Now how do you go about shoving that pill down cat's throat again?

[PRS]

Sit on sofa. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your elbow as though you were going to give a bottle to a baby. Talk softly to it.

With right hand, position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. (be patient) As cat opens mouth pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow. Drop pill into mouth. Let go of cat, noticing the direction it runs.

Pick the pill up off the floor and go get the cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process. Sit on floor in kitchen, wrap arm around cat as before, drop pill in mouth. Let go of cat, noticing the direction it runs.

Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away. Scoot across floor to pick up pill, and go find the cat. Bring it back into the kitchen. 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. Drop pill into mouth.

Pry claws from back legs out of your arm. Go get the cat, pick up half-dissolved pill from floor and drop it into garbage can.

Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of closet. Call spouse from backyard. 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.

Retrieve cat from curtain rod, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered Doulton figures from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

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.

Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink glass of water to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

Retrieve cat from neighbor’s shed. Get another pill. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with rubber band.

Fetch screwdriver from garage and put door back on hinges. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

Call fire department to retrieve cat from tree across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take another pill from foil wrap.

Tie cat’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy duty pruning gloves from shed, force cat’s mouth open with small spanner. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Hold head vertically and pour one cup of water down throat to wash pill down.

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 at furniture shop on way home to order new table.

Get last pill from bottle. Go into bathroom and get a fluffy towel. Stay in the bathroom with the cat, and close the door.

Sit on bathroom floor, wrap towel around kitty, leaving only his head exposed. Cradle kitty in the crook of your arm, and pick up pill off of counter.

Retrieve cat from top of shower door (you didn’t know that cats can jump 5 feet straight up in the air, did you?), and wrap towel around it a little tighter, making sure its paws can’t come out this time. With fingers at either side of its jaw, pry it open and pop pill into mouth. Quickly close mouth (his, not yours).

Sit on floor with cat in your lap, stroking it under the chin and talking gently to it for at least a half hour, while the pill dissolves.

Unwrap towel, open bathroom door. Wash off scratches in warm soapy water, comb your hair, and go find something to occupy your time for 7-1/2 hours.

Arrange for SPCA to get cat and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters

All that previous business was a joke (obviously) however there is enough truth to it that anytime the vet thought my cat needed a pill I’d ask him there was an injectible version of the medicine. I’m not kidding, i’d rather give the cat a shot than try to shove a pill down it’s throat.

[Lori_B]

cat burrito under your thigh

Capture Cat.

Sit on floor.

Roll cat in a towel with only head sticking out.

Put cat burrito under your thigh.

You now have 2 hands available to use for pill stuffing. Yay!

Use one hand to pry jaws open, use other hand to gently poke the pill to back of tongue.

Close mouth with hands; gently massage cat’s throat til you see it gulp down the pill. If cat is a known spitter of pills, hold mouth shut for a few more seconds.

I am going to remember that super tip re: something slippery to ease down the pill. Genius!

I have just started giving my cat prozac every flippin’ day, and I haven’t had to resort to this extreme technique yet. Yet.

[Schune]

Making a kitty burrito is what I have found to work best - immobilize their legs so that only their heads are out of the towel, and most don’t fight.

I read the stories of people fighting with their cats on medication, and I worship to the powers to that be how grateful I am to have a cat that is, undoubtedly, the EASIEST CAT EVER TO MEDICATE. Pills, liquid, doesn’t matter, he’s a champ.

Even when I had to give him liquid metronidazole for Giardia, he swallowed it and never hated me afterwards. I know how bad the pills taste so I can’t imagine the horrible taste of the liquid.

Loff my baby Allen

[Lori_B]

One other thought –

Speed matters. Before you catch the cat, have all the stuff you need already arranged – the pill you need already removed from the bottle, a towel handy, etc. The faster I pill my cat, the less of a ‘thing’ it is. But if I catch her, then go find the pill, then wrassle around – this is a recipe for failure.

[ponygirl]

I use this: http://www.amazon.com/Jorgensen-Pet-Piller/dp/B0002YFRMU/ref=pd_sim_dbs_k_3

Works on the bastard pill taking kitty. I walk away unscathed.

[Alagirl]

@ponygirl;5653422

I use this: http://www.amazon.com/Jorgensen-Pet-Piller/dp/B0002YFRMU/ref=pd_sim_dbs_k_3

Works on the bastard pill taking kitty. I walk away unscathed.

intriguing!
<like>

[Kitari]

Yes!!! ^^^ Get a pet piller! those things are a savior.

[Pirateer]

I had a peck of kittens that I was fostering that had kitty upper respiratory disease.

They were little guys, and I got their pills down by using the kitty burrito method.

Roll kitten into small towel, avoiding claws and teeth.

Prop open jaws, insert pill, hold shut until you can’t stand it.

Retrieve pill from across room.

Repeat until you can no longer find pill, and hope its inside kitteh.

[adamsmom]

OK, this is a really great thread, but seriously…
See if there is a pharmacy in your area that compounds medication. The vet can call in the scrip and the pharmacy can either make it into a transdermal med (you can rub it on their ears) or they can flavor it & maybe make it into a liquid that smells and tastes like liver.

My dad & sister have a compounding pharmacy and it’s amazing what they can do for animals! (Not to mention kids & other hard to administer patients!) My sister has even used transdermal Ketoprofen on a horse’s stifle, and it’s worked wonders!

