plenty of time to chew, investigate, and discover your deception. Ask me how I know. I like these True Chews meatballs because they’re large enough for big pills or you can break them in pieces for smaller pills.
Made with real USA beef as the first and only animal protein source, these natural dog treats are inspired by delicious human foods. You’ll be happy to know that these treats are made without chicken or poultry byproduct meals, corn, wheat, or soy, and without any artificial flavors or preservatives.
3. Bring Out the Really Good Stuff
Once Freya realized we were hiding medicine in her treats, we entered the “What Will She Fall for Today?” phase. This is where high-value foods can be incredibly useful.
Depending on your dog’s diet and health needs, options can include:
- Small balls of canned dog food
- Cooked chicken or turkey
- A tiny piece of cheese
- Dog-safe peanut butter
- Cooked sweet potato
- Small pieces of hot dog (go with chicken or turkey, see note below)
- Soft refrigerated dog food
- Dog-safe pâté-style food
The best choice is something soft enough to completely surround the medication and tempting enough that your dog is more interested in swallowing it than performing a forensic examination.
Don’t Automatically Reach for Hot Dogs and Cheese
This is something I’ve had to think about more since Freya developed heart problems.
A lot of the standard advice for hiding pills involves salty or fatty human foods. That doesn’t necessarily make them a good choice for every dog, particularly one who needs dietary restrictions because of a medical condition.
The same applies to dogs with kidney disease, pancreatitis, food allergies, obesity, or prescription diets.
If your dog takes medication every day, remember that those little bites add up, too. A tiny piece of hot dog twice a day might not seem significant, but you’re potentially talking about hundreds of pieces over the course of a year.
Your veterinarian can help you choose something appropriate if your dog’s health or diet limits your options. Oh, and if you do go for hot dogs, stick with turkey or chicken dogs. They have fewer calories as well as fewer random weird animal “parts.”
4. Try a Moldable Pill Paste or Wrap
If your dog isn’t impressed with traditional pill pockets anymore, a moldable pill paste gives you more flexibility.
Instead of individual treats with premade holes, brands like Pill-Masker make a soft paste that you mold around a tablet or capsule. That lets you use just enough to completely cover the medication, regardless of its shape.
Another option is a soft pill wrapper that works on the same principle.
The advantage here isn’t necessarily that your dog can’t figure it out. Some dogs could probably qualify for employment with the DEA after taking medication long enough.
It’s simply another texture and flavor to try if your dog has decided that the usual pill pockets are suspicious.
Pill Masker is a moist, juicy, flavorful and shapeable paste that is perfect for wrapping around ANY size or shape pill. It doesn’t dry out or lose shape. Pill-Masker is made with only food grade ingredients and is loaded with proprietary flavor-flakes.
One Little Trick: Watch Your Fingers (and not in the “you’ll get bit” sense)
Dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell. If you’re handling the medication and then touching the outside of its delicious disguise with the same fingers, you may be advertising exactly what’s inside. Believe me, I know this from experience.
Try handling the pill with one hand and the outside of the treat with the other, or wash your hands after preparing it.
Will that fool every determined pill detective? Absolutely not. But it’s easy enough to try.
5. Hide the Pill in a Small Amount of Food
You can also hide medication in your dog’s regular food, but there’s one important rule here:
Don’t bury an important pill somewhere in an entire bowl of dinner.
If your dog cleans the bowl, great. If she eats three-quarters of it and walks away, now you’re staring at the leftovers trying to determine whether the medication was swallowed or is hiding somewhere in the food.
Instead, put the medication into a very small amount of food and give that first. Once you know your dog ate it, serve the rest of the meal.
You can also hand-feed a bit of the food that has medicine in it and watch afterward to make sure your dog didn’t spit the pill back out. And yes, some dogs are extraordinarily talented at this.
Freya could swallow the food surrounding a pill and somehow return the medication itself in remarkably pristine condition. It’s almost impressive when you’re not the person who needs to get the medicine into her.
