It's not a deception, in the same way that a chicken nugget is not chicken hidden inside of breading.

It simply is pill with peanut butter

I think you would feel deceived if given a peanut butter sandwich, and after eating it someone revealed they had mixed powder from a pill into it.

Reread your sentence and look how much stuff you made up about 1) a scenario that’s completely fictional and 2) how I, a person you never met would react to it

I said I thought you would feel a certain way in that situation. Do you disagree?

Yes absolutely and completely.

Here’s what would actually happen if this fictional scenario did occur:

If someone hands me something to consume, no matter how much I trust them, I would ask “cool thanks, what’s in the sandwich?”

Now you, a non-deceiver, would say “peanut butter and pharmaceuticals”. And I would say “oh, I’m not sure I want that, but thanks for being honest”

I hope you see how this analogy does not map to dogs.

You have avoided answering by changing the scenario. Deception was implied. I'll take that as my assumption being correct and you were simply too proud to admit it.

I think this case is excused by the fact that you have no way of explaining why the medicine is important.

Exactly my point. Deception may be necessary at times.

Would it make you feel better if you told your dog there was a pill in the peanut butter? I don't think that would stop them from eating it.

No, because I don't feel the deception is bad in this case. It is a good deception.

If I showed my dog the pill, and then showed my dog the peanut butter, and then showed my dog the act of me putting peanut butter on the pill before giving him this package, where does the deception lie in this sequence of events?

If the dog was familiar with pills and already had an aversion to them, which is typically the case when people resort to using peanut butter, it is possible the dog would be suspicious and just try to lick the peanut butter and avoid the pill itself. Or just avoid it altogether. Typically you would not show your dog the pill going in the peanut butter.

It would not be a deception in the scenario you presented, but it also might not be effective in getting the dog to swallow the pill.

My dog trainer explained this to me like this: trust is like a bank, you build up and store a lot of trust, and sometimes you spend some trust, but if there's a lot banked up it will be fine.

The first day I got my dog, he had parasites in his ears and stomach. We had to force down gross medicines into his ears and his mouth, and he hated it and us for it.

Three years later we have built up so much trust that I clean his ears every bath and he stands still and waits for me to do it. He still hates it, but he trusts me and knows that I'm not trying to hurt him.