HFCS: effika’s blog

1. Wait until cat is sleeping.
2. Wake cat up with petting and nice-talk. Cat should sit up in order to get more petting.
3. Grab the pill in dominant hand.
4. Grab cat by the scruff with non-dominant hand. Use the leverage you have with the scruff to tilt the head back.
5. Use your dominant hand to open up the mouth (it’s not going to like this and will start to struggle, but holding onto the scruff helps) and to pop the pill as far back as you can get it. The cat will be crazy at this point.
6. Keep holding onto the scruff. Use your dominant hand to hold the cat’s mouth closed, and stroke the throat with your pinky/thumb if you can.
7. After a few seconds the cat should stop struggling and be much calmer. Hopefully this means the cat has swallowed the pill.
8. Let the cat go, but watch it to make sure it doesn’t toss the pill out near the chair it ran under.
9. Give the cat a treat and hope it doesn’t hate you.

It took me 3.5 hours to figure this out. The “kitty burrito” did not work, the “stabalize with knees/thighs from behind” method did not work, the “secure with one arm holding cat to chest” method did not work, and the “coat in something yummy” method did not work. I was about to look up compounding pharmacies to see what they could do with Baytril (maybe they keep chicken flavors for paste around?) when I rememberd the scruff of the neck was a weak point. Thanks, evolution, for having mommy cats pick up kittens by the scruff, making cats less crazy when I grab them there!

I have four more pills to force on Kaylee. I think I am going to request any future medications be made up in suspension.