Using Chicken Breast for Easiest Pill Treat!
I'm going to show you how you can use real food to give your dog their pill. I, for many years now, have had to give my dog Ruby her epilepsy medication. She takes it twice a day. Over the years, I've just developed many more ways to give her pills using real food, rather than buying the expensive pre-made treats that are available at vet offices or in pet stores. I made a decision a while ago to no longer use the store bought pill treats because I wanted to make sure I wasn't giving Ruby anything that wasn't good for her. I'm going to show you today how I use cooked chicken to give her pills. It is very simple and very easy to do.
For the dog owners that have to give pills on a daily basis, maybe even multiple times throughout the day, it's nice to have other options in your back pocket, if all of a sudden what you were using, your dog doesn't want it anymore. I often will plan making the chicken breast for her pills around the time that I also want to have chicken for dinner. It's an efficient way to do some planning and grocery shopping. I continue to learn with Ruby what works for her and her epilepsy. I'm not an expert but I do want to share what has worked for me.
What I do is super simple. You can use other ways to cook the chicken like in a frying pan on the stovetop. Once baked, I can cut nice chunks of chicken to use for her pills. I can also cut the size of the chicken based on the size of the pill that I'm giving her. So for instance, right now, Ruby takes, small round tablets for her medication she's on. She also happens to be on a probiotic that is a larger size capsule. I've been able to use the chicken for both of the these sizes. You will begin by preheating the oven to three 350 degrees.
While the oven is preheating, I line a pan with aluminum foil for easy clean up. You're not going to use any oils or seasonings . Place the chicken breast into the foil-lined oven safe dish.
The oven is now preheated to 350 degrees and I have a little friend here in the kitchen with me who knows exactly what I'm doing. Ruby usually hangs around with me in the kitchen whenever I am doing any sort of cooking and is ready to taste test. I'm going to be putting the chicken in to the oven at 350degrees for 30 minutes.
The chicken is now cooked and I've let it fully cool. You want to make sure that the chicken has completely cooled down and that you're not using chicken right out of the oven. I use the chicken breast to create a pill treat for the dog by taking the chicken breast and finding the fattier end. I make sure the piece of chicken I cut can fully cover the pill.
Once you have cut the right size piece, cut a slit so it opens up and then slip the pill it. I usually push it together to close it up and make sure the pill does to fall out. Sometimes if I feel like I want to do a little extra and make sure that Ruby doesn't sense that there's a pill in the chicken, I will add a little food on top of the chicken pieces. If you have a dog that is very, very savvy and is going to eat around that pill what you can do is use a knife to push the pill into the chicken or wash your hands after touching the pill. Sometimes a dog can smell the medication on our fingers and won't eat the pill treat. Luckily, Ruby is very motivated to eat this piece of chicken, so she's not going to care.
On top of the chicken pill treat you could add a little swipe of peanut butter, a small chunk of cheese, a little dollop of their wet food, whatever you have on hand that you know that they're just going to snarf it down and not even going to question if there is a pill in.
Ruby loves it when I use chicken for her pill treats so I wanted to share this with you. I'm going to continue to share the different easy ways I help Ruby take her pills.