Giving meds to cat - help, please!

[shiloh]

One of cats needs to have medication for a URI. Problem is she is an absolute little horror to give meds to. She is very small - she weighs maybe 8 lbs and is 2.5 hands high (g) so is a bit harder to get a grip on. Larger cats are so much easier to medicate. At least you can get a grip on something or at least get in some kind of headlock. Not this little wretch. Oh, and she’s Siamese. If you don’t please.

Pilling is out because she is so busy flinging her head around and gnashing her teeth I wind up getting bitten. And she doesn’t pull any punches, either. She bites HARD. Forget the piller. Again, so busy flailing about that the pill winds up all mushy and nasty-tasting and now she really won’t take it.

Liquids - aw, hell no. I had to give her her Clavamox yesterday and wound up with most if not all of it all over me, the bathroom, all over her - what a mess! And in the middle of it, she kicked up her hind legs and lashed out wih her front feet. Luckily, I jerked my head back but still wound up with a couples holes in my chin and a scratch on my cheek.

Surely, surely there is a way to get the tiny terror’s meds into her. Has anyone else got a cat like this? What did you do?

Oh, yeah - forget hiding it in her food - she ate around the pill and wouldn’t touch the food with the liquid meds stirred in. She cursed me out bad for that last trick :lol:

Geez between the two cats I look like I have been thrown face first into the sticker patch and dragged out backward. :lol::lol::lol::yes:

[BuddyRoo]

Burrito in a towel and pill popper. With gloves on for good measure if she’s a biter. But the pill poppers work pretty well–I’m talking about a syringe like tool for administering pills, not a treat.

She can’t scratch the crap out of you and wriggle away if in a towel and with heavy duty (think welding) gloves on, she isn’t going to penetrate.

She may be a candidate for hospitalization if she is this averse to treatment at home.

[arapaloosa_lady]

Ask your vet about Convenia?

[Simkie]

Is she’s really so bad, I’d ask about the long acting antibiotic injection–the Convenia mentioned above.

You might TRY a pill pocket. Tear off just enough of it to wrap around the pill. She might surprise you…I had one recently that did. Gobbled the little package right up and kept that up through treatment. No idea what I’ve done to deserve that :lol:

You can also try pilling her with the pill pocket wrapped pill. It’s a little more pleasant for them because it’s not bitter, and it slides down easier. Also keeps the pill more intact if they do spit it out.

[HiddenAcres]

Convenia

It’s an antibiotic shot that lasts for about 10 days. Made for kitties who are too fast to be burritos. More expensive than pills, but more effective than no meds. UTI - is vet wanting to go with Baytril first? Good luck and let us know if you invent a new method for kitty meds.

[french_fry]

Mix the powder into Nutrical gel and swipe on gums. 10/10 would recommend.

[Beckham03]

I second the burrito or hospitalizing. I’m a tech and pill cats all day. My own cats behave great at work and I have three that have needed treatment that all came home and became unmanageable. Some are just bad.

[BuddyRoo]

[QUOTE=Beckham03;8347629]
I second the burrito or hospitalizing. I’m a tech and pill cats all day. My own cats behave great at work and I have three that have needed treatment that all came home and became unmanageable. Some are just bad.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Much as I hated dealing with the tough cats at work (in a clinic), at least I had help if I needed it and safety gear. At home? With a difficult one who can’t be burrito’d and wants to eat you? Nah. I’d pay to hospitalize. Unfortunately, some of the IM meds may not be a good fit for this particular infection. Convenia is awesome but might not be the best option for this kitty. if they already did a culture, they probably are sending home appropriate meds based on that.

[SmartAlex]

[QUOTE=Simkie;8347524]
You can also try pilling her with the pill pocket wrapped pill. It’s a little more pleasant for them because it’s not bitter, and it slides down easier. Also keeps the pill more intact if they do spit it out.[/QUOTE]

That’s exactly what I do. But usually I can get them to eat the pill pocket. If they won’t eat the PP then use a quarter of one to attach the pill to a Temptations treat or something they do like. I actually started by prying open a Temptations with a knife point and using the two sides to sandwich the PP wrapped pill. Once they get used to the possibility of chewy different tasting stuff mixed in I began just sticking the pill to one side of the treat.

