It is simply impossible to give my cat medicine in pill or liquid form. The only two things that work are injections or a transdermal cream. My vet gives me the transdermal cream, which I rub into my cat’s inner ear. The cat does not love this, exactly, but he will sit still for it.
One of my cats recently suffered congestive heart failure and will now be on medication for the rest of his life. My wife and I give him 4-6 medications twice a day, two of which are in liquid form. Our technique is almost exactly the same as orderfire’s. It does not require any towels or any violent restraint. As long as the cat is calm and I sit down behind him and brace him between my legs, the process goes very smoothly.
It was a struggle in the beginning, but with practice, I can do it so quickly now that the cat barely minds.
How many cc’s of liquid? I mixed the small amount of liquid into some cat food and smeared it on the cat’s let. He licked his leg clean.
OK, this thread is very different than what I was expecting. Clicked directly into the thread from the index page, where the last word in the title was not shown, figuring to report the hell out of it.
:eek:
Don’t worry, compounding is very common. As long as they’re using a pharmacy that’s accustomed to compounding for veterinarians, it’s not a problem. It needs to be done a lot because often the dose needed for a particular animal isn’t available in the form it’s manufactured. Your girl is very small, so the smallest tablets Baytril comes in probably can’t be cut small enough for the dose your vet calculated for her. If you dissolve the medication into a liquid, it’s much easier to give a precise dose.
I can’t really buy this - cats have such a short memory that after 2 days they’ll forget another cat they’ve spent 90% of their life with?
I’ve been away from them for months and when I came back they didn’t treat me like a stranger.
I’ve found a way that’s had some success so far. It may sound silly but I haven’t had luck getting a tight towel around her completely… she’s so tiny and squirmy it seems like she can almost dislocate her shoulders to squirm out of it even if it’s very tight.
So I just started sitting indian style, and covering the gap between my legs with a towel… then I can set her down there, cradling her with my legs, and use my hand to control her by pushing down on her shoulders - she still fights quite a bit, but it feels safer to control her by her shoulders rather than her chest (just above her stitches) or neck.
I’m worried I’m going to get some fluid in her lungs. My vet told me not to worry about it, that cats won’t be breathing through their mouth in these circumstances, but she makes these little gasp noises when I’m shooting in the medicine. I’ve tried to avoid hitting her throat directly and instead bouncing it off the sides of her mouth.
She’s developed a little half-sneeze over the last 24 hours or so - it’s not quite a sneeze, she just exhales hard out her nose sometimes. I’ll have to call the vet tomorrow.
That’s great, good to hear it. She might be just snorting out of sheer indignation, by the way. I’ve got a couple of cats that do it.
Not particularly relevant to thread, I suppose, but today was the last day of the medicine - took her in, got the stitches removed and the vet said she was in good shape. Great. Over with.
Except… I left for a few hours, and she managed to open the screen door (the latch doesn’t work so I tape it, but I guess the tape had weekened) and ran off. She has gotten out before, explored a bit, and found her way back… but she just had her stitches removed and was really sick and definitely isn’t 100%.
I’d hate to think that she felt like she had to escape because she hated the medicine so much. If that’s the case, who knows if she intends to come back? And we were all done…
I just dropped in to grab some water and rest for a bit, I’m exhausted. I doubt I’ll find her - I never have before, she’s never sneaky. I’ll probably just have to hope she makes her way back, and she doesn’t fall prey to another animal or an asshole in her weakened state.
Back off to find her. It’s been a bad couple of weeks…
Strange, a few days ago I went to the grocery store and I guess I didn’t close the door properly, since it had gradually come wide open by the time I came back. She didn’t try to escape then. Maybe she felt too weak, and now she got her strength back…
Maybe my next thread will be “tips on finding a runaway cat”…