My cat is smarter than me
Remember last week, I mentioned Chelsea had a trip to the vet? Well, she came home with medication, and has been tormenting me ever since. Baby does not want to take her pills!
The first dose went down really easy - I was making myself tuna for dinner, so I just gave her the pill in a little bit of tuna and she gobbled it up. The next morning, I tried wrapping it in ham, and then cheese, but she ignored me, so finally I broke down and opened another can of tuna just so she'd take the pill.
Well, as it turns out, two doses is how long it takes before she catches on to my evil plan. That night, she just licked the tuna off and left the pill. I tried just holding her down and sticking the pill in her mouth, but she refused to swallow, and I felt like a mean person straddling the poor thing with my hand clamped over her mouth. But no matter how long I held her there, she'd spit the pill out as soon as I let her go. No amount of throat-massaging would get it to go down.
So, we missed three doses in pursuit of those efforts, then I went to PetSmart and bought Pill Pockets, which are these little snacky things that you put the pill inside and close it up and they're supposed to eat the whole thing. "Supposed to" being the operative phrase there. Again, we got two doses down like that before she started sucking on it until the snacky part dissolved and spat the pill back out.
Then, last night, I tried cracking open the gelcap and pouring the powder directly into the Pill Pocket, so she couldn't eat around it. Well, she just ignored it. This morning, again, opened the gelcap, and this time mixed the powder with a little tuna, which she refused to eat.
My last hope is the pill popper, but I haven't been able to find one in a store.
I give up! Megggggannnnn, you're the animal expert - how do you get them to take their pills?
Labels: Chelsea
posted by Laura @ 1:30 PM
3 Comments:
ha. the animals at the zoo are more cooperative- we usually mix medication in with peanut butter in a sandwich. not sure if cats eat peanut butter though.
there was some kind of trick someone at the zoo told me about making an animal swallow- it may have been something weird like blowing in their face? i don't remember. i'll ask people tomorrow.
Jenn says that when our cat was sick, we gently wrapped him in a towel (so he wouldn't kick or scratch), used the pill popper, then she stroked his throat to help him swallow.
Heh, no, she doesn't eat peanut butter. I tried mixing the meds in with tasty human foods like tuna, and she wouldn't even eat that.
I may try the blowing-in-the-face method, at least it's something new.
Someone else told me about the towel thing, but it kind of backfired. When she saw me coming with the towel, she ran under the bed, but without it, I was able to grab her and hold her and force the pill in. It's keeping it in until she swallows that's the problem, lol.
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