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Let’s continue with the recent theme I’ve had of posting, in between stories about my new cat Chrestomanci, articles about pet health and how to manage it. I’ll start today’s topic with a story.
One summer when I was a teenager my cat Boots contracted food poisoning. We took him to the vet, who gave us some pills for him.
We had problems feeding him the pills. None of us had any experience doing so, and though we got those capsules into his mouth all right, he was a master at making us think he’d ingested them and then spitting them out in other places later. Once I found one under my pillow.
That summer I was babysitting for a woman in our neighborhood. She’d come by in the mornings and pick me up to bring me to her house. We got to talking about Boots, and she mentioned that she’d grown up with a mother who ran a kennel. She knew all about feeding pets medicine.
From the duration of Boots’ treatment, this kind woman administered his medicine to him in the mornings when she came by. I would stand, amazed, at the deft way she’d grab his head, hold it in place, shove the pill down his throat, and stroke it to make him swallow.
Despite watching the process years ago, I’m still not that great at giving medicine to pets. Whenever my dog has needed a pill I’ve wrapped it in a piece of cheese, so that she gobbles the food down so quickly she doesn’t notice the medicine that comes with it. I’m not sure what I’d do if I had to give a pill to my cats, though my husband is confident he’d be able to handle it. He usually feeds Chihiro her pills straight.
The process is simple: hold your pet’s head in place and open its mouth. Place a thumb on its tongue if you can so it can’t hide the pill under there. Drop the pill down the esophagus and stroke the throat from the outside, to help force swallowing of the pill.
At least the instructions seem simple, but those of us who’ve tried it know it’s anything but, especially when one is dealing with an unhappy, thrashing pet. I’m also always afraid I’m going to do something wrong and accidentally choke my pet.
Good Morning America online has some tips for giving medication to pets for those of us, like me, who aren’t skilled at the pill-giving process.
Some pills come in chewable form that tastes good to animals (like my dog’s heartworm medicine, she thinks it’s a treat), so ask your vet if that’s an option for any medicines. If not, make sure you always approach your pets, when about to treat them, in a calm, relaxed manner. They can read our body language and tell if we’re apprehensive, and that will make them anxious as well, impeding the process.
Try, like I did above, wrapping pills in tasty treats like cheese or meats. Try tuna for cats. There are also pill pockets, for dogs and cats, a food material into which one can slip medicines.
If you need to use liquid medicine, you can try just putting it in a spoon – some pets will lick that out. Otherwise, use a syringe and squirt it into the corner of your pet’s mouth.
Giving our pets their needed medicine can be tricky, but with these tips hopefully we can help our pets get healthy again when they’re ill.
Related Articles:
Pet First Aid: Safe Household Treatments
Signs Your Pet Might Be Unwell
Preparing Your Pup for Back to School
*(This image by Maggiejumps is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
