Ped Meds and Veterinary Compounding

Make pet medication a treat for your dog or cat

Getting your pet to take their meds can be a nightmare. There’s a great way to get around the hassle – Compounded pet medication

Wouldn’t it be better if your pet liked their pet meds?

Medication compliance for animal patients

It’s maybe a bit counter-intuitive to think of your pet as a patient. Like their human counterparts pet patients can get grumpy if they don’t like the treatment. As pop culture would suggest, however, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” Why fight your pet every day? Compound your pets medication and turn a shared exchange you both would rather avoid into an enjoyable moment involving a treat!

Benefits of Compounding Pet Meds:

• Practical: Just feed and go.
• Flavor Extracts: Pets love them.
• No stress: Pet is stress free.
• Experience: Positive encounter.
• Value: Good overall value.
• Personalized: Right extract.

“I’ll just force my pet to take their meds, it’s for their own good, no big deal.”

This is a common perception pet owners have. They want the best for their beloved pets and do what they have to do to get the job done. Their pets don’t know this, however, and resist the treatment. For some pets this isn’t a big deal but for others it can create a resistance dynamic between pet and owner which affects the relationship. Pet and owner have plenty of challenges as they grow together. Administering pet medicine shouldn’t be one of them.

Negative Reinforcement with Pills

Pets often prove to be more resourceful and aware than we think. After forcing your pet to take medicine they have an aversion to over and over again they can begin to associate an unpleasant experience with their masters. Some pets develop a mistrust over time which can affect the relationship between pet and owner. Pet owners commonly report their pets becoming increasingly scarce to avoid these encounters, often returning after hunger takes a front seat.

Animals don’t understand the utility of the medicine. They inherently reject strange, bitter, or sour tasting pet pills as a natural bodily reaction and must then endure having it forced upon them by the person they trust the most. The regularity of the treatment can be difficult to understand for a dog, cat, or other pet. Some specialists have hinted this behavior can create an anxiety cycle which can be difficult to break.

Flavoring Pet Meds With What Pets Love!

Flavor compounding involves picking a flavor extract concentrate which dogs, cats, and other pets have a tendency to like and mixing it with the prescribed pet medication in a way that masks or neutralizes the rejected flavor. Different flavor concentrates are used for different types of medicine.

So flavoring is complicated?

Yes. Potent flavors are designed to mask or complement pet medications. The process of mixing the meds and flavors successfully involves combining them in such a way as to neutralize the rejected flavor pets will go out of their way to avoid. Developing flavors which have this affect has required a great deal of trial an error. The concentration is also key as simple food items are often not potent enough to get the job done. The mixing process can also be key. Compounding flavor concentrates in specific ways can bind flavor molecules so your pet takes the bait.

Sensitive noses smell all!

One pet owner’s anecdote stars a great Dane who despite being a bit of a lumbering oaf could chew through the hot dog the pill was hidden in and surgically eat everything but the pill. It’s the smell. Dogs, cats, and many other animals have senses of smell which are orders of magnitude better than ours. You can bet that the source of the strange thing is not going to get eaten.

The part of a dog’s brain which controls smell is 40 times larger than a humans. Depending on breed, a dog’s sense of smell is 1,000 to 10,000,000 (that figure is correct) times more sensitive than our own. If you think back to that earlier anecdote it’s no wonder that great Dane can consistently avoid the pet pill. It’s easy. A human has about 5 million scent glands while a dog can have up to 300 million. A dogs nose is also built differently than ours, separating olfaction and respiration.

When airflow enters a dogs nose it splits into two flow paths. The air to be smelled detours into a recessed area in the nose to be processed in a network of olfactory receptors while most of the air flows to the lungs. The next time you try to trick your pet into eating something they are clearly trying to avoid, consider they have a much better idea of what you’re up to than you think. As soon as they smell the medication that familiar feeling of being forced into an uncomfortable situation is quick to manifest itself. To further science you up, ever notice dog’s nose tends to be wet? The mucus which covers the nose acts as a catalyst by capturing scent particles. Cats and other pets also tend to have much stronger senses of smell than ours.

Is veterinary compounding a waste of money?!

If you can feed your pet their meds and they do it without complaint then you don’t need compounding! If your pet is avoiding you like the plague every day, expertly spitting out pills, and all around being a challenge to deal with then veterinary compounding is a great value.

Aren’t compounded pet meds more expensive?

They are more expensive than your typical discount pet meds on account of the rigors of the compounding process. However, most of our customers inform us the cost is a marginal concern. It’s more than worth the benefit of the time they save, the hassle they avoid, and the relaxed nature of the exchange with their pets.

“Why not just mix crushed pills with food?”

Why not just mix crushed pills with food?

This may work, but depending on the pet it can decrease their enjoyment of their food. Some pets will simply deal with it and won’t show any noticeable change in behavior. Many pets, however, will either eat less, wait longer until they’re significantly hungrier, begin to steal other pets foods, or show other signs of dissatisfaction with their meals. Eating is *very* important to many animals. They are typically much more tuned into the experience. It’s important to put oneself in your pets shoes (paws). You may be bringing down quality of life for the activity they enjoy the most. By paying close attention you can keep an eye out for the signs. The signs are usually self explanatory but look for any change in behavior from the norm. Pay close attention a few days in a row, then add the medicine to your pets regiment and look for shifts in behavior.

So how does flavoring solve this problem?

Flavor compounding can both mask or neutralize the offending flavors and also combine intense concentrations of desired flavors. Flavor compounding companies figure out ways to distill flavors into concentrates which pets positively respond to. Being able to feed your pet a treat with cleverly masked pet medicine can be a positive experience.

We recommend trying it out

To see how you feel about the experience simply give veterinary compounding a try and see the results for yourself. The intention is to show noticeable improvement by testing different flavors. Some customers even report pets looking forward to it like a treat!

Your pet’s instincts are telling them to avoid their pet meds!

Our customers usually come to us when they’re struggling to get their pets to take their meds. Depending on the pet medicine the flavors a pet finds repulsive are often more dynamic than one may think. Medicine ingredients can combine into flavors that can compel a pet to run for the hills. Every fiber of their being can tell them the substance should be avoided because the taste and scent have properties associated with toxic foods they avoid in nature.

For example studies have shown humans are programmed to avoid bitter foods because we have taste genes which associate toxic foods with bitter tasting flavors. We’ve succeeded at reprogramming ourselves with so called “acquired tastes” to enjoy bitter flavors but we still have an ingrained reaction. For humans acquiring a taste is a sophisticated process involving the acceptance of a flavor we find unpleasant in the hopes of opening a door to an intellectualized tasting experience. Dogs, cats, and other pets often have much more sensitive smell to these flavors and simply avoid them as a survival mechanism.

We are a veterinary compounding pharmacy

A compounding pharmacy can prepare your pet medications using FDA approved ingredients and methods. Some of our customers like to think of us as their pet pharmacy.

Cheap pet meds

Be aware that quality can vary. Some cheap pet meds online are fine. The producer is able to cut costs by selling in volume and save you money. Sometimes, however, the producer cuts costs by producing an inferior product. Read reviews and stay away from discount pet meds with bad reputations. These pet medications can have negative effects, create problems your pet didn’t have before, or otherwise not be worth the savings.

Pet medications online

The above wisdom holds true here. Some online pet medication websites offer good deals and good products. As long as your pet will take the medicine easily this can be a good way to save money. Take care to purchase from reputable sources with good reviews.