It’s been a long standing fact around the Ranch that Elsa will eat pretty much ANYthing (in case you missed some of the more memorable posts, click here, here or here). I’m still convinced she thinks wool socks are their own food group. To administer Elsa’s anti-seizure meds I make pill pockets with a peanut butter base and she’s always taken them like a good girl. Recently though, she’s apparently decided that they aren’t quite up to gastronomic snuff. She will either sniff at the offering then walk away completely unamused, or she’ll take it, and then spit it out as soon as I’m not looking. I’ve taken to coating them in various grated cheeses for her to even consider them remotely adequate.
Not sure what has prompted this discriminating behavior lately given her past history of eating pretty much ANYthing; but I can only surmise she’s begun to channel her inner Gordon Ramsay, the notoriously critical TV chef. Perhaps like Ramsay, she considers herself a perfectionist and feels pill pockets are falling woefully inadequate on the taste front. Oh. That. Dog.
Do you live with a canine food critic? Regardless of what you’re currently noshing, we hope your Monday is tasty.
Live, love, bark! 🐾
We have 2 food critics who complain that the portions are too small.
I think most dogs think they’re being starved.
Mee-yow Elsa you gotta take yore meddycin OKay???
Miss Monika what ’bout meat ballss?? Does Elsa like WET doggie food an cuud you make a few meatballss? Give her 2 an then bye 3rd one shee iss enjoyin herself so much, shee eatss it rite away….
Thiss comin from a Kitty girl who REEFUSESS to EFURR be pilled even bye mee Vetman who mee likess!! Mew mew mew…
**purrss** BellaDharma an ((huggiess)) LadyMew
It would be a good idea except for the fact that I’m a vegetarian. I’ve never had meat in this house and don’t know if I know how to cook meatballs anymore. 😊
Miis Monika Sweet Norman an Elsa an ‘angel’ Sam due not eat meat??
Mee cuud not live like a veggytarian…but mee ISS a cat 😉
Mee not gotted any more ideass **sighss**
I think the dogs eat as many if not more veggies than I do! They both LOVE green beans and broccoli. 😇
We’ll figure it out 🤞🏻
I saw an episode of Critter Fixers recently and it looked like they pulled an entire fabric store out of one dog’s gut. Amazingly, I think it was all done endoscopically.
Yikes! Dogs eat the weirdest stuff.
Mine are of the feline variety. They won’t go near human food, and I can only imagine our beloved Mr Speaker looking down and thinking “These kids are clueless!”
Not even tuna?!
Nothing. They just aren’t interested.
Wow, incredible!
I know.
“I know what you put in the PB, Mom!” Most dogs I used to dog-sit for didn’t seem to notice pills in something else because they eagerly chomped it down. Maybe Elsa is that stubborn dog who has to assert her will into the situation, PB or not.
Stubborn and way too clever for her own good. A dangerous combo!
Oh dear – looks like you may have found another way to Elsa’s tummy with the cheese coating on her meds but they sure are smart – Angel Sammy had a psychic ability to detect a pill inside ANYTHING which made giving him meds nearly impossible. They are just too darn smart!
Hugs, Pam
Too smart and/or too stubborn. LOL
You write so beautifully…wool and socks being a food group..that is so cute 💕💕 Good luck with your efforts to get her to have her meds …
You’re too kind. Thank you. She’s such a pill but I love her to pieces and just want her to have a good, healthy life after all those horrid days in the puppy mill. 💖
ME TOO Elsa! Ma had to switch from the Greenies Pill Pockets to Milkbone pill pouches cause I wouldn’t eats them anymores. The Milkbone ones are super soft and squishy and yummers! Though, sometimes I still make Ma coat the outside in freeze dried chicken crumbs like a truffle….BOL!!!!
We are smart like that 😁
Kisses,
Ruby ♥
Oy…you truffle loving girls! If you like soft and squishy, you’d love the one I make for Elsa. Just peanut butter mixed with enough coconut flour to keep them from being too sticky to form. They’re so easy to mold around any size of pill and they store nicely in the fridge.
