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Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As the cat opens mouth, pop pill into its mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.
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Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.
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Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
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Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
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Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.
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Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees; hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously.
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Retrieve cat from curtain rail; get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and
vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later. -
Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil, and blow down drinking straw.
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Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans; drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
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Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.
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Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot; drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.
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Call fire department to retrieve the damned cat from across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.
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Tie the little bastard’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of filet steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.
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Consume remainder of scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room; sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.
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Arrange for SPCA to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.
How To Give A Dog A Pill -
Wrap it in bacon.
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Toss it in the air.
I know what you mean! 
I recently had to do this too. Here’s what the vet gave me and it worked every time. The pill plunger shoots the pill to the back of the tongue, forcing the cat to swallow it…if it’s done right.
I never had so many problems giving cats pills. Two things: your hand has to be big enough to wrap around from behind the cat’s head to grip the sides of mouth to pull back to open, and secondly, make sure the pill goes far enough back on the cats tongue so that it can’t spit the pill out. Use a pencil with an eraser to push it further back if necessary (without entering the larynx, of course). Stroke the cat’s throat to induce it to swallow while still holding the back of its head. The first time is peaceful. After that the cat knows what is coming and is a bit harder to catch, but they usually settle down once they realize they aren’t going to get away until you’re done. Good laugh, though.
djm
True. And it depends on the cat. I normally skip to the towel wrapping stage for my worst cat, and the rest has to be done quickly, but I can normally do it alone.
Okay, I’ve pilled a LOT of cats. Here’s my method.
Dab the pill in butter.
Seat the cat on a table or counter facing away from you and pet the cat nicely. Buttery pill is on the tip of your index finger on your dominant hand.
Take non-dominant hand around the cat and pry open mouth. The cat will back up into you.
Insert the pill quickly and DEEPLY. Cat will gag, pill will slip down throat. Smear a bit of butter on the cats mouth and let it go.
Good luck.
That site is like the Worst Case Scenario Handbook, Lorenzo. “You must work rapidly to avoid getting bit.”
My cat was always really slick about pretending to swallow the pill while I held him down for like 10 minutes, and then immediately spitting it out.
J.
I have a similar pill-popping thing like Lorenzo pictured - it worked pretty well, but, yeah, after a while the cat knows it’s coming and all bets are off. I had to give my cat antibiotics 2 X day for 2 weeks and it got pretty bad. What made it worse was she got so sick from the antibiotics that she couldn’t keep any food down and lost a lot of weight. Finally the vet let me d/c the antibiotics a couple of days before she was supposed to be done. (Yes, I’m a nurse and I know all about taking all your antibiotics and antibiotic resistance, but she was so sick it was scaring me).
I will never forget helping out on an Emu farm in Williams Lake, giving meds and fixing impacted throats. Full protective gear, lots of patience, and a length of garden hose were required.
Afterwards, the owner stitched up a peck-wound in his own leg while we shared some Loch Dhu and a laugh. Gotta love life in the sticks.
It is a handy device… that is, if the cat doesn’t see it coming. I have found that clenching the sides of the jaw as shown above, and with the ring or middle finger of the other hand opening the mouth and keeping it there, placing the pill quickly down the throat, closing the cat’s mouth, holding it closed while you massage it’s throat until it swallows, the best method and quickest method.
Failing that, crush the pill into a powder and mix it with very yummy food.
Back when I was a teenager, I had a few days work because of this problem. The next farm over was owned by a guy who’d retired from the city and had never handled cattle before.
Came time to worm the calves, he took out his (much larger) version of the handy gadget shown, gave them their pills - then watched them all spit it out. I showed him how to do it right (I was about 16 at the time - big enough to strongarm a calf if needed - and it was). He watched me do it, counted the number left for him to do - and offered me a job on the spot.
I thought it was easy money at the time, and couldn’t see why he was willing to pay someone else to do something so easy. These days, I think I’d do the same - spending a day or two wrestling unhappy calves is best enjoyed in retrospect. 
Yep. oh, and always keep in mind that a cat will “GET YOU” if it really wants to.
I will try to make this quick, the memory is very painful.
