I've never had to do this with my own dogs, but both my grandmother and mother have had to feed their dogs prescriptions in various methods. My grandmother in particular because she has had several Dachshunds, which the person who filed this request has.

So your dog has a medical problem. Heart, liver, kidneys, obesity, whatever. Veterinarians prescribe a variety of foods and medications for your dog's health, and more times than not, it not quite as tasty as their regular food. A good way to get your dog to eat what it needs to is mix the food with something they like to mask the scent and possibly the taste.

If the perscribed food is in big pieces, crush them up. And even if they're not big, crushing them up before mixing might help get it past the dog's sensitive nose. Here are some things you can mix in their food to get your animal best friend to eat what it needs:

• Half a slice of cheese (small dogs)
  
• Finely chopped pieces of meat
• Your dog's favorite food, crushed
• A tiny bit of soft dog food

If you have a small dog, such as a Dachshund or a Maltese, it can be more difficult to get the dog to eat the prescription food than a larger dog. Smaller dogs have smaller tongues and mouths, and can pinpoint what food they want to eat out of a bowl. The trick to this is to crush either the healthy food or one of the fillers listed above.

Ideally, you want to have the filler evenly distributed among the actual food, so the scent and some of the taste has covered it all. This can take some effort on your part, which you may not be used to if you're the type of person who just pours the dog's food and goes about your business. You, the owner, will have to be very hands-on in getting the food mixed up and making sure your dog eats it. Make sure it is evenly distributed and don't add too much. Too much filler in their food could completely counteract the point of the prescription food in the first place.

If you're too squeamish to touch the food, put some gloves on! Your dog's health is more important than you being too uncomfortable to touch their food.

Large dogs are easier than small dogs, because they have larger tongues and are less able to pick what they want out of a bowl. For larger dogs, it may be better to leave the prescription food uncrushed so one lap up will get as much as possible. If you do not crush the food, make sure you use enough filler to mask the scent to a decent degree. That way your pooch has little to no idea of what it's eating.

Having your bundle of doggie joy take pills is much easier than it is with prescription food. All you need is a small piece of cheese. Just ball the little piece of cheese up and push the pill inside. Make sure the cheese is not too large, because cheese is full of fat and DEFINITELY not good for your pooch. Using cheese to get your dog to take pills works almost all of the time, and getting your dog to take the pills is more important than the little bit of fat they're ingesting.