One problem encountered by many pet owners relates to the administering of drugs, dietary supplements and other medicaments to their pet. For various reasons, pets are often reluctant to orally ingest such medicaments and often become stressed, along with their owners, in the process.
Traditionally, pet owners have attempted to hide medicaments in food, which may ordinarily be particularly desirable to the pet. For example, owners may wrap the medicament in a piece of sliced cheese or meat. However, often times the pet is able to dislodge the medicament from such sliced food, and thereafter ingest the food without ingesting the medicament.
Alternatively, as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,857,333, a bone shaped treat may contain a pocket therein, which may be opened and into which a pill may be inserted. The pocket may then be closed by deformation of the bone shaped treat. However, because there is no actual adhesion formed between the pill and the bone shaped treat, during ingestion of the treat the pet may be able to crack or otherwise sever the pocket and remove the pill there from without ingesting the pill.
Furthermore, due to the differences in sizes between various pills, often a single size pocket is not suitable for many different sized pills.
In an attempt to overcome the aforementioned difficulties, U.S. Publication No. 2005/0079264 describes an edible dough wrap for use in an oral delivery method for administering a medicament to an animal. According to the disclosure, the dough has extensibility characteristics that allow it to form a homogeneous mass with the medicament. As a result of the improved extensibility, the disclosure sets forth that is very difficult for an animal to separate out the medicament from the dough, thus allowing easy administration of medicaments such as pills and tablets to an animal. The '264 Publication goes on to set forth that the dough may be sold as a block from which the customer may break off a portion, and the pill is wrapped in the dough to form a film between the pill and the dough which is difficult to break down. However, the '264 patent does not disclose how the dough wrap may be handled by the customer without the dough wrap similarly being very difficult to remove from the pet owner's hands after handling, or utensils when broken off from the block.