Struggling…. I tried putting the content in their food and no luck either
Thanks for the tips :)
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Method I use because my cats are really tolerant:
- Open mouth gently and give treat
- Repeat couple of times
- Feed pill with a treat
- ???
- profit
Depends on your cat. My cat, I kind of cradle the back of her head, behind her ears in one hand, (think scruffing but not scruffing bc that’s not nice). With my dominant hand (the hand to the front of her, I come at her from the side), I lift her chin, open her mouth with a finger, and with my index finger push the pill to the back of her tongue.
She’s had to take a lot of pills in her life so we have it down pat. But it’s mostly about being firm but not scaring them.
I clamp the cat between me and a wall whilst petting and then gently open his mouth and after massage the pill down. If we do it elsewhere he will scratch and go mayhem, this way he stays still and calm
I grind it like, snorting fine, and sprinkle it wet food and stir, has always worked for me.
Remember to check with your veterinarian if it’s okay to pulverize the pills, some medications are slow release and crushing them is probably bad
Oh good to know thanks!
Just so ya know, if you go with crushing up the pill, check with your vet to make sure its not extended release or something. Sometimes the pill is meant to slowly dissolve over time and crushing it up frontloads the dose and can cause problems. The prescriber/your vet will know if its safe.
Good point! Thanks for letting me know
Pill pockets
I make pockets from meat.
- Cut meat into bits of one cubic centimeter.
- Cut pocket with scissors or knife. One incision makes a pocket.
- Cut pill into ~10 fragments and insert into the pockets with tweezers. Squeeze the pocket open to avoid touching the outside of the meat bit with the bitter pill fragment.
Plus Purina FortiFlora probiotic stuff. It’s irresistible powder my vet recommended, and it works amazing if you shake the pill pocket in that stuff
This is the most effective for my cat, but just be sure they don’t eat the treat around the pill and then spit the pill out.
Might I recommend the Inaba Churu pockets? We’ve been jamming pills into our girl’s hell-scented maw for years but these have made such a huge difference. We insert one pill per pocket and she pounces on and gobbles them up. Now giving her pills is fun instead of leaving us with terrible smelling fingers served with a side of feline childhood trauma.
Press your index finger and thumb into the back end side of the cats mouth, this will open it, shove the pill towards the back of their mouth against her throat with the other hand and then let go. If it was far enough back they will swallow it.
My cats will eat anything if it’s served with Churu. That stuff is wild. Just a blob of Churu in my hand with the pill in it and the cat’s so into licking the Churu they don’t even realize they just took a pill.
The daily injections though, those weren’t fun. Especially once he started feeling better and had energy to fight us.
There’s a technique to hold their jaw and put the tablet at the back of the tongue which I’ve had success with, but I hate doing it. Look it up before trying because my memory is fuzzy.
I’ve had great luck though with pulverizing the shit out of a pill (uncoated, prednisone) and mixing with wet food. Like to powder with the back of a spoon, not just chunks.
🤔 this seems like “How to transform your domesticated cat into a tiger 101”
Yeah for the more ferocious fighters out there this would be extremely difficult to pull off but many house cats can be done this way.
You place the pill on the top of your index finger, right hand. Then you take the thumb and index finger of your left hand, form a C shape pincer with them, and then oinch at their gumline on either side to force their jaw apart. You’ll have a moment when their mouth is open and you can see their tongue - you have to poke that pill as far back on their tongue as you can. They will gag and recoil and lick lick lick the air, but hopefully the pill has gone down in that process.
This is the way.
I do this every night with 2 pills. I just did it 3 minutes ago, in fact.
Lay cat in lap. Grab head and kinda hold/lightly pinch cheeks with left hand. With right hand force your fingers pinching the pill into the back of the throat. Push it as far back as quickly as you can with your pointer finger. Hold him to make sure it gets swallowed.
Apologize and give him a little scratch and kiss.
Basically it feels like you’re trying to see the inside of a python’s throat. Equally as dangerous.
That’s the neat part: you don’t.
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Use your fingers to open their mouth/jaw. Place pill as far back as you can reach. Hold their mouth shut. Lift their head slightly and semi-aggressively stroke their neck which will force them to swallow. Double check they didn’t houdini the pill at any point along the way.
There’s something I call a “pill stick”, into which you put it in the barrel, jam it into the cats mouth while holding their jaw and then push the trigger. Requires a little finesse but easier than other methods.
We have one of those and got pretty good at using it with our tabby. But when our tuxedo needed medicine, it did not go very well.
For him, fortunately, his medicine can be compounded into a paste that we rub inside his ear. He doesn’t enjoy it, but he tolerates it. Definitely a stress saver for us.
Depends in how much skin you want to keep.
There are aides for giving medication to cats. Dont know the name but it exists.
Like others said : towel roll
I like putting her back against my belly so she can not get away to fast. Than put pill in mouth by opening it a bit. Than keep her mouth shut a bit. To make her swallow you can pet her on the troath.
Some cats who like food a lot dont mind milled pill-dust on their diner.
There is a paste to put the pill in and it tastes better. You can buy it at the vet. Maybe in a drugstore/petstore to.
We used a two person system.
One held the cat close to their body, securing the front paws against the cat with one hand and securing the head with the other hand. You have to secure the back hips against you with your arm or elbow.
The other pushed the pill into the cat’s mouth, held it shut and stroked the throat.
After a few months the cat realized struggling wasn’t worth the effort and only tried to claw our faces off if we got complacent.
We miss her very much.
I just put it in his food but some cats aren’t cool with that.
My cat will find the 2 piece of kibble that have been in the bowl 4 hours longer than the rest and set them aside for me
