Struggling…. I tried putting the content in their food and no luck either
Thanks for the tips :)
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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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
That’s the neat part: you don’t.
</meme>
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.
My cat has a fungal infection in his brain and requires one pill twice a day. Been doing this for sevenish years. He’s the only cat I’ve ever had, so take this with a grain of salt, but I just get him on my chest and pet him until he starts purring. Then I use a finger to open his mouth and push the pill to the back of his throat, and immediately go back to petting him. He swallows it, and sometimes gags for a second. But, I do it really quickly, and usually it’s over quick enough that he doesn’t even stop purring. YMMV
I use a pill gun like this one then immediately follow up with a treat. He hates the pill but the sooner that’s over with the sooner he gets the treat, and we have to do it again if he manages to spit the pill out. Treat doesn’t come until the pill is swallowed.
Yeah this combined with tucking the cat in your armpit, works like a charm. They will hate it but it’s effective!
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.
Why don’t they make cat (and dog) pills taste like a treat? It can’t be that hard!
It’s not hard it’s more expensive. Heartworm and flea and tick meds come in treat form.
cats also tend to be a lot more finicky about different foods :(
True, but my lot wolf down different treats.
They make pill pocket soft treats for both cats and dogs, and depending on the medication, some places will just make a medicated soft treat.
My elder cat was having kidney problems, wouldn’t take pills, would eat around the pill to eat the pill pocket treat, and would violently shake her head if you tried using liquid meds. Eventually, I found an online pet pharmacy that would just blend her kidney meds right into a soft chew treat… unfortunately, this was several years ago, and I can not remember the name of the site I used.
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
Pill pockets can work, but some cats will eat around the pill.
Personally, I’ve had the most success using cheese slices. As in, the highly processed plastic wrapped “cheese”. Tear off a bit, wrap it around the pill and kinds of smoosh it around the pill, and just like that, it’s irresistible to kitties.