[Horsegal984]

Ugh. Siamese. My little hellion Meezer would bite the crap out of me for pills. And he always seemed to know if I wanted to see him or pill him. Go figure, guess which cat had IBD.

I had another Tuxedo who was impossible to give oral meds to. But he didn’t mind a needle stick while eating, so I had the compounding pharmacy make all his cardio meds into injectables. That was always an amusing phone call. If your Meezer doesn’t mind pokes, Unasyn injectable is pretty much interchangeable with Clavamox liquid. Otherwise, Convenia!

[Laurierace]

I had one cat who was so bad to give oral meds to that I switched to injectibles. Even daily shots were fine by comparison. My current cat gets a tiny pill for her blood pressure every day and I am able to smush that in a cat treat which she loves. Same idea as the pill pockets at a fraction of the price as there are probably 1000 treats in the package for around $2.

[js]

You can also have the vet get the medications compounded into a supposedly tasty liquid that you might be able to mix with baby food and kitty will eat it. Get the injection and be done with it, that’s usually my first choice for my cats. Most of ours are impossible to give pills or liquid to.

[mvp]

There are some techniques for pilling. See if you have tried these:

Most important is the “baby bird” position with the head. Whether you do it via scruffing or by taking kitteh’s skull (the top jaw, by the lips between your thumb and middle finger), the key is to peel the skull straight back, so that the cat’s gullet is open and vertical like the proverbial baby bird.

As twisty as cats are, they are pretty immobile in this position. But you must commit to keeping the head there, more or less straight up. If Cat-o twists here head to the side, you lose.

But there’s controlling the rest of the twisting body (which can effectively drag the head around backwards, like the lash of a whip). To prevent this, you need to put the cat in the “starting gate.” That is, between your legs while you are kneeling on the ground. Cat can only go forward from that box-canyon formed by your legs. That is harder with a smaller cat, but it still can work because you can just fold over more with your upper body to reach in there.

These techniques don’t help with those “surgical strikes” delivered by the front claws. And they can hurt/be effective. The cures for this are two:

1. For the claws and, OP, your cat who bites down hard, use the ol’ “Kicking or biting are acts of war” philosophy. I’ll accept a cat struggling and even using a claw in the heat of battle (though I make it clear to kitteh that, as a general rule, There Will Be No Claws On My Flesh Used In Anger Or Too Rough Play. Ev.Er.). The cat should have a track record of knowing that claws are only to be used on a “in case of fire, break glass” basis. Your cat should go to DefCon 5 with the claws only with great reluctance. And being bitten down on hard by a cat? Absolutely Not. You outweigh this animal, and you can be clear about that bright line. But you do have to teach this.

2. Pill 'em fast and well; get them to swallow promptly; hold for a minute longer and pet 'em, and release as though it’s no big deal.

The hard part about this is that it takes practice to get good at getting the pill deep in the cat’s gullet. And most of us amateurs don’t get to pill enough cats to develop proficiency. Once you have the pill in the cat’s mouth, continue to hold the head straight up, cup the chin so kitteh can’t use gravity to help spit it out, and blow gently on da kat. It makes them swallow. Oh, and I put olive oil on the pills to help lubricate them.

IME, cats hate the wresting match as much as they do the actual “water boarding” with liquid medicine or pills. So the more you can to do make that wrestling match quick and effective, the better the pilling experience will go in the future.

I hope this helps.

[sockmonkey]

I believe whoever invented Convenia deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. bad kitties!!!

[bdj]

I’ve had very good luck “training” a couple of cats to take pills inside pill pockets. (Yeah, they’re pricier than I’d like, but you can rip them into smaller pieces if the pills are small enough.)

See if kitty will eat pieces of an empty pill pocket that you just squish into a ball - make a game of it and offer a bunch of little pill-less pockets. Then you can sneak a filled one in with the rest - 4 empties, one with a pill, a couple of empties after, for example. After a few days of making it rain pill pockets, you should be able to cut back the number to the filled one plus one or two empties.

[shiloh]

Thanks for all suggestions!

