Need help pilling cat!

"Karen Chuplis" wrote in message
...
in article ,
at wrote on 8/28/03
7:55
PM:

Well, I have to give Smudge antibiotics (flagyl), and I guess it must
be foul-tasting stuff because the vet gave me little empty gel capsules
to put the pill in first.

Whatever, it doesn't work. She just won't swallow the thing. She kept
spitting it out, and I kept putting it back in, and I held her mouth
shut and stroked her throat, etc, but she would not swallow it.

What does work for both of my cats is to give them medicine in liquid
form. So what I'd like to do is dissolve the pill in some strong-tasting
stuff that cats like, and then squirt the liquid into the side of her
mouth (through her teeth, slowly, so she doesn't choke on it). I've been
doing this for years with decent-tasting medicines and it works fine.
The only problem I have with this is that I want to find some liquid
that's strong-tasting enough to hide the taste of the pill.

I don't want to use tuna juice because that requires me to open cans
of tuna. The tuna juice doesn't last that long (at least, it's not
good-tasting for that long) in the fridge, and I'm going to be giving
Smudge this medication for 2 weeks. That's a lot of cans of tuna to
waste. (OK, I could eat it, but I don't necessily *want* to eat tuna
that often. And interestingly enough, the cats don't like it that much,
either, even though it's the good stuff - so I can't feed it to them,
either.)

So, the question is, is there anything out there with *all* of the
following characteristics:

* Tastes really good to cats
* In liquid form (or powder that I can mix with water)
* Lasts at least 2 weeks
* Doesn't require me to waste other food to get to it
* Available in the USA (California)

For example, can you buy "sardine juice" by itself in a jar? How about
powders that you could mix with water, that produce a great-tasting
liquid for cats?

Please help, I'm desperate!!

Thanks,
Joyce

Well, there is clam juice, but not all meds should be disolved. I have the
best luck with a little plastic piller (vet) and wrap them in a towel. If
you have it all laid out first, it takes about 30 seconds and they never
taste the pill. I follow it with a treat of chicken in broth.

Karen

Um, I had my best luck with those plastic pill poppers, too. Another
possibility would be to have 2 pill poppers, you could coat the outside of
the gelcap with some butter and maybe get her to swallow it with one pill
popper and then you'd have a 2nd dry one to use after you clean up the
first. I wish you much luck and many purrs to find a good solution.
Christine

wrote

* Tastes really good to cats
* In liquid form (or powder that I can mix with water)
* Lasts at least 2 weeks
* Doesn't require me to waste other food to get to it
* Available in the USA (California)

How about some very strong beef or fish stock? At least here, you can get it
in powder form, and you could mix it so that you put double the amount of
powder to make it really strong.

Purrs for the pilling!

--
Marina

"Motherthing" wrote in message ...
What about clam juice? I'm not sure how strongly flavored it is, but I know
you can find it in just about any grocery store and you can salt it up as
Angela said.


--
Motherthing


Clam juice - what a good idea! There's also chicken or beef broth -
I'm sure there are fishy-tasting soups out there in groceryland, as
well.

I've never been able to pill Mike and always give him liquid meds, so
I can sympathize. I do, however, squirt it quickly down the back of
his throat rather than slowly in the side, so that it's over with fast
and with minimal contact with taste buds. That's the idea, anyway. I
follow up with treats, like any good catslave. :-)

Our vet has compounded meds for Mike before, but I've had to
specifically *ask* him to. It might be worth checking with your vet
to see if he can do this.

We're purring for you and Smudge, whatever you end up doing.

------
Krista

in article , m. L. Briggs at
wrote on 8/29/03 12:15 AM:

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 00:55:45 GMT, wrote:

Well, I have to give Smudge antibiotics (flagyl), and I guess it must
be foul-tasting stuff because the vet gave me little empty gel capsules
to put the pill in first.

Whatever, it doesn't work. She just won't swallow the thing. She kept
spitting it out, and I kept putting it back in, and I held her mouth
shut and stroked her throat, etc, but she would not swallow it.

