How
To Give Your Cat Pills & Medications
Giving
Pills: Kneel
on floor and put cat between knees (cat facing forwards). Cross your ankles behind
so cat can't escape backwards; press your knees together so cat can't escape forwards. Make
sure your cat's front legs are tucked in between your knees so it can't claw you. Put
the palm of your hand on top of its head and thumb and index finger on either
side of its mouth; the mouth will fall open as you tilt the head back. If it doesn't,
gently push down on the cat's lower front teeth either your middle finger of your
other hand (the first two fingers are to hold the pill). You
may wish to stop at this point and use a flashlight to examine the cat's mouth
to see what you are doing. You
want to drop the pill in on top of the tongue as far back as you can. Keep the
head tilted back and stroke its throat until pill is swallowed. Then let your
cat escape.
Another trick is to buy a bottle of gelatin capsules. Take the capsule apart,
dump the contents, put the pill in the empty capsule (in pieces if it won't otherwise
fit) and reassemble the two capsule halves.
Some
places, especially natural food stores, will sell empty gelatin capsules, try
and get size "00". This makes the administration of small pills much
easier, and can also allow you to give more than one pill at one time, if they're
sufficiently small. The capsule itself just dissolves away harmlessly. Do
NOT use capsules which have been filled with any other substance but plain gelatin,
since the residue may not agree with your pet! You
can try babyfood as a deception: get some pureed baby food meat, dip your finger
in the jar, and sort of nestle the pill in the baby food. Offer it to your cat
and it may lick it up. Be warned, some cats are very good at licking up everything
BUT the pill.
You can get a pill plunger from your vet. This is a syringe-like tool that takes
the pill on one end and lets you "inject" the pill. You can insert the
pill deep down the cat's throat this way.
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