Pierre: Did someone say give the cat a pill?
He even looks skeptical at the thought of getting a pill, doesn’t he? I had that same look on my face last week when the vet told me she was prescribing Pierre a ten-day course of pills.
I have given thousands of pills to cats. It was so easy that I once gave a thyroid pill to the wrong cat because he was so placid about it. (Yes, that was pretty mortifying afterward, but no harm was done from one errant pill.) So it’s pretty embarrassing to admit that I now share a home with cats who I dread having to give pills. I have become that veterinary client who vets assume won’t comply with the prescribed course of treatment.
The main problem is that Pierre doesn’t like to be restrained in any way, and he starts growling immediately when you do. It escalates from there. His idea of being held or carried is to climb up onto your shoulders when you pick him up.
It’s really cute to walk around with a cat on your shoulders, but you can’t give him a pill up there.
Ways to Pill a Cat
So what are your options for pilling a reluctant cat? I turned to YouTube, the treasure trove of how-to videos, for suggestions.
Just Give The Pill
The vets and technicians in videos always make it look easy. I liked this demonstration because the cat didn’t look quite as compliant about the whole process as some of the other videos, even though it was demonstrated by a veterinarian. She even drops the pill the first time. Just goes to show that it isn’t entirely easy for the professionals, either.
Make a Kitty Burrito with a Towel
You can use a towel to create a tidy kitty burrito that helps hold your cat in place. This video shows you to make a burrito where the open ends of the towel all end up in the same place so you can hold it with one hand while pilling your cat with the other.
I tried to give Pierre a pill the old-fashioned way, and I couldn’t do it. The growling, hissing, spitting, and struggling left me bleeding and frustrated, but after he walked into the next room and spit the pill out, I decided that wasn’t going to work.
There’s actually a bag you can use to serve as as a kitty burrito, too, which is a lot more sturdy and doesn’t require a hand to hold it shut. I was pressed for time and didn’t want to put Pierre in the bag without having a little longer to ease him in, so I reserved that as a fallback for later in the day if all else failed.
Use a Pill Popper
If you think you can hold your cat, but you are afraid of putting your fingers inbetween kitty’s teeth, they make pill poppers (also called pill guns), that help put the pill in the right place in the cat’s mouth without endangering your fingers.
This might have solved the problem with my not getting the pill in the right spot for Pierre to swallow it. I ransacked my house and couldn’t find my pill popper when I needed it, so my bonus tip for this is to not just make a cat health kit, but actually put your relevant gadgets and things in it. I did find my pill popper, five days after I needed it, so this was a fail on my part, not Pierre’s!
Hide the Pill in Food
Mashing up a pill and hiding it in food is an option if you know you can get your cat to eat the whole thing. As Dr. Susan Little said, “Yes, you can put the meds into the food if you don’t mind the meds getting into the cat.” Pierre isn’t a very food-motivated cat at the best of times, and he had gone to the vet for poor appetite, which made this a bad option for him.
This video includes an interesting method in which you administer the meds and food directly to the cat.
I actually like this idea a lot, but as soon as I pick up Pierre, he climbs up onto my shoulders, so that won’t let me administer the food the way the video demonstrates.
Hide the Pill in a Treat
You can get special treats that are the consistency of cookie dough but are apparently full of some kind of cat crack. This works if your cat is food-motivated enough for the treats or if whatever they put in them is enticing enough. Especially bitter pills may be hard to hide even in these purpose-made pill treats or pastes.
The nice, peaceful music in this video made me smile, because that’s exactly how I hoped this method would work as opposed to the struggling, growling, and scratching that happened when I tried earlier.
Pierre’s favorite flavor of anything is fish flavor, and luckily, they make salmon-flavored pill pockets. The pills he needed to take were mostly coated, so I thought it would keep the pill flavor contained so he would eat it.
How Did It Work?
I three pill pockets from the package and hid the pill inside one of them, being sure to mash the pill around it so that it was thoroughly surrounded by the soft treat. I gave Pierre the first one empty and he ate it right up. Then I gave him the second one and held my breath. He ate that, too. I’m pretty sure I heard the Hallejuah Chorus playing in the distance at that moment, the relief was so strong that it worked! Pierre got one more treat without a pill to be sure that he swallowed everything, and pill time was over.
I know that there are other options for us, including getting the medication compounded into a liquid form, getting it compounded into treats itself, or for some medications, purchasing transdermal gel that gives the medication through the skin. But I thankfully don’t have to go any of those routes to get medication into Pierre. For now, at least, he is eating his daily pills and is happy about it. Hopefully he won’t be in on this secret for a long, long time.