When giving oral medications, often our go-to strategy is to try to hide them in an animal’s favorite food items. However, many animals quickly “catch on” and will start spitting out the medication or refusing to eat certain foods altogether. While many species have been trained to accept injections voluntarily, far fewer have been trained to voluntarily take oral medications, and usually by drinking from a syringe. Rarer still is training animals to voluntarily swallow pill capsules or tablets; until recently this behavior had only been documented in elephants and some primate species.

When it became necessary to give “Brighton” the senior American black bear (Ursus americanus) long-term daily oral medication, the staff at the Frank Buck Zoo found that typical methods just weren’t working. They decided to train Brighton to voluntarily swallow unflavored pill capsules, an approach not previously seen in large carnivores. Using lessons learned with the first bear, they reconceptualized their training plan and within a matter of weeks the zoo’s two other bears also mastered swallowing capsules voluntarily. Since completing this training, all three bears will quickly and enthusiastically take virtually any oral medication, and rather than hiding medications from the bears they are now active participants in the process. The ease with which the bears mastered voluntary pill-swallowing suggests that with species-specific modifications, this training could be applied to countless other animals in which it has not been attempted previously.

This course takes approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete.