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Teaching your CAT to take Medication
by Nedda Wittels
July, 2008

Teaching your cat to take pills and liquid medications can help save your cat's life and make the whole process  easier for both of you.

My cats have taught me about giving pills and medicine to them.  Now, we would like to share our system with you.  We developed it together and it works well for us.  We hope it will smooth out this processes for you and your cats.

Please remember that you and your cat are LEARNING to do this together.  It requires patience on both your parts to  make this a pleasant process.   By working as a team, you and your cat can come to a mutual understanding and can create a medicine-taking process that is comfortable and successful for both of you.

Since you are learning something new, the GOAL in the beginning is to LEARN, rather than to get all the medicine into the cat.  Unfortunately, most people discover that they don't know how to give medicine to cats only when their cat is sick and it is imperative that the cat consume all the medicine.  Nevertheless, taking the time to teach yourself and your cat how to do this will ultimately benefit you both.

LONG TERM GOALS

For you

• To learn your cat’s comfortable rhythm for taking pills and liquid medicine.

• To learn how to give pills and liquid medicine to your cat

For your cat

• To teach your cat to take pills and liquid medicine from droppers easily and without upset.

• To have a cat who is unafraid, relaxed, and cooperative when you give medicine.

• To be able to give meds on a daily basis without struggle for however long you need to do so.

• To have a cat who takes all of her medicine every day.

Things to avoid

• Do not allow your cat to jump down and run away.  You decide when the session is finished and you let your cat know by thanking him and placing him on the floor.

• If your cat gets away, DO NOT CHASE HER.  Wait for at least an hour before you try again.

• Do not make the session so long that the cat loses patience and becomes restless and fearful.

Each time you complete a session with your cat, be sure you . . .

• ALWAYS END THE SESSION ON A GOOD NOTE with you and your cat feeling pleasure and success.

• PRAISE AND THANK YOUR CAT for cooperating.

• PET YOUR CAT in a favored spot on his/her body.

• PUT YOUR CAT GENTLY ON THE FLOOR if the cat was in your lap. 

• RELEASE YOUR CAT GENTLY if you and the cat were already on the floor.

SUCCESS IS HOW YOU DEFINE IT.  For a learning situation, success means you might have gotten only some of the medication into the cat WHILE THE CAT REMAINED RELAXED. 

• Plenty of patience.  Pick a time when you are UNRUSHED.

• Bach’s Rescue Remedy, a cup, and a tissue.

• Clean dropper from a 1 ounce dropper bottle. 

• Lid from an old pill bottle to hold the pills.

• Small dish with warm water in it for wetting the pills.

• Small cup (When giving liquid homeopathics, you can put the measured liquids into this cup so you won’t contaminate the dropper from the original bottle.)

• A bath size towel for wrapping the cat.

Read through this section until you understand how to prepare yourself and your cat.

Make sure your finger nails are an appropriate length.

To give a cat pills, the nails on the fingers of your pill-giving hand must be cut short enough to prevent you from stabbing your cat in the mouth.  This also makes it easier for you to hold onto tiny pills.

Takes as much time as you need to put yourself into a relaxed, calm state.

• Put 3-4 drops of Rescue Remedy under your tongue.   Take as much as you need to become relaxed before you start.  Your emotional state will affect how the cat reacts. 

• Take 3 deep breaths.

• Open your heart center.

Have all the items ready and located where you can easily reach them. 

• Place the Rescue Remedy bottle in a cup with the top unscrewed and a tissue scrunched up around the bottom of the bottle so it won't spill and you can easily get more of it when you need it. 
• Place all the pills into the lid so you don’t have to wrestle with the pill bottles while you hold the cat.
• If giving liquid homeopathic medicine, you can put the liquid from all the homeopathics into one cup together.
• If giving other liquid medicine, have the tops unscrewed and/or measure out the amount you need to give.
• Place everything next to the chair where you will be sitting or on the floor next to which you will kneel.

Think about something else as you go pick up your cat.

• Cats are telepathic and know when you are about to do something they don’t like.  Therefore, it is important that you think about something else -  anything else, to prevent your cat knowing your true intentions.
• NEVER chase your cat before you begin this session.  Find another way to get your cat.  If you have to chase the cat to catch it, you are already starting out with you and the cat upset, which is the opposite of your goal.
  
  Sometimes I wait until the cat and I are sitting quietly and then I give the medicine, which I have already prepared and left sitting next to my chair.  This won't work if the medicine has to be given before food is consumed.

Sit down and place the cat in your lap. Verbally explain to your cat that:

• You are going to give him the pills and medicine he needs to get well.
• You are learning how to do this, and you may not do it perfectly at first.
• Ask your cat to please be patient and cooperate with you as best he can because you love him and want him to get well. 
• Ask him to help you learn how to give him medicine so that it is comfortable for him.

Use Rescue Remedy lavishly. 

• Put Rescue Remedy on your cat’s nose pad and lips or on its paw pads.  Pet and praise her.

• Put Rescue Remedy on your hands.  Let your cat sniff your hands.  Pet and praise her.

• Put more Rescue Remedy on your cat.  Pet and praise her.

Wrap a towel around the cat.

Unless a towel panics your cat, it is good to use one when first teaching yourself and your cat how to take medicine.

You can hold your cat in your lap or you can kneel on the floor with the back of your cat resting against your thighs.  In the floor position, the cat cannot back away as you try to medicate her. 

Wrapped in a towel, the cat's paws can't interfere with your hand when you give the medicine. 

Some simple rules for giving liquids with a dropper or syringe:

• Always put the liquid into the side of the cat's mouth and  directly onto the tongue.
• Do not put the liquid into the front of the cat's mouth.
• Do not put the liquid down the cat’s throat.

Putting liquid into the front of a cat's mouth or trying to put it down their throat can cause choking because the cat might in hale the liquid.  This causes cats to resist taking medication.

• Give only a drop or two of liquid at a time, not the full dropper.  

Cat's cannot breath and swallow at the same time.  By giving just a few drops on their tongue, you are giving the cat a chance to breathe.  This prevents choking and won't frighten your cat.

•  Allow your cat plenty of time to swallow and ALLOW THEM TIME TO BREATHE and to lick their lips between swallows. 

This helps them stay relaxed.

• If the liquid has a bad taste, give some plain water with a dropper after the cats swallows.

This will help wash away the bad taste and your cat will appreciate it.  Your cat will also relax, and this helps you end the session on a good note.

This system is for all pills EXCEPT homeopathics.

Cat’s cannot swallow a pill
if you hold their mouths closed
or if you hold their heads back.

Have ready on the floor next to where you will kneel or on the table next to where you are sitting:

• all the pills you plan to give either in a jar lid or on a saucer.
• a small bowl of warm water.
• an eye dropper.
• a flat plate on which there is a small pat of room temperature unsalted butter.
• a towel to wrap around the cat.

The following instructions are for people who are right handed.
Please make appropriate changes if you are left handed.

• Kneel on the floor with your knees slightly apart, your feet together, and your seat on your heels.  This is the easiest position in which to give a pill.

• Place the back of the cat against your legs so it can’t back away.  You can also wrap the cat in a towel and place the cat in this position.

• With your left hand, palm down, gently grasp the cat’s cheekbones from above and tilt the head slightly back.

• Hold the pill between the index finger and thumb of the right hand.  Dip the pill into the warm water to wet it thoroughly OR roll the pill in the butter.  (This makes it slippery and easier to slid down the cat’s throat.)

• With your pill-giving hand palm up, use the back of the nail of the middle finger of the pill-giving hand to pry the lower jaw down. 

• Insert the fingernail between the cat’s teeth.  Then with the thumb and index finger, "shoot" the pill into the back of the throat – beyond the hump in the tongue.  Let go suddenly so the cat will swallow with surprise.
   

  • Because you have made the pill slippery, it will probably slide right down the cats throat. 
     

  • If your aim is off and the pill gets stuck between the cat's side teeth, allow the cat to spit out the pill.  Apologize for your inaccurate aim, and ask the cat to bear with you as you try again.  Take some deep breaths and open your heart center.  Begin again.
     

  • NOTE:  One of my cats has an opening to her throat that is more to one side than to the other.  It took me a while to figure this out.  Once I did, my aim improved.
     

• When a pill slides right down, you can follow up with some additional drops of water from a dropper placed on the tongue given through the side of the mouth.  If you are giving several pills, the additional water helps the pill you just gave slide down the esophagus and wets the throat for the next pill.

REMEMBER:  Cats cannot breath when they are swallowing.  When giving several pills, take brief breaks between every 2 pills to allow your cat to catch her breath and to lick her lips.  Stroke your cat to help her stay relaxed.

PRAISE AND THANK YOUR CAT for cooperating.

PET YOUR CAT in a favored spot.

RELEASE YOUR CAT.

You must actively release your cat.

You are in charge of ending the session.

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