What does work for both of my cats is to give them medicine in liquid
form. So what I'd like to do is dissolve the pill in some strong-tasting
stuff that cats like, and then squirt the liquid into the side of her
mouth (through her teeth, slowly, so she doesn't choke on it). I've been
doing this for years with decent-tasting medicines and it works fine.
The only problem I have with this is that I want to find some liquid
that's strong-tasting enough to hide the taste of the pill.

I don't want to use tuna juice because that requires me to open cans
of tuna. The tuna juice doesn't last that long (at least, it's not
good-tasting for that long) in the fridge, and I'm going to be giving
Smudge this medication for 2 weeks. That's a lot of cans of tuna to
waste. (OK, I could eat it, but I don't necessily *want* to eat tuna
that often. And interestingly enough, the cats don't like it that much,
either, even though it's the good stuff - so I can't feed it to them,
either.)

So, the question is, is there anything out there with *all* of the
following characteristics:

* Tastes really good to cats
* In liquid form (or powder that I can mix with water)
* Lasts at least 2 weeks
* Doesn't require me to waste other food to get to it
* Available in the USA (California)

For example, can you buy "sardine juice" by itself in a jar? How about
powders that you could mix with water, that produce a great-tasting
liquid for cats?

Please help, I'm desperate!!

Thanks,
Joyce

Try some maple syrup thinned with water. Chances are she won't object
too much. MLB

slaps head I forgot to mention that when I put a bit of butter coating on
the pill, it slips down MUCH easier.

Karen

Some hair ball medicine is just cod liver oil. Very strong tasting and
most cats dearly love it.
Jeanne

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 23:19:46 -0300, "OU812?"
wrote:

wrote:
Well, I have to give Smudge antibiotics (flagyl), and I guess it must
be foul-tasting stuff because the vet gave me little empty gel
capsules to put the pill in first.

Whatever, it doesn't work. She just won't swallow the thing. She kept
spitting it out, and I kept putting it back in, and I held her mouth
shut and stroked her throat, etc, but she would not swallow it.

What does work for both of my cats is to give them medicine in liquid
form. So what I'd like to do is dissolve the pill in some
strong-tasting stuff that cats like, and then squirt the liquid into
the side of her mouth (through her teeth, slowly, so she doesn't
choke on it). I've been doing this for years with decent-tasting
medicines and it works fine. The only problem I have with this is
that I want to find some liquid that's strong-tasting enough to hide
the taste of the pill.

I don't want to use tuna juice because that requires me to open cans
of tuna. The tuna juice doesn't last that long (at least, it's not
good-tasting for that long) in the fridge, and I'm going to be giving
Smudge this medication for 2 weeks. That's a lot of cans of tuna to
waste. (OK, I could eat it, but I don't necessily *want* to eat tuna
that often. And interestingly enough, the cats don't like it that
much, either, even though it's the good stuff - so I can't feed it to
them, either.)

So, the question is, is there anything out there with *all* of the
following characteristics:

* Tastes really good to cats
* In liquid form (or powder that I can mix with water)
* Lasts at least 2 weeks
* Doesn't require me to waste other food to get to it
* Available in the USA (California)

For example, can you buy "sardine juice" by itself in a jar? How about
powders that you could mix with water, that produce a great-tasting
liquid for cats?

Please help, I'm desperate!!

Thanks,
Joyce
how about mixing it with one of the petroleum based hairball products? YOu
can get meat flavored ones, and the texture is quite thick, so it would be
more a matter of smearing it in the cat's mouth than drops...

Kristy
--
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight,
because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.

THANK YOU EVERYONE, for all your responses and suggestions on how to
get Smudge to take her medicine. I've saved them all.

And I've tried a few. Today, I tried a combination of three of the
suggestions: wrapping her in a towel, coating the gel cap with butter,
and blowing into her eyes after I get the pill into her mouth (so
she'll automatically swallow it).

