Hello, pet parents. My name is Courtney, with Central Texas Veterinary Specialty And Emergency Hospital, and I want to demonstrate with you today how to pill your dog. This is assuming your dog is very, very smart and it's able to pick their pill out of anything, including cheese or peanut butter, or you just have a dog that's not very food driven. This is Molly. This is one of our veterinarian's dogs who has volunteered, so graciously, to be our demonstrator.
So if you are starting on a small dog, say maybe you're comfortable with having them on a countertop or maybe they're on a couch with you, but, much like our cats, we do want to start an approach from behind or have them someplace where their instinct is going to be to back up so that they cannot back away from us. We'll start with our pill, holding it between the index and thumb. And we'll grasp Miss Molly's muzzle here gently and gently open it, get the pill down in the back. She's already licked her nose, which means she swallowed it. You can also give a little puff of air on their nose and that will also oftentimes get them to lick their nose to swallow.
Give her pets. As you can tell, she's a little bit nervous. So try to make this a fearless or as less traumatizing experience as possible. Follow up with treats that don't have pills in them.