Just one quick note - she has Upper Respiratory Infection - snotty sneezy, not UTI.

Last night I tried the burrito trick and wound up just waterboarding her (what an appropriate term!:yes:). All I have now is liquids and am stuck with that briefly. I will try mixing meds into baby food (she adores baby food) and getting that syringe full down her head. After that, Temptations and raining Pill Pockets.

Vet Techs/Vets - Could I give a shot at home of Convenia? Is that something that can go sub-q or does it have to go in muscle? I could give a shot a whole lot easier. And would they give a prescription to me for home if this was possible?

[shiloh]

[QUOTE=mvp;8348281]
There are some techniques for pilling. See if you have tried these:

Most important is the “baby bird” position with the head. Whether you do it via scruffing or by taking kitteh’s skull (the top jaw, by the lips between your thumb and middle finger), the key is to peel the skull straight back, so that the cat’s gullet is open and vertical like the proverbial baby bird.

As twisty as cats are, they are pretty immobile in this position. But you must commit to keeping the head there, more or less straight up. If Cat-o twists here head to the side, you lose.

But there’s controlling the rest of the twisting body (which can effectively drag the head around backwards, like the lash of a whip). To prevent this, you need to put the cat in the “starting gate.” That is, between your legs while you are kneeling on the ground. Cat can only go forward from that box-canyon formed by your legs. That is harder with a smaller cat, but it still can work because you can just fold over more with your upper body to reach in there.

These techniques don’t help with those “surgical strikes” delivered by the front claws. And they can hurt/be effective. The cures for this are two:

1. For the claws and, OP, your cat who bites down hard, use the ol’ “Kicking or biting are acts of war” philosophy. I’ll accept a cat struggling and even using a claw in the heat of battle (though I make it clear to kitteh that, as a general rule, There Will Be No Claws On My Flesh Used In Anger Or Too Rough Play. Ev.Er.). The cat should have a track record of knowing that claws are only to be used on a “in case of fire, break glass” basis. Your cat should go to DefCon 5 with the claws only with great reluctance. And being bitten down on hard by a cat? Absolutely Not. You outweigh this animal, and you can be clear about that bright line. But you do have to teach this.

2. Pill 'em fast and well; get them to swallow promptly; hold for a minute longer and pet 'em, and release as though it’s no big deal.

The hard part about this is that it takes practice to get good at getting the pill deep in the cat’s gullet. And most of us amateurs don’t get to pill enough cats to develop proficiency. Once you have the pill in the cat’s mouth, continue to hold the head straight up, cup the chin so kitteh can’t use gravity to help spit it out, and blow gently on da kat. It makes them swallow. Oh, and I put olive oil on the pills to help lubricate them.

IME, cats hate the wresting match as much as they do the actual “water boarding” with liquid medicine or pills. So the more you can to do make that wrestling match quick and effective, the better the pilling experience will go in the future.

I hope this helps.[/QUOTE]

Yes, to all of these! I agree with you 100 %. All my other cats take their meds with little or no trouble. They know I will escalate to more drastic pilling measures (burrito, starting gate, etc) so they just learned it’s easier to submit. Not this one - she’s the worst! This little one couldn’t care less. You scold her or give her a spank and she comes right back at you. With back-talk, no less! She’s rightly named Bonnie - after Bonnie and Clyde. All the other cats in the house are afraid of her. Brat.

Like the olive oil trick. Will add that to my repertoire. Thanks!

[shiloh]

duplicate post

[mvp]

[QUOTE=shiloh;8348924]
Thanks for all suggestions!

Just one quick note - she has Upper Respiratory Infection - snotty sneezy, not UTI.

Last night I tried the burrito trick and wound up just waterboarding her (what an appropriate term!:yes:).

…

I could give a shot a whole lot easier. And would they give a prescription to me for home if this was possible?[/QUOTE]

I know, right? X2 or X3.

[jetsmom]

Scruff and drop bottom first into a pillowcase and then hold the top/opening around neck, but not strangling just so it’s in your hand. That will immobile legs. Then pill as previous poster suggested. It helps if you kneel on ground with kitty between your thighs, facing away from you. That way when you pill, and they try to scoot bacwards, they are blocked.