I did them a favor, watched over and fed, the horses, dogs and cats (7 cats). One had cystitis,“please give the cat his pills”, they requested. “No problem”, I replied. Seven days, seven days of horror and terror;fights and scratches , howling and screaming…and the cat cried too.
The 8th day, TUJ, they are back!
“How did it go?”
“Not bad, except for that feline bastard”, pointing to the perp.
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t take the damn pills!”
“That’s not the cat with cystitis…”
So now we scrambled, frantically looking for the urinary accumulating Felis domesticus. OMG she is as big as a footstool and sloshes when you pick her up. She hasn’t been able to pee for several days. She doesn’t meow as much as she burbles
My awe and disgust knew NO bounds when the vet shoved his finger up …well honestly i was too chicken to look closely…and the most vile, stinking exudate shot across the room as the poor pussy screamed in release.
I like cats…really i do. But I have taken no chances, dogs for the last 30 years. Word gets around y’know.
Great story!! 
Yep. My kitties will lick their noses, supposedly a sign that they have swallowed, and then I say Good Girl, let go, and out comes the pill, now soft and wet and crumbling. And then we try it again with a wet crumbly pill. I have tried the dispenser thing and for some reason I didn’t get very good results. Butter seems to maket the pill stick to my finger so I can’t toss it back there. Luckily, neither one gets very rough.
The thing to remember with most cats, when it comes to restaining them, is that less is more. Meaning, the harder you hold onto them, the harder they’ll likely try to get away… and they’re masters at getting out of your hands.
The quicker the pilling, the better it is for all concerned. 
Holy Impaction Batman!! That’s quite a tale. I’m glad the poor kitty finally got to go.
One of my sisters brought home a puppy way back in the day and as I sat in the vets waiting room, getting the mutt inocculated, a very attractive well dressed Blonde came out with a very expensive looking pure bred Persian.
She was absolutely covered in “vile, stinking exudate”. I really tried hard not to laugh but..well..you know me.
The Persian was spotless.
Slan,
D.
Having gone through 19 cats, nothing in the first post was new to me.
The best thing I ever found was a so-called “sake bag” that we picked up in Japan, designed to hold a couple of large bottles of sake. It was a heavy canvas bag, large enough to hold a cat, with a heavy drawstring.
We’d put the cat into the bag with just its head sticking out, tighten the drawstring, and thread the end of it through the cat’s collar. None of our cats ever managed to get out of that thing. The best thing was that the canvas was too heavy for their claws to go through it. There wasn’t much wiggle room, either.
Then it was heavy work gloves for me to open the cat’s mouth, and my wife with a pair of chopsticks to carefully put the pill wa-a-ay down the cat’s throat. They still managed to spit up the occasional pill, but we had a pretty good success rate.
Unfortunately, the sake bag eventually disintegrated, and we went back to wrapping cats in a towel, which is about a hundred times less effective.
The sake bag was also great for taking the cats to the vet–especially the little calico who was always trying to attack German Shepherds and Great Danes in the waiting room.
I had to take a oiled but still very vigorous cormorant to the vet once. I got talked into it because I was the only local on the beach and therefore the only person who knew where the vet was, and I’m a soft touch where wildlife is concerned. I had to walk one and a half miles with the bloody thing’s head and neck sticking out of an old towel that I’d wrapped it up in. It was so energetic that it was as much as I could do to stop it getting even more free and therefore even more deadly. It isn’t until you see one at point blank range that you realise just how vicious that downturned hook on its beak is. I was taking my life in my hands I can tell you. Heaven knows how I’ve still got two eyes. I can only imagine that it was as terrifying as carrying a cobra with a foot of its front end lashing around. Eventually I arrived at the beach cafe and persuaded the owner to let me have a cardboard box to shove the thing into. This was pointless, indeed counter-productive, as no box made of cardboard is anywhere near sufficiently strong to restrain a stroppy cormorant for more than ten seconds. Learn that lesson from me now if you have any sense. How I ever got to the vet I’ll never know, but once there I was assured that the RSPCA would clean the bird up and set it free. Job done!
Steve