Animal Health Solution - a Henry Schein Animal Health magazine for veterinary professionals
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1497697
PET OWNER: Keri, an experienced veterinary technician Trying to administer pills and liquids resulted in: • Foaming at the mouth • The evil eye • Hiding for hours • Damage to the human-animal bond Koda now takes a Fluoxetine 5 mg Mini-Melt, making the process of medicating stress-free and not exacerbating Koda's anxiety. 10 Covetrus | 855.724.3461 One of the very worst things a pet parent can feel is that they're hurting their pet by trying to help him/her. This can include taking a pet with high levels of fear, anxiety, and stress to the veterinarian or wrestling with them to give them the medications prescribed by their family's veterinarian. Doing up to 24 trips per year to NYC to do GMA, I'd witness the Three Card Monty scam on the streets where the goal was to trick people out of their money. We'd try to mimic this with pets by giving them meds hidden in a treat. First pocket was nicknamed The Promise and given with no meds. The second pocket had the meds and was called The Deed. The last empty pocket was The Chaser. On paper this sounded good. And clients nodded along when we outlined the process for them. Only problem was, it didn't work very well. So the process just went into roulette wheel of ways to try and get the medicine to go down including peanut butter, butter, cheese, marshmallows, hot dogs, baby food. Oh yeah, the old standby, stuffing it down their throat and blowing in their nostrils to make them swallow the prescription, which often lingered too long in the esophagus (how would you like to take a pill/capsule without water?). The problems with these approaches are many: Far too often the medicine doesn't make its way to the pet's stomach. How many times do pet parents find pills or capsules in the house or yard? Far too often some or all of the medication ends up on the person/floor/walls and not in the pet. Far too often when pet parents struggle to give medications they feel embarrassed or guilty, so rather than advising the veterinary office that they failed to give the medication as prescribed and need other options, they simply put the medication in the cupboard or drawer, and tell no one. I'm almost 70 years old and my amygdala is filled with attempts by my mother to medicate me. Here's my top two traumas: Cod liver oil – Forget a "spoon full of sugar" nothing takes this taste out of your mouth. Mercurochrome – Great idea to put some mercury-containing salts on a scratch. With its distinctive and persistent red color, I remember my dad called it "visible protection!" When we started having children in the 1980s, I can still remember how great it was to have bubble gum flavored Amoxicillin. Both of M E E T Koda BREED: DSH AGE: 8 years LOCATION: Pennsylvania LIKES: Eating and sleeping next to his human Compounding