[gailbyrd]

I also have to give one of my cats theophylline. I cut the pill in half, give half in the morning and half at night.

My method (and I acknowledge I have fairly easy cats to pill) is to grab the nape of the neck (like a mother cat does a kitten), hold the head back slightly, have pill on index finger, open mouth on left side of the cat with ring finger, put pill in the mouth on the right side and push back as far as my finger will go without choking the cat. Getting the pill on the right side is the key as you are more than guaranteed to get the pill into the esophagus instead of the trachea. Close mouth, rub throat, open mouth to make sure cat has swallowed the pill.

Been doing this for at least 3 years; she is now 13 and I have had her around at least 2 years longer than I thought I would.

Good luck with you kitty.

[HenryisBlaisin]

My huge, belligerant cat had a urinary blockage last year and had to have all manner of meds for a couple of weeks. What worked for him was to crush the pills, mix them with a little water in an oral syringe and then add a little baby food, shke it up really well and squirt it in. He didn’t love it, but I didn’t have to burrito him or anything first. I DID always get a hold of his scruff (didn’t have to hold hard or tight) and then just shot it in, kind of like deworming a horse. I wore a little of it at times, but the vast majority got in the cat and all my arteries remained intact.

Do check with your vet, though; not all meds can be crushed or they lose their efficacy.

[Threebars]

Oh my… you guys will hate me for this but here’s what I did with the impossible to pill cat.

Wait until cat was asleep on chair, pill at ready.

Stare at evil cat until he woke up. Wait for inevitable, “Yawn of Disdain”.

Throw pill as far back into throat at high point of yawn.

Walk away, unscathed feeling the baleful eye of "WTF did you dare disturb me for before cat curls back up in favorite coat/clean shirt/fresh wash.

[Miss_T]

Many years ago, a vet taught me a great trick. I start similar to the way Pirateer posted - cat upside down in arms (although it doesn’t really matter if he’s just sitting normally), open jaws, place pill in mouth, close mouth - and here is the key - put your finger (or thumb works well too) over the cat’s nostrils. May sound horrible, but trust me, in a very few seconds the cat will open mouth and gulp a little to get air. Pill gone! I have done this with various cats over the years - no problem. I have always thought that the reason I have no trouble pilling cats that is because, after dealing with horses, they are so much smaller that it is easy. But after reading this thread, I guess that isn’t the case for everybody.

[eventer_mi]

My vet tech friend taught me how to open their mouths without having to pry the little sucker’s jaws apart: when you grasp the nape of the neck, make sure you grab high enough so that their eyes are actually pulled backwards (slanting - my friend calls it “chinese eyes” :rolleyes: - yes, I’m Asian and I don’t take offense) which will pretty much immobilize them and the jaw will drop open, lift the kitty so that the back paws are barely touching the ground- use your pill popper and ram it back as far as you can and voila’ - you’ve pilled your cat! if you don’t grab high enough, they can still squirm away. Works for me!

[mjmvet]

I find that once you have kitty contained (either by the burrito, or the between-your-knees method) you’ll have better luck actually opening the mouth by holding the cats head from the top like a baseball. Put your thumb on one cheekbone, and your other fingers on the other cheekbone. Never mind the lower jaw - it will fall slack once you point kitty’s baseball, I mean, head toward the sky.

Next, use a pill gun. Seriously. I would never stick my finger in a cat’s mouth. Those bites almost always get infected. My favorite is called “Bullseye”. Cats have a VERY quick larynx, meaning you almost CAN’T get the pill to go down the wrong way. Just insert the pill gun way back into the mouth so the plunger pushes the pill over and beyond the tongue.

It really does help to butter the pill. This helps prevent damage to the esophagus if pill doesn’t go down fast enough. (We get around this by taking our pills with water. I have syringed water into a cat after a pill before, but a recent study showed that butter works equally well)

You can have medications compounded into flavored liquids. As a bonus, they can often make the solution fairly concentrated so that you only have to give a small volume. As a last resort, there is an injectable asthma medication called terbutaline. Some cats are actually much better with injections than they are with pills. Oh, and if your vet hasn’t mentioned it, you can use inhaled asthma medications as well via a mask you hold over his face for 7-10 breaths. The inhaled drugs tend to work much better, but you have to have a cat that you can train to accept the mask. Still, it might be better than pilling.

Try to offer the most powerful reward you can think of after the pilling is done. This might be waiting to feed him anything that day until after you pill him, catnip, whatever. I had great luck teaching my cat to jump on a stool, target the pill gun, take her pill then get her (once a day) meal. You can look into clicker training if you’re interested.

Good luck!

[Twiliath]

Get a pill gun. Petco has them cheap. Saves your hide.

[Alagirl]

Will have to get one…

Tonight I just grabbed in and shoved it down in there!

I am still :eek:: The pill seems to have actually gone where it was supposed to go!!!:eek::eek::eek::eek:

(and I still got all fingers, too!!!)

OH DARN…forgot the butter…

[Gray_Horse_H_J]

When I had to pill my cat last summer, I found the best way was to grab the nape of his neck, like momma cat does, gently flip him over and lay him on his back, and shove the pill in. I got pretty good at it. It took some trial and error to figure it out though, he’s a squirrely little beast. And God help you if you try to pick him up. :lol: