-
Grasp cat firmly in your arms. Cradle its head on your elbow, just as
if you were giving baby a bottle. Coo confidently, “Thats a nice kitty.”
Drop pill into its mouth. -
Retrieve cat from top of lamp, and pill from under sofa.
-
Follow same procedure as in 1, but hold cat’s front paws down with
left hand and back paws down with elbow of right arm. Poke pill into its
mouth with right forefinger. -
Retrieve cat from under bed. Get new pill from bottle. (Resist
impulse to get new cat.) -
Again proceed as in 1, except when you have cat firmly cradled in
bottle-feeding position, sit down on edge of chair, fold your torso over
cat, bring your right hand over your left elbow, open cat’s mouth by
lifting the upper jaw and pop the pill in - quickly. Since your head is
down by your knees, you won’t be able to see what you’re doing. That’s
just as well. -
Leave cat hanging on drapes. Leave pill in your hair.
-
If you’re a woman, have a good cry. If you’re a man, have a good cry.
-
Now pull yourself together. Who’s the boss here anyway? Retrieve cat
and pill. Assuming position 1, say sternly, “Who’s the boss here,
anyway?” Open cat’s mouth, take pill and…Oooops! -
This isn’t working, is it? Collapse and think. Aha! Those flashing
claws are causing the chaos. -
Crawl to linen closet. Drag back large beach towel. Spread towel on
floor. -
Retrieve cat from kitchen counter and pill from potted plant.
-
Spread cat on towel near one end with its head over long edge.
-
Flatten cat’s front and back legs over its stomach. (Resist impulse
to flatten cat.) -
Roll cat in towel. Work fast; time and tabbies wait for no man-or
woman. -
Resume position 1. Rotate your left hand to cat’s head. Press its
mouth at the jaw hinges like opening the petals of a snapdragon. -
Drop pill into cat’s mouth and poke gently. Voila! It’s done.
-
Vacuum up loose fur (cat’s). Apply bandages to wounds (yours).
-
Take two aspirins and lie down.
I do suggest wearing leather work gloves too.
On another topic, you can give a cat a bath too. I tried it and the cat was surprisingly calm.
of course, the hair kept sticking to my tongue! ( :
[Credit to Steve Martin]
ROFL! very cute. . .
just a tip from an old vet assistant and long time cat-piller. . .
take a dab of butter and smear the pill with it, take another dab of butter and apply to cat’s upper lip. Give cat a moment to realize that butter is A Very Good Thing. Then proceed with pilling the cat as described above. Tasty, slick, cat only objects a little to the process. However, by the 10th or so pill they have you all figured out, and they’re sick and tired of butter.
Or you could just turn the cat inside-out, lay the pill on it, and then turn it right side-out again.
Or get a dog. All you have to do to get a dog to take a pill is slip the pill inside a cat turd and drop the turd in the litter box.
I feel stupid posting this, it’s probably off topic…
My wife gives our cat a phenobarbitol twice a day for a seizure disorder (the cat has the seizures). She got this pill plunger from the vet. She sits the cat on her lap, pulls the lower jaw down and gets the end of the narrow plunger w/ the pill past the arch of the cat’s tongue and pops it in. It seems the cat can’t spit anything out if it goes in past the arch. (I suppose that explains hairballs.) The cat doesn’t sweat it at all. My wife is not stressed either.
Tony
Try this method, inspired by the original Swiss cheese recipe.
i.e. : take a few holes, coat them with cheese.
The trick is putting the cat around the pill, not vice-versa.
Too Funny! 
I’ll keep all this great advice in mind the next time my cat takes ill
[ This Message was edited by: Groovehead on 2003-01-08 14:13 ]
Use a mouse shaped pill…
Firmly struck, Zubivka! A new koan for the millenium.
–N, with a swing and a miss
I do have a real trick to put pills inside cats.
Dip the pill first in Nuoc-Mam Vietnamese sauce.
If it’s a coated pill, you still need to put the cat around it, but it slides better.
If it’s a pressed pill, soak it Nuoc Mam, put it among a few bits of dry cat chow .
Of course, it’s obvious to me as a non-cat owner but cat-lover, that the vet knows the cat doesn’t NEED the pill, what it needs is some exercise…
I once had to medicate a cat that wasn’t mine. My wife and I bought a house from the owner of 3 cats. Unfortunately, they could only catch one of the cats to take to their new home.
We obtained some tranquilizers from the vet, crushed the pills and put them between two halves of a split sardine. One of the cats came along, ate the sardine and went to sleep. When we went out to catch it, it sprang up and ran off at nearly the speed of light.
The two cats ended up living on our front porch for the next 5+ years. We fed them and gave them a heated cathouse to live in during winter.
One of them eventually got caught in the fan belt of the car and cost us several hundred dollars worth of emergency vet bills.
The point of this story is that you may be able to get the pill in the cat, but it won’t do any good.
Happy toons
From someone who hasn’t been around cats very much, even I know how to successfully give a pill to a cat.
First, select a whistle where the pill to be given will fit comfortably into the tube. Before actually placing the pill into the tube, be sure to warm the whistle up. Inserting the whistle into a toaster on the lowest setting should do the trick. Then place the pill inside the whistle, the whistle up the cat’s bum and play a very quick jig. (Wearing a catcher’s mask might well be advised!)