A Trip To The Vet

I had to take Rowdy to the Vet the other day because he chewed the base of his tail and his rump raw.  The skin was flaking and oozing where he chewed and it looked infected.  Still not certain what caused him to do this.  He doesn't have fleas or worms.  He did need his anal gland expressed, badly.  This might have caused his itching and the Vet also said that sometimes dogs get hot spots, that when those spots get a little wet will itch like crazy.

Anyway he got his butt and tail shaved, his anal gland expressed, got an allergy shot, ointment for his irritated skin and some antibiotic pills for possible infection of his anal area. The skin is healing nicely, but trying to get him to take his pills is another matter.

This is the first time I had to give him pills orally.  I tried several methods of disguising them by either taking the powder out of the capsule and mixing with food to wrapping them in food but he has thwarted me every time.  He will either eat around the capsule or around the powder.  I finally found the only way I can get him to take them is to shove them down his throat.  That wasn't easy either as he seemed to have a way to spit them back up.

One thing I remembered about dogs is that if you grab around their nose and hold a thumb or finger against the roof of their mouth, they will hold their mouth open in an attempt to get your thumb or finger away from there and at the same time you can push the pill down their throat.  And it's a yucky job too!