Idea Exchange: Distract dogs with meat-flavored popsicles

Article

Your canine patients will hardly notice a blood draw with this distraction technique.

In this video, Maggie is busy eating one of our homemade popsicles while we are drawing blood. To make the popsicles, we fill an ice cube tray with meat-flavored baby food, stick a tongue depressor into each compartment, and freeze until solid. In the future, we will be putting Booda Bones (Petmate) dog chews in them instead of tongue depressors, so we don't have to worry about patients eating the tongue depressors.

Mindy Purdun, veterinary technician

Greenville, N.C.

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