A bona fide comedy of errors.
I may have already mentioned that I suck at giving Her Majesty pills. I've never had a problem with other cats, but she's stubborn like you wouldn't believe. It always turns into this uber-dramatic-ten-minute-tragic-endeavor for all parties involved, which always ends with her not getting the pill. With her seasonal allergy prescription a few years ago, I eventually resorted to wet food w/crushed up pill, which has resulted in her sitting on my stomach every morning at 6am since 2007 howling, "HELLO WHERE IS MY YUMMY WET FOOD?" (AKA why I get up at 6am every morning.)
With her new diagnosis she now has a daily regimen of something or another every single day. Since she hasn't been responding to the old "crush it up in her food" trick, what with all the "not eating" and so forth, I did some research this weekend on tips and tricks for giving cats pills.
The first result to come up in Google was pretty much our experience every time I've attempted to give her a pill (minus the spousal assistance).
Other results suggested that I try pilling with something sticky, like cream cheese or peanut butter, which causes excessive lip-licking and poof! Pill is swallowed.
Peanut butter! My favorite food ever! Why didn't I think of that?
So this morning, without prior vet consultation (which I do not recommend, but desperate times call for desperate measures), I stuck the pill in a small blob of non-salmonella-riddled peanut butter and pried open Her Majesty's mouth.
She was not amused.
Somehow she managed to spit out the pill while lick-lick-licking the peanut butter. (Damn cat.) A second try resulted in a swallowed pill accompanied by lots of subsequent "phbbbt phbbbt phbbbt" spitting and angry glares.
When I got home today the 1/2 can of food had been eaten and she's grazing on the other half as I write. And she wasn't mad at me anymore.
I think we have a winner.
Sounds like you've probably tried tons of methods, but I thought I'd mention a method that worked pretty good with my first kitty Millie (though I don't think she was quite the pain, I mean interesting individual that Her Maj is :) ... BUTTER. I would coat the pill liberally with butter, then kneel and sort of sit on top of Millie (well, more like *over* her), holding her body still between my knees, with one hand around her jaw sort of squeeze and pry her mouth open (as if she was a little snapdragon bud) while tipping her head so she was looking up at the ceiling, then with the other hand push the buttered pill towards the back of her mouth, then would use that second hand to close her mouth and keep it shut until she swallowed (which was like within one second usually), then would let her free. It was pretty quick altogether (probably took you longer to read this than the actual procedure took), and she seemed to tolerate it and never got pissed off at me for it.
ReplyDeleteWell, you've probably tried butter, but just in case I thought I'd mention this.
Ah the joys of a chronically ill cat! I hope you only have to ever give her pills and not shots. But if it ever comes to the latter, I have tons of advice to give you there too. :)
PS re that list you linked to. I've read that list dozens of times over the past 10 years or so, and every time it never fails to crack me the hell up! Good comedy never gets old.
ReplyDeleteI haven't tried butter. I'll give that a try - the PB trick did *not* work this morning, so I shoved the pill in her mouth and held it closed until most of the pill had dissolved. She is (rightfully) sulking in the corner.
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