My 11 year old cat, Jack has been diagnosed as hyperthyroid and has to take half a small tablet twice a day. I have been crushing the pill and putting it into his food, and he has been happily eating it. Until yesterday morning, anyway. A couple of days ago, I had to put my cat Squirt to sleep (here she is with my mom, who died in this past August). Squirt was 21 1/2 and had broken her leg, which had no chance of healing. She and Jack had been constant companions for 10 years. This is the second time Jack’s stopped eating when he was really unhappy, and I expect he’ll get over it soon, but in the meantime, I can’t get his medicine into him. He’s very difficult to pill–heck, he doesn’t even like to be held. He’s very affectionate, but that means rubbing on people, sleeping against them, and begging for pets, not letting stupid humans pick him up off the floor.
So, I can’t figure out how to get this medication in him while I’m waiting for him to decide he wants to eat again. I suppose it won’t kill him not to be medicated–he was just diagnosed about 2 weeks ago, and he was surviving before then, but I really would prefer he get better. Does anyone have any suggestions? We’ve tried putting the pill in a treat, but he won’t eat those either. Stupid cat.
Exact same thing with our cat, Bunn E. Twice a day, half a tablet. The pharmacist at Walgreens told me in his entire career he’s never filled that medicine for a human being. Only cats.
The problem is, we also have another cat, and a small dog (pug). So mixing the pill in wet food is a pain because we have to lock him away so the others don’t eat it.
This we do once a day for the first half pill. The second half I give to him at night by holding him in my lap and opening his mouth and dropping the pill so it falls down to the top of his throat, and then he swallows it. Bunn E. doesn’t exactly like this, but we’ve been doing it every night for 3 years now, so it’s gotten kind of routine.
I’ve been pilling our cat for over a decade. A lot does depend on the cat – ours is pretty cooperative: he tries to spit out the pill, but doesn’t scratch or fight.
My technique is this:
Put the cat on your lap on his back.
Hold his head back with your left hand (if you’re right handed). The further back, the harder it is to spit things out.
Hold the pill between thumb and forefinger. Pry the cat’s mouth open and try to drop or toss the pill on the back of his tongue.
If the cat doesn’t swallow and spits the pill up off his tongue, you can use a dropper and squirt some water down after you drop the pill in. This will cause him to automatically swallow.
At first this is a huge pain in the ass, but eventually it becomes routine, even for a cat.
And don’t feel bad about it. You’re doing it out of love so your kitty doesn’t get sick.
I think I’ve done all of these. You should see what I have to do to get him into his cat carrier. It’s very ugly.
My life would be easier if I could get the darn cat to sit on my lap. But as soon as I attempt to scoop him up, he’s doing that feline squirm and slash. Not happy.
We had to give our cat Sammie pills in our futile attempt to save his life. Turned out he had FIP so there was no saving him.
We really struggled with getting an actual PILL down his throat so we crushed the pill, added water to it so it would dissolve and then squirted the water down his throat with a syringe.
And I agree with the hugs–so so hard when kitties get hurt or sick.
Most adults can singlehandedly forcefeed a pill to a cat, but you’ll need to practice. You’ll need to convince kitty that it is gonna lose no matter what.
My cat Coppelia had to take pils regularly to combat an infection–she’s a crafty little bitch and can hold a pill in her mouth for upwards of three minutes before spitting it out. What ended up working was this:
Kneel on ground with bitch-kitty between legs, but securely under butt.
Fart. The vibration sends her into “freeze” mode.
Okay, not really.
Tilt head back with one hand, pill ready to go in the other.
Pinch corners of mouth; when mouth opens, jam thumb in between back teeth (that way kitty can’t get the leverage to bite)
Drop pill as far back as possible.
Close cat’s mouth.
Here’s the bit that always works:
8. Hold mouth closed, and head firmly ('cos it’s gonna jerk back) and blow sharply into nose two or three times.
9. Jump up and get away quickly.
Once I started using this method, I’ve never had any problems.
