You’ve found the food that works best for hiding pills and you think you’re headed for success, getting these pills into your dog. But then the rascal rolls the food-ball around in his mouth, feels the pill, and spits it out. Now he’s suspicious!

Here’s a trick that has worked for us. Make at least two treats without pills. Give one of these first, then give one with a pill in it. Strike a balance between covering the pill adequately, and making the treat so large it isn’t gulped right down. At each point, allow the dog to see that you have additional yummy bites waiting for him; he’ll be less inclined to take his time, more willing to bolt down each treat in order to get the next one. Give a treat without a pill as the last one. If your dog is really suspicious, and you have more than one pill to give, you may want to alternate: plain, pill, plain, pill, plain.

Cheese is our usual cover for pills, and the best thing we’ve found, actually, is that spray-on cheese, the new version of Cheez Wiz. Put pill in the palm of your hand, squirt on the cheese-like substance (get some under the pill too) and watch your dog go for it. Here too it helps to use plain cheese-blobs as the lead-in, and keep your dog anticipating the next one so he’s keen.

But with the method I’ve described, we have successfully pilled even suspicious dogs with pills smushed between slices of cheddar or wrapped in a piece of lunch meat.