I was actually spoon-feeding Freya at one point. I don’t know if she just liked being served by a lowly human or if it was easier for her to eat for some reason, but I’d spoon-feed her the part with meds in it. Until she got hip to that. Then we moved onto…
6. How to Give a Dog a Pill by Hand
I’ll admit that manually giving Freya pills wasn’t my first choice. Hiding them in food seemed easier and nicer for everyone involved. But once hiding them became increasingly unreliable, putting them directly into her mouth actually simplified the whole process.
That’s not to say it doesn’t still have its challenges. Freya hates pill time and is getting exceedingly good at locking down her jaw like it’s freaking Fort Knox. Still, it takes less than a minute versus an hour of us following her around with a treat or food bowl begging her to please eat it.
How to Manually Pill Your Dog
The basic technique recommended by veterinarians is fairly straightforward. The video below is great if you want a visual guide (jump to about 1:25 if you want to get right to the point), or keep reading for the steps.
1. Get everything ready first.
Have the pill out and a reward ready before bringing your dog over. You don’t want to be digging through a prescription bottle while your dog realizes something suspicious is happening.
2. Position your dog somewhere comfortable and secure.
You want control without turning medication time into a wrestling match. We usually go to Freya rather than bring her to us because we don’t want her to associate us calling her with totally un-fun pill time.
3. Gently hold your dog’s muzzle from above.
Using your non-dominant hand, gently grasp the upper jaw from above.
4. Tilt the nose upward slightly.
As the head tilts upward, the lower jaw will often begin to open. However, make sure you’re not pulling their head all the way back. We made that mistake in the beginning, and it was really uncomfortable for Freya.
5. Open the lower jaw.
Use the fingers of your other hand to gently open the mouth farther. There’s a natural gap between a dog’s canine teeth and premolars called the diastema. I found that gently placing my finger into this gap makes it much easier to open Freya’s lower jaw without putting my finger directly against her teeth.
6. Place the pill toward the back of the tongue.
The farther back on the tongue you can comfortably place it, the harder it is for your dog to maneuver it forward and spit it out. Don’t push so far that you cause gagging. You want to try to get it over the “hump” if you can. The problem is that there’s very little leeway between the hump and the gag reflex. It takes practice.
7. Close the mouth.
Bring your dog’s head back toward a normal position while gently holding their mouth closed.
8. Encourage swallowing.
Most vets suggest gently rubbing your dog’s throat or nose or lightly blowing toward the nose to encourage swallowing. Many dogs lick their nose once they’ve swallowed. However, some dogs (Freya) look like they’re doing the “I just swallowed” lick when they’re actually working the pill forward.
9. Make sure the pill actually went down.
Because some dogs deserve Academy Awards for pretending they swallowed medication. (Ahem-Freya-ahem). If you have other pets in the house it is especially important to make sure that pill is where it belongs- on its way to your dog’s stomach. The last thing you want is to find your kitten batting around a Lasix pill. Again, ask me how I know.
10. Reward your dog.
Follow the whole thing with something your dog genuinely enjoys. We give Freya a couple of mini marshmallows right now. When she gets bored with those, we’ll go back to chicken pieces or something similar.
Pro Tip: We’ve found that coating the pills in fish oil made for dogs really helps them go down easier. Especially with her Lasix and her compounded pimobendan because those pills are flatter and have a rougher texture.
Sustainably sourced from Bristol Bay, Alaska, this premium salmon oil delivers a powerful dose of omega-3s to support your pet’s skin, coat, joints, heart, and brain. Rich in EPA, DHA, and astaxanthin, it helps reduce itching, shedding, and inflammation—while boosting overall wellness from nose to tail. Great for both dogs and cats!
What Happened When We Started Manually Pilling Freya
The funny part is that after all our attempts to disguise Freya’s medication, manually pilling her ended up being simpler.
There’s no longer a daily negotiation over which food might successfully conceal the pills. We don’t have to wonder whether she swallowed them. And we’re not constantly ruining perfectly good treats by making her suspicious of them.
Most importantly, it’s quick.
That’s been the biggest lesson for me. I thought manually giving her medication would end up being more stressful for everyone than hiding it. In reality, the repeated attempts to trick her were becoming the bigger production.
Once we found a routine that worked, manual pilling became just another part of the day.