This is one of my favorite pill maskers for dogs and cats. Bacon flavored, and it is a paste that is very sticky and wraps around any pill. Hard to get it off the pill. https://www.chewy.com/tomlyn-pill-masker/dp/127365. Maybe worth a try for your canine Gordon Ramsey.
Ooh, thanks. May just have to give that a whirl! 👍🏻
Ours will eat anything until they discover a pill inside then thats it for the food for a while. (Well, except for peanut butter)
Elsa was the same with peanut butter but now seems to need to have a higher taste quotient with daily pills given. The joys of a too clever dog, eh?
It is hard to stay ahead. All the best. 🤗
As you know I have 3 Golden Retrievers. Need I say anything at all about their lack of discrimination when it come to anything closely looking or smelling like food? If there is a line I’ve never seen it… 🙃
Normally she’s very food motivated but lately she seems to think she’s like the Princess and the Pea I guess. 😅
Oh I feel your pain. With Max’s 3x/day pill schedule it has been a challenge to find ways to deceive him and lure him into taking the pills. At one point we even tried the “Pill Gun,” a device that purportedly will shoot a pill down the dogger’s throat whether he wants it or not. The disclaimer on the package should have read, “Useless as boobs on a rattlesnake.” Pill pockets? I can hear Maltese laughter from here. The struggle is real.
Snicker all you want, but pill pockets are genius! I make them myself so I know the ingredients are safe for her condition (epileptic dogs really shouldn’t have any processed meat -too much sodium not to mention meat in this house is as rare as a Pill Gun disclaimer). You’re so right, the struggle continues.
I would never mock your pill pocket skills. I’ve seen those tasty treats you whip up. But I gotta say I have never succeeded in getting a pill pocket, whether homemade or store bought, down that Maltese throat. I even went to the extent of wearing latex gloves while prepping his meds so that no trace of “pill smell” would remain on me as I tried to cajole him into taking the “treat.” Failure, abject failure.
Oh gosh, I need to stop complaining. Elsa can be one. tough. chica. but not to the extent it sounds like with Max. My sympathies, good sir.
There is just no extra room in that tiny Malt mouth. It’s all obstructive, hyper-sensitive tongue.
Who would of guessed looking at his sweet little face?
🤣😂🤣
It sounds hilarious but trust me, if you have ever given a pill to one of your cats, you know what kind of challenges a pet-mom faces.
Wait. What? My comment disappeared. Am I in spam?
Never mind. There it is…
Whew…lately it seems like WP is running a tad slow before comments are showing up. Sorry ’bout that.
Elsa’s as beautiful as ever, and perhaps has realized she is now food secure. Xena and Lucy eat almost anything I give them, including cauliflower, brocolli and spinach. (They don’t like celery or lettuce.) Riley is the epitome of picky eater. And Chia, well, I’m not sure how to switch her to raw when she turns her nose up at almost everthing, including raw meat. *sigh*
What?! Are you sure Chia isn’t a cat? What dog doesn’t like raw meat?!!
One that wants it cooked?? (Although she can get on the kitchen counter like a cat.)
Well…the little diva! LOL
Mom used to “hide” my Pepsid medicine in cream cheese which I LOVED. Overnight, I decided the cream cheese was poison. Now she uses ricotta. It’s really messy, but delicious!
Love and licks,
Cupcake
Yum, cream cheese sounds like a great vehicle for delivering pills. Knowing Elsa, she’d probably turn her nose up to ricotta or eat around the pill and then Hoover Norman would swoop in for the snag. 🙄
Sometimes Benji can be rather gourmet-ish…he’ll scarf something down in a flash one day and disdain it the next.
At least today was the gobble it up fast day! Who knows about tomorrow…
Us pet mums love it when today is ‘the’ day, aren’t we? 😄
we always use that litle cheese thingies by lavache qui rit (the laughing cow), they are perfect ti hide stuff they don’t like… and there is no food critics, they are too good to find a hair in the soup (or in the cheese lol)
Maybe a laughing cow will distract Elsa enough that she’ll stop being such a food critic! 😊
Trying to get a 40 kilo dog to unclamp his jaws enough to be able to administer milk after an encounter with a cane toad is not one of the pleasures of life..
