I really don’t have much more than the title. My mother needs to give her cat pills and the cat is a little (well, big actually) monster who refuses to take them. She’s disguising them, crushing them, and forcing them. Now what?
mrAru puts on his bunker suit and wraps the damn cat in a huge towel until only the head with maddened eyes and foaming fang filled mouth is exposed, and shoves it down their little throats with his finger, then holds the mouth shut and strokes its throat…
Well, he wraps the little bugger in a huge towel to contain the claws and sticks the pill in its mouth , holds the mouth shut and strokes the throat to trigger the swallow mechanism.
<a bunker suit is a 20+ layer thick nomex and aluminized fabric suit the Navy uses for firefighting, is handy for cold weather protection and I borrow the gloves in the winter for working in the wood burning stove. Screw tongs and pokers, I reach in and rearrange the fire at will=)>
Some cat meds are available as liquid that you secure and hold the mouth open and dropper in=)
I have this little wand that my vet gave me for giving pills to my cat. It’s rubber tipped and the pill goes in there. There’s a plunger on the back that ejects the pill into the cats mouth, preferably at the back of his mouth. Then I just grab his head and keep his mouth shut until he swallows in. Then he runs and hides and plans my death.
Before that I had to stradle him between my legs and force it down his mouth. There was a 50/50 chance of it working. Even with the wand it’s not fun. I have to pounce on him when he’s sleeping and quickly get his mouth open and the wand tip in there. It’s a two person job.
The first step is getting the pill in the little bugger’s mouth. How much strife this will involve will vary from cat to cat, so unfortunately there’s no one prescribed method, but rather a recommendation to ratchet up the use of force (within reason) only when strictly necessary. Mild restraint may be sufficient with some cats; or you may need the terrycloth straitjacket approach described by aruvqan.
So, you got the cat still, you pried his/her little jaws open, popped the pill in his/her mouth, and forced the mouth closed. Now you’ve got the little fiend to swallow it. My cat has sat there with a pill in his mouth for what must have been a minute, with me stroking his neck, and then spat the pill out as soon as I let him go. Talk about frustrating. Some folks swear by the throat-stroking method, and I don’t doubt it works with a fair percentage of felines; but it doesn’t work with my little Spaz.
So my vet taught me a trick: Blow in his nose. I tried this, and it worked like a charm. I quick puff of air aimed right up his nostrils seems to make him swallow involuntarily, and down the pill goes. Of course, I’ve spoken with other cat owners who say blowing in their cat’s nose has no effect. Again, the strategies must vary from one little demon to the next.
I’m actually very lucky on this; the one cat that I have to medicate is a very good pill-taker. So here’s what I do:
I grab the scruff of his neck with my left hand so he can’t struggle too much, then insinuate the fingers of my right hand (which holds the pill) between his teeth on the left side of his mouth. Once I’ve gotten his mouth open, I put the pill as far back into his mouth as I can get it (usually on the very back of the tongue). If I do it right (85% of the time), I don’t even have to hold his mouth shut or stroke his throat, but sometimes I do have to. Also, I usually have to position my left thumb on his right jaw, because what he tries to do is turn his head to the left to escape my right hand; the presence of the left thumb keeps his little head from moving away.
It happens so quickly that usually he just keeps sitting right where he was before I dosed him. The other times, he gets up and goes to get something to eat. 
The biggest pain is that he’s on Chlorambusil now, which is a chemotherapy drug (he’s suspected of having intestinal lymphoma), and it’s toxic to handle. So I have to wear latex gloves to dose him, which get in the way and are a major pain in the ass. Also, they keep getting snagged on his little fangs. Sigh.
Oops. He tries to turn his head to the right. Just in case any of you were trying to picture that whole rigmarole in your minds.
It depends on the cat I’m giving them to. With my little one, I just tuck her under an arm, pry her mouth open and shove it in. She takes it in stride, and seconds after it’s done, it’s forgotten. My older one’s a little more wily and far stronger than the smaller one, though. I have to wrap him in a towel and pry his mouth open. Even swaddled tight, the little bugger sometimes manages to escape. Then I have to chase him down and try it all over again if I didn’t get the pill in. And he won’t relax until a few minutes after the pill has been shoved in.
Yeah, blowing in my cat’s nose would result in her reaching out and swiping my nose right off my face.
