Cats are Universal Conversation Currency. If you have cats, or just a cat, you can talk feline with anyone else who has been a recipient, or a victim, of the Cat Distribution System. Aqaba Thomas, the Cat Unexpected, has a Urinary Tract Infection. I have asked for advice and gotten a lot of it, but I also took Aqaba to the vet. I love my cat people, but I trust in people who went to the University of Georgia to study animal medicine. The vet runs tests and confirms the UTI. But now I have to figure out how to get pills into the cat without trauma to the feline and blood loss to his owner.
Enter The Cat People!
Okay, first off, because they are my cat people, and cat people, like cats, never really belong to anyone, I get a lot of smart ass replies online that references full body armor, destroyed furniture, and blood. Lots of blood. Buckets of blood. There are eleventy billion “giving a cat a pill” meme, jokes, and that sort of thing.
All of them are accurate, but useless.
Yet there are those who have been in my paws before, and know I need help. Hid the pills in food, use the tube food as a treat hider, soak the pills in tuna oil, and the list grows. But this time it is accurate and it also works.
The first dose goes in through a syringe but it’s not pretty. The next dose goes in with scrambled eggs and is a success. But the cat treat in a tube hits the home run, and works twice in a row. The Cat People are there for me, and for Aqaba.
But it doesn’t stop there. I also get lessons in cat food that includes urinary health, I get a lecture of blockages and why I have to find out where he’s hiding his pee if he isn’t using his box, and I also get stories about long term effects and long-term answers.
Aqaba Thomas came in bloodied and terrified. The Cat People were down for that, andlet me know I did the right thing by leaving Aqaba in the trap on the trip to the vet’s. Rabies was unlikely, but not impossible, which was my thing, and The Cat People saw my caution as a sign of wisdom.
They also recommended I find Aqaba some sort of box to hide in and that I did, too, so he felt secure and hidden.
Whatever else may be, I have not faced being a new cat owner alone.
And so all the Cat People who were certain I would keep Aqaba were right. And now all of them are giving me advice, the vet agrees with. Aqaba Thomas, through whatever device the Universe used to get him here, has found a home The Cat People approve of, and that is no small thing.
I discovered I speak fluent feline just by caring.
Take Care,
Mike
I find a mortar a pestle a useful tool no matter the species. Pill gets crushed and hidden in wet food and gobbled up. I used to do the trying to hold the animal and place the pill in the back of the throat. I have given up that tactic, as I have found pills in various places in my home stuck to carpeting, as a mystery substance, in slippers etc.. Even hiding the pill in cheese never worked. The cheese would be eaten and the pill spit out. It’s always good to have several tactics though, sometimes one works once or twice, then the furry freeloaders catch on and refuse. Move on to the next, and the next and repeat.
I am glad you have found one that has been successful. Just remember to steer clear the murder mittens!! LOL
Chick, even when I used the syringe on Day One, Aqaba never tried to claw me. He’s never drawn blood no matter what I’ve done. I think he still remembers being mauled by the raccoon, and me getting him out of the woods and into a safe place.
If Aqaba stays indoors, you will smell where he deposits his urine if not in the litterbox.
I will have to keep that liquid food with a pill in mind if our cats need a pill.
Tim, assuredly, this cat will never set paw on the ground again. And so far, after twenty-four hours of free roaming the house again, no smells.