I buy a few turkey livers, boil them, then mash/purée them. Mix that with some scrambled egg and bread crumbs. I use this as a treat, or to coat pills.
If you have more than one dog, give the dog not being medicated her treat first, making the medication-dog a bit jealous.
My girly pug will be 15 this fall, and boy-oh-boy, she’s old. Boy pug succumbed to cancer in the spring, which was a surprise to us - he was not only a year younger than she is, but he was showing very very few signs of age until the cancer hit.
So now she’s an only dog, for the first time in her life. She has trouble walking due to arthritis, she can’t hear or see very well. She quit doing stairs 2-3 years ago so I carry her up and down what seems like a thousand times a day. She generally sleeps all the time, with the exception of a few hours between about 4 & 8 where she’s a little bit active.
Our biggest issue with her is when she decides that it’s going to be a pacing day. She gets up and just… paces. Back and forth, forth and back. I’ve taken to just letting her do it, except when she decides it’s time to do that on the bed in the middle of the night. The other night I just gave up and put her out of the bedroom for the night. Broke my heart, but I can’t afford to stay up all night because the dog can’t sleep. I woke up at 6am to her howling, so trundled out, picked her up, and we got another hour or so of sleep.
The howling is a new behavior since she became a lone doggy. We’ve come home a couple time after being out at night and I find her lying on her belly on the floor, letting out howl after howl. She must be lonely. Again, breaks my heart, but what can we do? Even if we wanted another dog (we don’t, it’s not the right time), I don’t know how she’d take to it. Really, we all just want our boy doggy back 
Oh, that’s just heartbreaking, Athena. I worry about my younger dog when the old guy finally goes; he’s only known life as part of a duo. 
Cinnamon will be 10 in a couple weeks. In the last couple of months he’s getting noticeably grayer in the nose and front legs. I’m dreading when he starts getting sore. He still wants to jump on everyone.
He’s got to take allergy meds during the summer, and we do the cheese thing. I’ve found that switching cheeses keeps his interest. Cheddar is good, american slices work really well - I tear off a couple pieces from a slice toss those to him, then toss the pill wrapped in the remainder.
I think part of the problem is that he’s never been a gobbler of treats. He’s very dignified and gentlemanly (and a little curmudgeonly, as SmartAleq picked up on :D), so he gently takes a treat and puts it on the floor for leisurely eating. The little guy knows better than to try to steal it.
I’m still going to try the stinky cheese and liverwurst suggestions, though. I might wrap a bit of antacid or Pepto tablet in and see how that goes.
Our method has been to use a ball of peanut butter (or soft bread wadded up, which doesn’t require washing my fingers afterward) containing the pill and a SECOND ball clearly waiting in the other hand. Doggos typically swallow Treat One quickly since they see Treat Two waiting in the wings.
My first two dogs lived until 13. The first had to have surgery and didn’t make it. The second we had to put down because her back legs gave out and we couldn’t see her suffer anymore. The third lived until she was 17 and died suddenly and peacefully. That was two years ago and I still miss her every day.
My Shetland Sheepdog Daisy just turned 13. The breed runs shy, but she’s definitely become more shy and stubborn as she’s aged, so she’s snapped at a few folks who got into her space when she want in the mood for it. She’s still very food motivated, so pilling her isn’t problem. We drop her morning pill on her food and she gobbles it up with her wet food.
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A “for future reference” note. From my first meeting with a dog, I like to calmly do a little exam, praising the dog after each part is checked. “Eye”, Other Eye", “Ear”, “Other Ear”, “Teeth”, and so on. Praising and treating as I go.
I do this every few days, maybe a minute per dog. As I’m doing one dog, the other two anxiously await their turns. It’s a great way to check for problems, and if a particular body part needs addressed (ear meds for example), I do it as part of the exercise.
ETA: @ITD: Awwwwwwwwww. I love Shelties
My beloved female greyhound, Capri, is now 14.5 years old. She’s in overall good health but frail and suffers from arthritis and neurological back end weakness. It’s a pretty awful thing to see a lanky, long-legged dog collapsing on the back end. Some days she’s fine and energetically bounced out to the yard, other days she can barely stand up. She gets palliative care of gabapentin and novox every day, but she simply eats it with her food. Oh, and once a month I give her an adequan injection to manage her arthritis.
The older she gets, the more I wrap my heart around her. I’m not looking forward to losing her, but steeling myself for it because I know her time is growing short.
Dogs live long enough to make you think you can’t live without them. Then you have to.
Leet the Wonder Dog[sup]TM[/sup] is only seven and a half, but that’s middle aged for a dog, and he is starting to slow down a bit. And his muzzle is getting pretty grizzled, and he has to sprawl on the kitchen floor and pant for twenty minutes after Nice Walks in the hot sun.
He still has successes in life - he has finally convinced my wife that some table scraps should come his way. My wife is a pastor, and he quoted Scripture to her. (Okay, it was me, and I wrote a note and put it on his collar to show her).
It was Matthew 15:27 -
She couldn’t argue with the Holy Word.
Regards,
Shodan
My dog acted wonky when she was on gabapentin. It was almost like she was drunk at times. She had trouble walking and would lean one way as you sometimes see drunks do. I’m guessing her sense of balance was messed up. She also started to pee in the house. We switched to another med and those symptoms went away. You might consider weaning her off it and see how she does. If she improves, see if the vet can offer a different med for her pain.
Just because I feel like I should put this somewhere: we had to put the old man down unexpectedly on Friday. He hadn’t been feeling great, which prompted thoughts of dog mortality, which prompted the initial thread, but I thought it was no more than old bones and an upset tummy. Turns out it was cancer, and it was everywhere.
We’re feeling his loss like a physical hole in our world. RIP, Captain.
What a shock, I’m so sorry for you and your family. It’s so hard to say goodbye.
Oh, wow. I am so sorry.
Oh noes. I am so sorry. My condolences to you and yours.
My Shiba Inu mix **Boo **has been with me through several cross-country moves: from Texas to Oregon, then to Washington, then to Maryland, and then most recently to Utah. She was the youngest of my original pack of three dogs. She’s now 15 years old, and still going strong- no major health issues at all, and she still has the energy to play with our youngest dog.
We’re leaving on Saturday for a two-week vacation, the longest we’ve ever been away from our dogs. I’m hoping she’ll be okay in the senior room at the kennel.
O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done…
I’m sorry for your loss. I’m taking my 18 year old cat into the vet today, for what’s probably her last visit.
StG
Oh, MoonMoon, I’m so sorry. How horrible that you had so little notice.
I’m trying to be pragmatic and look at it as a blessing that I didn’t have to do the agonizing “is it time?” exercise that often happens. But yeah, the flipside of that is that it doesn’t seem real, and I feel like he’s away at boarding or something.
Thanks for the support, doggo lovers.