My method is the combined towel and pill-popper method. Wrap her up so her claws are contained, force a pill between her teeth, and retry until the pill actually goes down her throat. It usually takes a couple of tries before I can get it far enough back in her mouth that she can’t spit it across the room.
Our cat has been taking pills three times a day for about seven years now (diltiazem, atenolol, and aspirin) for a heart condition (Feline Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy). We’re lucky – he’s not a biter or scratcher and all he does is try to spit it out.
The best method:
- Pick up the cat.
- Put the cat on his back.
- Open the cat’s mouth and drop in the pill. Try to drop it as far back on the tongue as you can.
- Control how far he opens his mouth. Keeping it shut is OK, but I’ve had better success if it’s open just a tad.
- Swallowing is a good sign, but the best indication he’s swallowed is to see if his tongue comes out and licks his nose.
We try doing it before meals so he wants something from us, though he has never associated the pills with mealtime and would rather just skip the whole thing.
Grab cat, open his mouth, shove in pill, then lick my thumb with a good dose of saliva, and rub the saliva on the cat’s nose. This will cause the cat to lick his nose, thereby causing him to swallow the pill. Most of the time. 7 out of 10 attempts, more or less, the human beats the feline with this method.
I would definitely talk to your vet about the pill-popper mechanism that Sgt.Pepper mentioned. I have one of those, and it really helps. I also use the towel-wrapping method, then tuck the towel-bound cat between my legs (kneeling over the cat on the floor), tip its head back and use the pill popper. It’s a better than 50/50 success rate, which is saying something for a cat.
Ugh. When I was a pet sitter, this was the one task I hated. Pilling a cat that is not yours, and therefore has no reason to trust you, sucks! I’d typically get my husband to go over with me, and we’d swaddle the difficult ones in a big towel and he’d hold them. Then I’d open the cat’s mouth and stick the pill in. If it was a small pill, I’d use a straw to make sure the pill got to the back of the throat - I’d get the biggest diameter straws I could find, cut one in half, and then put the pill inside. Then I’d open the cat’s mouth, stick the end of the straw in, and tap the end of the straw so the pill rolled into the back of the cat’s mouth. You can also buy a little plunger-type device in some pet stores that essentially does the same thing.
Since those days, there have been some innovations. You could try Pill Pockets:
http://www.petfooddirect.com/store/dept.asp?dept_id=17&brand_id=856
There are also compounding pharmacies that can take some medications and put them into a transdermal gel. The gel is then rubbed on the inside of the ear, and the medication is absorbed into the skin. Here’s a little about that:
Lastly, I saw something on TV the last few months I was a pet sitter that I’d always wanted to try, but never got a chance to. It was a Discovery Channel show about a vet in Australia. When he had to pill a cat, he’d take a couple clothespins and put them on the scruff of the cat’s neck. He explained that the pressure exerted by the clothespins feels to the cat just like being held by the scruff by its mother. This apparently makes the cat instinctively hold still. He was then able to pill the cat without actually holding it still - he just opened the cat’s mouth and popped the pill in, and then took the clothespins off.
I have no idea if that last one would work for anyone else, but it was intriguing (of course with my luck, I wouldn’t have gotten them on the right spot and I’d end up with a p’od cat hiding under the bed).
The way my vet showed me has worked well for me; that, or I’ve been lucky so far. Being right-handed, I get the cat under my left arm (not supporting him, he can be on the counter, the floor, or wherever). Then I put my left hand on his head with the thumb and fingers reaching around to press on the hinges of his jaw and causing him to open his mouth. With my right hand, I pop the pill in, close his mouth, and tilt his chin upward, which soon causes him to swallow.
(I wonder if my co-workers have noticed me giving an invisible pill to an invisible cat.)
romansperson, I’m cracking up at the mental picture of an enraged cat with a clothespin on its back flying to the bedroom!
I’d like to second the use of the wand Sgt. Pepper mentions works far better than the alternative.
First step for me is to find the cat and flush her out. No small feat, she hides very well, the preferred spot being in my daughter’s room (AKA the abyss) under the bed. It usually takes some prodding with the broom stick before she comes out and even then the door to all the other rooms must be shut or she’ll just find a new spot to hide.