Well, I'm here to report that all three of these ideas FAILED. sigh...
Smudge simply doesn't want to swallow a pill! (The towel was good,
though, in minimizing the damage to my person. )

So now I'm going to attempt some of the dissolving ideas I got. (I
really liked the maple syrup idea - all along I've been thinking fish,
meat, etc, and I never thought of *sugar*! Smudge loves carbs, so she
just might go for that.)

Thanks again! I'll keep you posted on how it works to dissolve the
pill (after I ask the vet, to be sure it's OK to dissolve it).

Joyce

PS - to the person who asked why she's on flagyl, it's because she's
been losing weight and also pooping outside the litter box, and the
vet thinks she might have a bacterial infection in her intestines. This
is essentially a diagnostic tool, which I hope is also an Rx if the vet
guessed correctly. Smudge also got a worming treatment just in case she
has a tapeworm. If none of the above helps, then the next step is a
biopsy - ulp! I'm trying not to think about that yet...

(By the way, what's the difference between an anti-bacterial and an
antibiotic?)

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 00:31:56 GMT, wrote:

THANK YOU EVERYONE, for all your responses and suggestions on how to
get Smudge to take her medicine. I've saved them all.

And I've tried a few. Today, I tried a combination of three of the
suggestions: wrapping her in a towel, coating the gel cap with butter,
and blowing into her eyes after I get the pill into her mouth (so
she'll automatically swallow it).

Well, I'm here to report that all three of these ideas FAILED. sigh...
Smudge simply doesn't want to swallow a pill! (The towel was good,
though, in minimizing the damage to my person. )

Joyce, I found that all the things I used to get my Tribble (RB) to
take his pills don't work at all for my Natasha. The only thing that
*does* work with her is prying her mouth open and putting the pill (or
pieces of pill, I have to cut it into thirds because of pill size) as
far back in her mouth as I can get it. I lightly hold her mouth
closed, and she usually swallows within a couple seconds - I don't
even have to stroke her throat, blow into her eyes, or anything like
that.

I guess this is the "manual version" of using a pill gun. A people
analogue would be if you "tossed back" bad tasting liquid to the back
of your throat. You don't taste it because it never gets on your
tongue, and all you can do is swallow it.

Best of luck in finding what works with Smudge!


Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

http://www.jhedge.com


CompuServe Anime/Manga Forum via Your Browser
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On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 00:31:56 GMT, wrote:

THANK YOU EVERYONE, for all your responses and suggestions on how to
get Smudge to take her medicine. I've saved them all.

And I've tried a few. Today, I tried a combination of three of the
suggestions: wrapping her in a towel, coating the gel cap with butter,
and blowing into her eyes after I get the pill into her mouth (so
she'll automatically swallow it).

Well, I'm here to report that all three of these ideas FAILED. sigh...
Smudge simply doesn't want to swallow a pill! (The towel was good,
though, in minimizing the damage to my person. )

So now I'm going to attempt some of the dissolving ideas I got. (I
really liked the maple syrup idea - all along I've been thinking fish,
meat, etc, and I never thought of *sugar*! Smudge loves carbs, so she
just might go for that.)

Thanks again! I'll keep you posted on how it works to dissolve the
pill (after I ask the vet, to be sure it's OK to dissolve it).

Joyce

PS - to the person who asked why she's on flagyl, it's because she's
been losing weight and also pooping outside the litter box, and the
vet thinks she might have a bacterial infection in her intestines. This
is essentially a diagnostic tool, which I hope is also an Rx if the vet
guessed correctly. Smudge also got a worming treatment just in case she
has a tapeworm. If none of the above helps, then the next step is a
biopsy - ulp! I'm trying not to think about that yet...

(By the way, what's the difference between an anti-bacterial and an
antibiotic?)

uhhhh - trying to remember those years as a pharmacy NCO, especially
since this really wasn't a normal part of the job description.
Antibiotics are chemical substances produced by microorganisms that
suppress other microorganisms - many of which have been chemically
identified and synthesized. Antibiotics are antibacterial, but an
antibacterial is not necessarily an antibiotic.