When you have to give medication to your dog, it can either be real easy (once a day) or a bit more complicated (anywhere from every 4 to every 12 hours). Odds are, if you need to give medication more than once a day, you will have to come up with something a little more creative. It is easy to hide pills in some basics such as hamburger, cheese, peanut butter, and other doggie favorites. That is great, except, they all contain a lot of calories.

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Adding extra calories in order to give medication is certainly worth it. However, if you are giving your dog medication for an illness that also requires a sedentary lifestyle, these little calories can add up.

With Phoebe’s foot issue, she has been sedentary for three months. In order to keep her from becoming unhealthily overweight, I can cut back on the size of her meals a tiny bit. However, if I need to give her medication four times a day, cutting back on her meals does not do much good, except to balance out the calorie intake of giving her medication..

Along comes the raspberry. They are available around the globe (though I am sure availability and price vary) and their built-in pill pocket makes them a perfect receptacle for capsules and tablets. Not to mention that they are a yummy alternative to the usual doggie favorites with a significantly less calories.

A Greenies Pill Pocket for Capsules is 23 calories; a raspberry has one calorie. For occasional medication, it doesn’t matter, for long term stuff, those little calories add up.

Phoebe had to take these capsules that were huge. I was using the Greenies pill pockets, but decided to try a raspberry one day. It worked like a charm.

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Huge Capsule
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Put the pill or capsule in nature’s pill pocket
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Squeeze it a little to cover the top of the pill.

Taking two things into consideration (cost and calories) raspberries beat Pill Pockets hands down. A package of 30 Pill Pockets is about $15. Two pounds of raspberries is about $5.99. Off-season, they are about $5.99 a pound. Guess which one I prefer?

If you ever need to give your dog medication for a lengthy period of time, raspberries are definitely an option worth considering.

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Phoebe is drooling while she waits for that berry treat – clueless that there is a pill inside.