7. Try a Pet Piller if You Don’t Want to Use Your Fingers
If the idea of putting your fingers into your dog’s mouth makes you nervous, a pet piller (sometimes called a pill gun, pill popper, or pill dispenser) may help.
These are syringe-shaped tools that hold a tablet or capsule at the tip and help you place it toward the back of your dog’s mouth.
They sell these online (and honestly, they’re all pretty much the same in how well they work), but our vet has a whole stash of them behind the counter. They just gave me one for free, but even if your vet charges I can’t imagine it would be much.
However, this is still something you need to use correctly. If you’re unsure about positioning or technique, ask your vet to demonstrate it. A quick demonstration can be much more useful than trying to figure it out while your dog is wondering why you’re approaching with a mysterious plastic contraption.
Know When Your Dog Has Figured Out the Game (& Be Ready to Switch It Up)
This was our biggest challenge with Freya. A new method would work beautifully at first. I’d think, “Finally! Problem solved.” Then she’d catch on.
The food she’d enthusiastically eaten yesterday suddenly required careful inspection. She’d work her way around the medication. Or she’d swallow everything and somehow spit out the pill.
There’s another potential downside to repeatedly hiding pills in favorite foods: you don’t necessarily want your dog becoming suspicious of everything she loves. That’s ultimately what happened with us. Freya started rejecting more and more food because we hid pills it in ONE TIME. She eventually ended up refusing to eat anything out of her old metal bowl because she associated it with hidden pills.
Once medication becomes a long-term part of your dog’s life, reliability starts mattering more than cleverness. Freya’s heart medications weren’t something I wanted to think she’d taken. I needed to know she’d taken them. So, we moved on to manual pilling.
Just be ready to change up the game once your dog figures it out. You may be able to swap back and forth between the easier methods for a long time. Or your dog may be Freya, and manual pilling becomes the only option.
Don’t Crush Your Dog’s Pills Without Asking Your Vet
This deserves its own section because crushing the medication and mixing it into food seems like the obvious solution once your dog starts spitting out pills. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you absolutely shouldn’t.
Changing the physical form of some medications can affect how they’re absorbed or released. Certain tablets have coatings for a reason, and some medications can also expose you to the drug when they’re crushed or broken.
The same goes for opening capsules.
Don’t rely on whether a pill looks crushable or has a line across the middle. Check the medication instructions or ask your veterinarian or pharmacist first.
If your vet specifically tells you to divide a tablet, a basic pill splitter can make it much easier to get consistent pieces.
What NOT to Do When Giving Your Dog Medication
A few things can make medication time harder or potentially create a dosing problem. We talked about most of these above, but they bear repeating, especially for those of you who skimmed past a bunch of stuff.
Don’t assume a medication can be crushed, split, or opened. Check first.
Don’t hide an important dose in a huge serving of food. If your dog doesn’t finish it, you won’t know how much medication was consumed.
Don’t assume the pill went down because the food did. Stick around long enough to make sure you don’t find it on the floor.
Don’t automatically give another pill if you aren’t sure whether your dog swallowed the first one. If you’re uncertain how much medication your dog received, contact your veterinarian or pharmacist for instructions rather than guessing.
Don’t use a favorite food without considering the consequences. If your dog repeatedly discovers bitter medication inside something she loves, she may eventually stop trusting that food.
Don’t turn it into a prolonged battle. If you’re repeatedly struggling to give an important medication, tell your veterinarian. There may be another option.
What If You Absolutely Cannot Get Your Dog to Take a Pill?
Sometimes the problem isn’t finding a better trick. You may need a different form of the medication.
Ask your veterinarian whether the medication is available as:
- A smaller tablet or different tablet strength
- A liquid (see note below though, this is not the best option for manual pilling)
- A flavored formulation
- A compounded medication
- Another appropriate formulation or route
Compounding pharmacies can sometimes turn an existing medication into a different strength, flavor, or form, such as changing a tablet into a liquid.
Freya was originally on Vetmedin, which is the name brand for pimobendan. While they tried really hard to make tasty chewables that many dogs do love, Freya hated them and refused to eat them. Now we get compounded pimobendan in much smaller tablets. Depending on which pet pharmacy you use, you can even get super tiny tablets. We’re trying that next month. I’ll let you know how it goes.