ETA: I’m sorry to hear about your losses and difficulties. I know Jack isn’t eating; are you?
Swampwolf pretty much has it (except the farting part. :rolleyes: ). Having worked for a veterinarian and having to help pill many-a-cat, I’ll add one more thing if you’re a bit daring and not squeamish. When the mouth is open, pull the tongue out and hold onto it tightly. It makes a much better ‘straight shot’ down the throat to drop the pill.
Granted, my best friend’s cat STILL hates me for having done this to him, but he needed the medicine. I’ll take the hate.
I like the idea of holding him between my legs. That might actually work. He’s pretty squirmy, but the farting might help shock him into submission.
I am eating, though. Unfortunately, some of what’s made it a bad year is treatment of a disorder I have with what appears to be a overly-high dose of steroids, which makes me hungry all the time. I get to go to the hoity-toity specialist in Manhattan next month, who will hopefully tell me I don’t have to take it anymore. At least my husband doesn’t have to hold me down to pill me. Although that might be interesting . . .
If he won’t eat anything, my suggestion won’t help, but here it is…
We’ve used Pill Pockets successfully and easily with two of our three cats. But when the Ninja Princess started having to take a daily pill, she saw right through that ploy and refused to touch the damn thing. Or she’d take it and carefully eat all around the pill, ptui.
mr emilyforce has to be away for a few months, and he’s the cat wrangler around here. After he left I got desperate: I could force a pill down her throat if I could catch her, but catching her became nearly impossible, and she started running away from me whenever she saw me at any time of day.
Finally, among other things I tried, I bought a different flavor of Pill Pocket and gave her an empty one for three days – at first she was suspicious, but by the third day she just ate it. Then I started putting the pill in the Pocket, and that’s been working for a month now.
Many many hugs, Ceejaytee.
ETA: Pill Pockets are expensive but perfectly suited to the task – we use generic Velveeta for the same purpose with the dog, though.
Your boys are all beautiful, CeeJayTee. And I used to use Swampass…er… Swampwolf’s method to pill Trouble, too, except for the farting part. Maybe I should have tried that…
Eww. Plus he’d never let me near him again. But I can definitely sit on him. I’m going to try that tonight, sans farting–unless the spirit moves me, of course.
I’ve done the hold the mouth closed and stroke the neck thing. It’s the catching and holding him that’s the hard part.
Get pill in hand
Walk up to cat casually(whistle innocently if ya want)
Palm cats head
Use index finger to pull up upper jaw(gently)
Use thumb to push down lower jaw(gently)
(Fingers used are on the same hand you are palming cats head with)
Insert pill as far back in cats mouth as you can(with other hand)
Hold cats mouth shut
Make sure pill isn’t spit out
This is done in about 10 seconds once ya get the hang of it.
Works great.
I have done this to a couple different cats that the Can Openers say they cant get a pill down.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this yet, but I highly recommend getting a pill gun (they’re not as violent as they sound).
With one of those, it’s just a matter of loading the pill into the shaft of the gun, and shooting for the back of the throat. When we were administering pills twice daily to one of our cats, this little device was worth its weight in gold.
Before that, we had tried inserting pills into treats/food, but that didn’t go over so well. In fact, once one of our cats realized there was something bitter-tasting in the middle of his treat, he refused to eat any more of those particular treats. :eek:
The methods described here should work for you after a little practice.
If it comes to it, and it may due to either the inability to pill the cat or the cat’s tummy can no longer tolerate thyroid pills, you can always get the pills compounded into a transdermal cream. I’ve had to do this with two cats already.
Both of them developed a sensitivity to their thyroid meds so I took the prescription to a compounding pharmacy and they made a cream. You’ll wear rubber gloves or a finger cot to apply a prescribed amount to the inside skin on the ear. It costs a little more but it stops the barfing.
Sorry for the hijack. Good luck with Jack. He’s awfully cute.
You should see what I have to do to get him into his cat carrier. It’s very ugly.