My dog had knee surgery Tuesday. She has 4 medications to take everyday. 3 are not chewable. She is allergic to wheat, which is a primary ingredient in pill pockets.

I made my own using peanut butter, homemade oat flour, and pumpkin puree. But I need something more shelf stable, so I replaced the pumpkin puree with liver powder. The new version is very sticky, and not pliable like store bought pill pockets. So when I roll them out into balls, over a short period of time they coalesce back into one giant glob.

Looking for ideas for an add in that will help me get them less sticky.

For those unfamiliar with pill pockets.

My first batch of homemade

Dog tax

Edit: while I appreciate how everyone is giving their dogs pills (except you mouth stuffers, give the pupper a damn treat), I am really looking for ways to perfect my pill pocket recipe.

I'm sorry to hear that you and your dog are going through all this (but thanks for paying the appropriate tax - she's a cutie!). Any reason you can't just give her the pills in a glob of peanut butter, either all at once or one at a time? Does she find the pill and spit it out?

My first thought is that you need something to bind it all together. Maybe egg or psyllium husk or something? Or maybe you'll need to bake it for a short while to get it to hold and remove the moisture? I don't have a good answer for you, but you may want to cross-post to !baking@sh.itjust.works, !glutenfree@lemmy.world, or maybe !cooking@lemmy.world.

ETA: any reason they need to be shelf stable and you can't refrigerate or freeze them? This page has some good recipe options but they all require refrigeration. And this person uses coconut flour instead of oat, but also refrigerates them.

My goto is sticking the pill in cheese, a little is fine and it's usually inhaled before they even notice the pill.

I can give them to her in a glob of peanut butter, but she has been spitting out the pills that way.

Not sure egg would make it shelf stable, which is why I cut out the pumpkin puree.

I am shooting for shelf stable. But yes, cheese does work.

ETA: any reason they need to be shelf stable and you can't refrigerate or freeze them?

Her current schedule has 3 dosings after bedtime. My wife's cat lives in the room we are sequestered. My son's cat tries to sneak into the room to fight with my wife's cat. So if I can avoid leaving the room as much as possible to prevent him from getting into the room it makes everyone's life better.

When my beagle needed pills lately, he figured out how to only eat everything I tried: the pill pocket, cheese, peanut butter, etc. So I got a pill crusher and mixed the crushed pills with meat baby food or wet dog food and he took them no problem, even begging if I was a few minutes behind schedule that evening.

Even now, he won't take his Simparico without doing this. He's a very special dog.

I know this isn't a recipe or anything, it's what I do. Take the pill in your hand and put it in her mouth as far back as you can reach, then quickly hold her mouth closed and stroke her chin to encourage swallowing. Then give a high value treat if she swallows it. Repeat for all pills.

I know grinding some pills can mess with their time release, which is the only reason I have not done this.

See chewing viagra vs swallowing it whole.

Ah, the intricacies of multi-pet politics. 🙂

In that case I would probably make something that needs to be refrigerated but then just take out the required dosage (three pockets) as I'm going to bed. No matter what the ingredients are they'll be fine out of the fridge for a few hours. You could also try rice flour instead of oats.

It looks like Presidio has a line of wheat-free pill pockets for dogs. (They do have barley in the ingredients, though.) Sorry for the Amazon link. They do seem to be available at a few other places as well.

Not sure how you do it, but I put the glob of peanut butter with pill inside on my fingers instead of just in a bowl. Force them to grab the pill first and keep stuffing peanut butter in front of their mouth with other fingers. Keeps them busy and excited enough they forget and swallow the pill

It's a bit rude, but I take my dog's mouth, shove in a pill and then quickly shove in a treat. He often ends up swallowing the pill, spitting out the treat and then eating the treat lol

I have to do this for Benadryl because he's allergic to mosquitoes and his face will swell up. I think his mind is just like "ayowtf - oh it's a treat, alr cool"

Ah I just posted a comment that's basically another variant of this hahah

"it's a bit rude" is an understatement lmao

We use pepperoni. Fold the pill inside a slice, never had issues taking medicine.

Are you fucking your dog!?

/s

I did this for years for my dog and now he just eats the pills so he doesn’t have the deal with it.

It looks like Presidio has a line of wheat-free pill pockets for dogs. (They do have barley in the ingredients, though.)

Hmm, those contain brewers yeast. I am going to try adding some nutritional yeast to mine. I thought about xanthan gum, but it is a corn byproduct and unsure how she will react to that.

that case I would probably make something that needs to be refrigerated but then just take out the required dosage

This is probably what I am going to do.

It's better than not medicating. I've had a dog that learned every pill delivery system and each only works once. She would run away from cheese and hot dogs for awhile. Sometimes it's the only way :(

It sounds like your pumpkin recipe worked fine. What about a second hand mini fridge to put in the room where you're giving the meds?

Space is already really limited in there. It is a bedroom/storage room. And I am already struggling with enough space. I am going to see about an insulated lunch bag, add some of those glycerin ice packs and go from there.

instead of oat flower or in addition to, try tapioca flour. I think tapioca flower has that slippery quality that would work really well to eliminate the tackiness in your recipe. it is what boba balls are made of after all and they go down pretty smooth. its shelf stable as well.

its the best idea I've got. here are my other ideas anyway.

gluten free instant potato flakes

pectin

im also allergic to wheat and I like to cook and eat tasty things

(except you mouth stuffers, give the pupper a damn treat)

Can’t. Vet’s orders.

In addition to Dr.Banjos suggestion, our vet suggested the "three meatballs" trick, where you offer the pet a treat with no pill inside, when they eat it, you give them a treat with the pill inside, and then promptly another treat without the pill inside, so they swallow the pill quickly without spitting it out. It works pretty good, and you can keep repeating as many times as you need for the required number of pills.

I use 2:1 oat flour and peanut butter, and it comes out like play dough. I also keep it in the fridge.

Yeah Benadryl needs to be administered ASAP when he gets puffy

Glad to have someone who is GF chime in. I will try some tapioca flour in the next batch.

The program original recipe I found was 1:1:1/2 peanut butter, oat flour, pumpkin puree. But I found myself doing more like 2:1:1/2 oat flour, peanut butter, pumpkin to get the consistency I wanted. 1:1 with oat flour was the second batch.