Pills though are a walk in thepark. I buy what is laughingly known as mortadella – in reality a disgusting extruded sausage of contents I prefer not to enquire into – give one uncontaminated suqre to build confidence and then feed a square with pill stuffed inside. As long as I prepare the pills out of their sight all is well.
How amusing we have to play these head games with dogs. Don’t envy you trying to pry open those big jaws but it sounds like you’ve managed to outwit them. 😊
I thought she was referring to Leo at dinner time.
🤣
Hmm Lucky for me I haven’t had to go through such things yet, Speedy tells me he had to be syringed with his stuff in liquid form but it was very easy,xx Titch
Liquid meds are somewhat easier, but it’s always an adventure giving medications to a pet.
I used sliced deli meat so Angel Little Bit would take her meds. It worked.
Elsa is a huge Awww.
Have a woof woof day, Elsa and take your meds. My best to your mom and a big smooch for Norman. ♥
Thanks Sandee. If I weren’t a vegetarian, options might be simpler for her Highness. 🤣
Lulu: “Sounds like the pill wrap needs to be kicked up a notch. Bam!”
Charlee: “That’s not what Gordon Ramsay says.”
Lulu: “Well, I know, but this is a family blog and I’d have to bleep every other word if I said what Gordon Ramsay says.”
The bleeping is left to me as I try to satisfy her majesty! 😆
P.S. Bacon is never found in a vegetarian’s home. Ever.
Zeke did not dig on peanut butter after puppyhood. I had to wrap any pills in cheese – any one would do 🙂
Elsa loves peanut butter but apparently her taste buds are needing some refreshing on tastes. Sigh.
Sigh indeed!
Jakey is VERY picky about his treats. I swear he thinks we are trying to poison him when we try to give him chicken…but will snatch a plain crunchy dog bone like it is a high priced steak LOL!
That’s hilarious! Guess I’m not the only one getting ‘Ramsay-ed!’
you don’t know the half of it. We have to tempt Milo to eat by putting hot water on kibble, holding the bowl so he can relax we won’t leave him while he eats, and he often wants something from our plates til he sniffs it, then turns in disgust. Now bunny poop is a different matter, maybe if you coat it in bunny poop? He gets an allergy pill every night, in almond butter, but one night out of a year and a half, he spit it out unknown to us, found it later. You know the heartworm pills that look like a beef treat? He’ll leave them if we don’t encourage eating by pretending we want them.
Administering meds is always an adventure, isn’t it?
Ray also eats anything that he can grab which, not too long ago, included a dead mouse in a park! Another significant vet bill a la Ray!
He occasionally spits out a piece of banana, or perhaps a slice of apple (both offered as treats). Then my immediate thought is “Should I be eating this?”
They get weird sometimes, don’t they? Hope Ray is all better after his mouse meal! Eww
Yes. He was just given something to empty his stomach (the mouse was likely poisoned), and after a disgusting upheaval(?) … he was his normal self!
Glad to hear that. Next time you can potentially save yourself an expensive vet trip by giving him hydrogen peroxide. The dosage for a dog is 1 teaspoon per 5 pounds of the dog’s body weight by mouth, with a maximum dose of 3 tablespoons for dogs who weigh more than 45 pounds. It’s effective quite and much cheaper. One caveat make sure it’s 3-percent hydrogen peroxide solution. Higher concentrations are toxic and can cause serious damage. Hopefully it won’t happen again. 🤞🏼
Thanks Monika. In this case we were just across the road from the vet as we were early for a routine checkup.
Ducky suddenly decided a few months ago that she doesn’t like her fish oil capsules any more. She used to eat them mixed in with her food. Now she won’t go near them and will refuse any food “tainted” by the smell of them. I have a whole bottle of the blasted things that I can’t return, plus a bottle that had about 10 left. Oh. That. Dog!
Bogie, OTH, will eat dirt, grass, weed flowers, bugs, cat poop, dead leaves, and his food. He would probably eat a dead mouse, too, if he found one. Ewwww!
Argh! I’ve taken to opening the milk thistle capsules and sprinkling the contents on her pumpkin with no problem so far (knock on wood!). These dogs are just too clever for their own good, aren’t they? 😊