Care Care Tips - pilling a cat image taken from video below by a Veterinarian

I have had occasion to be confronted with a long pill giving session – my cat Sparkles needs to take one pill a day for three weeks.

So, I have been practising various pill giving methods and will share my preferred one with you here.

Watch this before choosing the method you feel would suit you and your cat best. Its a video by a Veterinarian discussing and showing various methods.

http://video.about.com/vetmedicine/Give-a-Cat-a-Pill.htm

This is my own preferred cats care method, its stress free, cheap and easy.  Check with your Veterinarian if its OK for you to crush the pill before you use this method (some pills shouldn’t be crushed or cut).

Firstly, before you administer the pill, its important to pick up you cat gently and hold your cat or kitten firmly, you definitely don’t want to be chasing him or her around the place and getting your cat stressed out before you even begin to administer the pill. You need to get the whole thing over and done as quickly, easily and efficiently as possible.  Depending on which method you choose, this may take practice. 

My totally preferred method is the butter (or marg) method. Its easy, stress free and doesn’t involve buying anything extra: Crush the pill finely with the back of a teaspoon or rolling pin then mix the crushed pill with butter. Make a small round butter ball pill between your fingers, then smear it in and around the cat’s mouth.  This way its not too stressful for the cat or you and your cat will lick all the butter off in cleaning and eat the pill that way. Use as little butter as possible so there’s not too much mixture to deal with for either you or your cat. Make sure you have used up every scrap of butter and that the cat licks it all off and doesn’t leave bits anywhere – this is unlikely, but its better to double check.

One caution that I would like to pass on when giving a cat or kitten a half or whole pill, as this once happened to me.  I administered half of the pill down the back of my kitten’s throat as directed and a few days later the kitten wasn’t eating.  I took him to the Vet and he had a very high temperature, the vet thought it had been caused by the harsh edge of the pill scraping the back of the kitten’s throat, which brought on an infection.

On a light note here’s a very funny page that my neighbour the Veterinary Nurse sent me. She works solely with cats and has scratches all over her arms. It was she told me about the butter method.

http://www.mamarocks.com/how_to_give_your_cat_a_pill.htm

Here’s a cute video from a woman who uses Pill Pockets to give her cat a pill  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnG78ZEYMbU

Good Luck to you and your Cat Friend.