Pet Piller-Time For Your Medicine!
“Here comes the airplane!”
Ever have trouble getting your furry little friends to take their medicine? Do you feel like you’ve tried everything you can think of- every treat, every method, and still having trouble? Have you asked EXTREMELY nicely and they still wont have it?
We have ALL been there. Don’t worry, there IS hope!
Sometimes it may be easy- you are given a nice, flavored liquid that tastes like vanilla (or fish chowder, if that’s your thing), or maybe a nice beef flavored, tiny tablet that smells delicious! That was easy!
More often than not, however, you’ll be receiving unflavored tablets (and some are NOT small!) or unflavored liquid medications, many of which both smell and taste terrible (kind of like medicine, you know?)
With the liquid suspension, at the very worst, you can sneak the tip of the syringe into the mouth, even through clamped teeth, and administer the medication directly down the throat and bypass them tasting the medicine at all. Tablets, capsules and pills however can be much more difficult to administer when they are absolutely not having it today.
There is what is sometimes called the “Old school” method of administering pills, which is essentially to open the pet’s mouth with your hands and either drop the pill down the throat or physically help to push the pill down if needed. I know, but trust me, it actually sounds much worse than it is in real life. It does not hurt them at all if done correctly, however, that is not to say that they will not (even accidentally) hurt you. Keep in mind that this requires to you physically open an animal’s mouth using your hands and fingers, and then to put those fingers INSIDE of the animals mouth, where in a split second it could clamp down. With a 5 lb chihuahua, maybe not a huge deal, it may hurt a little to get nibbled on. With a 120 lb German shepherd, however, you’re losing a finger at the least, at the most you’re losing the use of your entire hand, if not the hand itself. We always need to keep in mind that we are working with animals, and that they can be unpredictable, even animals we have known and trusted for their entire lives.
And that’s just for the canine friends. Have you ever seen what a cat’s teeth look like?! That’s a big NOPE! You will NEVER catch me putting my fingers in a cat’s mouth. Furthermore, one of the biggest concerns with ANY animal bite but ESPECIALLY cat bites are infection due to the bacteria in the mouth of the animal. Cats specifically, being hunters by nature, can carry unbelievably nasty things in their mouths that can (and will) put you in the hospital and absolutely can kill you if untreated. You’ll hear plenty of stories from techs and doctors about “blood poisoning” or how they spent a week in the hospital after a kitten bit them because their veins turned black from the bite area all the way up the arm and made them very ill (Pasteurella multocida is one of the scariest bacteria commonly found in cat mouths that can have this effect, as well as strains of Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Fusobacterium, all of which can be highly pathogenic, meaning very easy to transmit from cat to human.)
“Go ahead, I dare you- AHHH”
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I would like to introduce you to a game changer when it comes to medicating any animal when needing to administer pills, tablets or capsules: the Pet Piller! Sometimes referred to as a “Pill Gun” or “Pill Shooter”, (especially if you’re from the south like I am!) these little guys are worth their weight in gold! They tend to be very well priced for what you are getting and usually work very well for their intended purposes. While there are MANY on the market, the one that I have been and still use each and every day is the JORGENSEN LABS PET PILLER. It’s certainly not as fancy or colorful as some of the other ones on the market, but keep in mind that this is a utility device to help you administer medications, NOT something cute that you show off to your friends- it doesn’t have to be cute, it’s a medical device. It gets the job done for an acceptable price and does it’s job very well.
I find the Jorgensen Labs piller to be the easiest for me to use for a few different reasons, but the main reason is how easy it is to load the medication in and also how it is designed to be only two pieces so that it is exceptionally easy to clean. The soft rubber tip also gives you peace of mind and security knowing that you will not accidentally hurt your pet while trying to administer the medication (I would NEVER recommend the hard-tipped plastic ones, by the way- that’s asking for trouble in my opinion.)
Pros:
Easy to use
Easy to disassemble
Easy to clean
Good price and quality
Makes medicating much easier and safer
Soft tip ensures you will not hurt your pet accidentally
Relieves some stress when administering medications
Cons:
Soft tip can tear or rip if used too roughly or if bitten hard
Can be harder to use for people with smaller hands, product is about the length of a pencil (give or take) and needs to be pushed from the back to dispense the medication from the tip, like a syringe.
Verdict: 8/10
Would certainly recommend to anyone having a hard time administering medications to their pets!
I will include in the links below a link for my recommended product, as well as a link to one that my coworkers have recommended as well and like (syringe style, with finger holes! Hard for me to use with the size of my fingers, unfortunately. I also think that they are just harder to use all-around, and not quite as user friendly, but that is my personal opinion, and I know a few people who would say the opposite! Whatever keeps your boat afloat!
Below you will find links to the products talked about in this review.
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