I hold her under my arm and help pry her mouth open, hubby or daughter shove the pill in with the pill ejector. Hold mouth shut until she swallows. The vet says you can tell she’s swallowed when she likes her chops. So far we haven’t had to resort to throat stroking or nose blowing.
It is an unbelievable pain in the ass.
[ol]
[li]Yell out “Peter! Pills!”[/li][li]Shake the pill bottle.[/li][li]The cat will come running with his tail in the air, making a sound like an eager puppy.[/li][li]Maybe purring, even.[/li][li]Put the pill on the floor, and point at it.[/li][li]The cat will then happily gobble up the pill.[/li][li]Give him a handful of hairball treats.[/li][li]His sister, too, since she’s there providing moral support.[/li][/ol]
No lie.
Our boy cat gets 2-4 pills a night, depending on the day.
When we started out, we had the usual scruff-grabbing, mouth-prying, blood-drawing, throat-rubbing battle royale. After a couple of months, he caught on to the whole pills = TREATS angle, so he started accepting the meds mushed up in his snacks. When we noticed that he was licking any stray pills off the floor on his own, we just started putting the meds on the floor, and giving the snacks afterward.
If you’re going to be doing it long term, make it the same time every night. Our dude will usually start chattering at us at about 7:00 every evening, just in case we forgot that he’s supposed to get his snacks in a half hour.
Did I mention that this guy weighs 16 pounds, is all muscle, and hasn’t been declawed? We’re really glad he’s such a good sport about it.
Now I know you’re making this up. Cats don’t understand pointing! They just look at the end of your finger. 
- Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as though holding
a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth,
and gently apply pressure to his cheeks. When cat opens up, pop pill into
mouth. Cat will then close mouth and swallow. - Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Repeat the process.
- Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
- Remove second 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
throat with forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten, if you are
able. Hold cat’s mouth closed as well. - Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call for
assistance. - Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, immobilizing front
and rear paws. Ask assistant to hold cat’s head firmly with one hand while
forcing wooden ruler into cat’s throat. Flick pill down ruler with
forefinger, and rub cat’s throat vigorously. - Retrieve cat from living room curtain valance.
- Carefully sweep shattered figurines from hearth, and set aside for later
gluing. Remove third pill from foil wrap. - Wrap cat in beach towel, and ask assistant to lie prone on cat with cat’s
head visible under assistant’s armpit. Put pill in end of paper tube you’ve
made for this purpose. Then, force cat’s mouth open with pencil, and blow. - Check label to make sure pill is not lethal to humans. Sip water to
take taste away. Apply bandage to assistant’s forearm, and remove blood
from carpet with soap and cold water. - Retrieve cat from neighbor’s roof. Remove fourth pill from foil. Place
cat in cupboard, and close door on cat’s neck with head outside cupboard.
Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with rubber
band. - Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges.
Apply cold compress to cheek, and check records for date of last tetanus
shot. Throw bloodied, ripped t-shirt away, and fetch another from bedroom. - Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid
cat. - Call 911, ask fire department to retrieve cat from eucalyptus tree.
- Remove remaining pill from foil wrap.
- Tie cat’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine, and securely tie to
leg of dining table. Put on heavy-duty pruning gloves. Force cat’s mouth
open with tire iron. Drop pill, previously hidden in one ounce of raw
hamburger, into cat’s mouth. Hold head vertically with nose pointed to
ceiling, and pour one half pint of water down cat’s throat, and two jiggers
of whiskey down your own. - Ask assistant to drive you to emergency room. Sit quietly while doctor
administers anesthetic, stitches fingers, forearm, and removes pill remnants
from eye. - Drop off cat, along with a generous donation, at animal shelter, and
adopt a goldfish.
From the internet
The general consensus here appears to be that an angry cat will Mess. You. Up. Glad to see I’m not the only one with a healthy respect for claws.
Sorry, that should be:
- Put the pill on the floor, and tap your finger next to it.
I shit you not.
If you have to give your cat medication regularly and it stresses Kitty out to take pills, I suggest finding your local compounding pharmacy (well, we have one, but we live in San Jose which is pretty big. I don’t know how common they are) and have them whip up the medication in a handy liquid form. Ours even adds flavor to it (chicken, in our case). We mix it up with a little baby food (chicken or ham) and our kitty laps it right up. We have to do this twice a day every day, and I can’t bear the thought of shoving pills down her throat that often.