A Quick Note About Liquid Medication
Don’t automatically assume that switching to a liquid will make medication easier, especially if you can successfully give your dog a pill by hand. Liquid meds need to be given slowly into the side of the mouth so your dog has time to swallow.
Squirting liquid toward the back of the throat or giving it too quickly can increase the risk of aspiration (accidentally inhaling the medication into the airway). If your veterinarian recommends a liquid medication, ask them to show you the safest way to give it.
Make Daily Medication Part of the Routine
Giving one pill for seven days is one thing. Giving medication every day for months or years is an entirely different situation.
Once we realized Freya’s medication was going to be part of our normal routine for the rest of her hopefully long life, my priorities changed. I wasn’t looking for the cleverest way to sneak something past her anymore. I wanted something predictable and reliable.
Whatever method works for your dog, consistency can help.
Get everything ready beforehand. Keep the actual medication process short. Follow it with something positive. If your dog takes medication at roughly the same times every day, let the routine become boring.
Boring is actually pretty wonderful when you’re dealing with important medication.
The Best Way to Give a Dog a Pill Is the One That Works
I wish I could tell you there was one foolproof trick that works for every dog. Freya has thoroughly disproved that theory.
Pill pockets can be fantastic. High-value foods can work. The three-treat trick can convince a suspicious dog to swallow before thinking too hard about what’s inside. Moldable pill wraps give you another option when traditional treats aren’t cutting it.
And sometimes your dog catches on to all of them.
For us, manual pilling ultimately became the easiest and most reliable answer. What I’d originally viewed as the last resort turned out to be much less complicated than continually trying to invent new ways to fool Freya.
So, start with the easy stuff. If hiding the pill works, wonderful. There are no bonus points for doing it the hard way.
But if you eventually find yourself staring at yet another perfectly clean pill sitting on the floor while your dog looks incredibly pleased with herself, manual pilling isn’t a failure.
Sometimes it’s simply the method that works.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I crush my dog’s pill and mix it with food?
Only if your veterinarian or pharmacist confirms that the particular medication can safely be crushed. Some tablets and capsules should remain intact, and the FDA recommends against crushing, cutting, or breaking pet medications unless your veterinarian specifically tells you to do so.
What foods can I use to hide my dog’s pills?
Soft canned dog food, cooked chicken or turkey, dog-safe peanut butter, sweet potato, soft dog treats, and other moldable foods can work well. Cheese and small pieces of hot dog are also commonly used, but they may not be appropriate for dogs with certain health conditions or dietary restrictions.
Why does my dog eat the treat but spit out the pill?
Dogs have an excellent sense of smell and can also detect differences in texture while chewing. Some dogs learn to eat the food surrounding medication and spit out the tablet or capsule. Making the treat smaller, completely covering the medication, or using the three-treat method may help.
Is peanut butter safe for hiding dog pills?
It can be for many dogs, provided the peanut butter is appropriate for your dog’s diet and does not contain xylitol, which is toxic to dogs. Use only a small amount, especially since peanut butter is calorie-dense.
How do I give a pill to a dog that won’t eat?
If your dog won’t accept food, the medication may need to be given directly by mouth or with a pet piller. However, if your dog is unexpectedly refusing food, particularly while sick or taking medication, contact your veterinarian. Loss of appetite may itself be something your vet needs to know about.
What is a pet piller?
A pet piller is a syringe-like tool that holds a tablet or capsule and helps place it toward the back of a dog’s mouth without requiring you to put your fingers as far inside.
What should I do if my dog spits out a pill?
If you clearly see the entire intact pill come back out, you can usually try administering that pill again. If the medication has partially dissolved, broken apart, or you’re unsure whether your dog swallowed some of it, contact your veterinarian or pharmacist before giving another dose.
Can my vet make my dog’s medicine into a liquid?
Possibly. Some medications are already available in liquid form, while others can sometimes be compounded into a liquid or flavored formulation. Whether that’s safe and appropriate depends on the particular medication.
