Pilling a cat

Hurrah! We've pilled Natalie, only three months til we have to do it again.

If you Google "pilling a cat" you get all these pages saying, "pull your cat's head back, open it's jaws, wedge a finger between the jaws, put the pill as far back as you can, close your cat's mouth, massage the neck and the cat will swallow the pill." Or "put the pill in your cat's food bowl, he'll gobble it up!", "coat the pill in butter and the cat will lick it off your hand!", "crush it up and put in some wet food, he'll gobble it up!", "wrap the pill in some chicken, and the cat will gobble it up!".

These people have seriously fucking stupid cats.

That works if your cat smokes a pound of something soporific every day, has no claws and no brain. It sort of works on Nathan, because a) he's a bit stupid and b) he's had more days of his life being pilled, than not.

His sister is a completely different story. She's clever, coating a pill in butter? That doesn't even work on Nathan! Crushing it up and sprinkling it on the food? she knows the food's been messed with, and she's taken to avoiding the food I put out specially for her with the granules pre-sprinkled. She's not keen on food, and doesn't even like wet food. As I've said, this cat FIGHTS. She growls, she squirms, she scratches, she bites. It's scary, it's upsetting and we don't want to do that to her. But she has to be wormed. So this is what we did.

You will need two people. Get a large floor cushion and lay a blanket/rug/towel over it. Chase the cat around the room and then pick it up. Place cat on blanket and hold it down, paws down so it's in a sphinx position; scruffing helps here. Wrap cat up in the blanket, much as you might swaddle a baby, taking care to cover the front paws. We did it so that the person holding the cat, kind of "sat" on the back of it and pulled the head up, making sure to apply pressure across the front of the cat, cat pinned betwixt the thighs. The cat will be growling, miaowing, and in our case, may jump out of the blanket. This took about six goes before we had a swallow.
Continuing, get the cat's head up, get the jaws open, stick the pill in, clamp the mouth shut and rub the neck.

At this point, you release the cat and it spits the pill out.

Rinse and repeat, realise you should get the mouth open using the blunt teeth at the front, thus avoiding piercing your fingers on the canines and giving the cat a little bloody drink.

Success will finally come, after much sweating, fear of breaking said cat, growling, hissing and some scratching.

No worms here though, phew.

Natalie

What can I say about Natalie? She's a cat of extremes. When we first met her at the kitty jail, she was extremely, painfully shy, and pretty much hid in a hidey-hole whenever she could. We were told we'd need to do a lot of work to get her confident around people. I was pondering this when she was first out of the carrier when we got home. Then she took to an "igloo" for two days and nights and when she finally came out and ate while we were in the room, it felt like a major breakthrough.

Then came the phase where she'd allow us to stroke her, but only once a day, when she was lying in a certain position and only for about five minutes. It was a frustrating time, particularly as Nathan was so friendly. She was such a scaredy cat, the two times we've had any work done on the house, and had to shut them in the living room, she hid in the grand piano. IN THE PIANO. Poor little thing, she was terrified! And we were a bit worried about the family heirloom.

Fast forward a few more weeks and it's all so different. She's still a bit scaredy, and will run away if she's not in the mood for attention. But when she wants something, she lets you know. Out of the two of them, she's the one that will follow you around, dogging (surely that should be catting?!) your footsteps, jump all over you. If you're lying down she'll rub her face almost the full length of your body to show you who you belong to. It's sort of nice, because she was so afraid of us before. But it's also INTENSE. I call it lovebombing.

She's the brighter of the two, and got the hang of the cat flaps more quickly and is always desperate to go outside, way more than Nathan. I think she's got a stronger "feral" instinct. They were born outdoors to a domesticated mother but didn't come into contact with humans til they were about 12 weeks. They're really well-behaved, all that considered.

The other thing about Natalie is that she's a little fighter. FIGHTER. We pill Nathan with quite easily really, he doesn't fight us, and doesn't even unsheath his claws when he's trying to push our hands away. When it came to worming time, we didn't think we'd have a problem. Three pills later, and a lot of upset on both sides, we've found something to put on her food. I've also caught on to the fact that she won't eat anything if she's not seen it go from container to bowl (clever, like I said) so I've had to resort to cunning tactics.

She likes hunting flying insects, lying on the stairs, being stroked when she feels like it and climbing trees.

She dislikes being held down to be pilled, being brushed, wet food, the television and loud noises.

Nathan

This is Nathan, the boy cat. He is the more friendly of the two, but also more insecure. He has a condition called rodent ulcers, or esinophilic granuloma. It's an allergic reaction, usually to fleas or food. His upper lip swells up and I call him Zoidberg. Rob thinks this is mean, but it's funny. He's less than a year old and spent most of his life having a pill or two rammed down his throat twice a day. Poor kitty. So now, during this latest flare up, we've decided that we're going to try an exclusion diet so he's just eating James Wellbeloved fish dry food night and day. Just this morning, he found a piece of half chewed bread my dad dropped and gobbled it up. He loves food and it's a bit sad that he can't have any ham or chocolate treats which he LOVES. But vet's bills are expensive!

He doesn't like having water sprayed in his face, which happens sometimes when we are pilling him. He also doesn't like being pilled, being grabbed before being pilled, and the bit after the pill has been ingested.

He does like pretending to be a badass by chasing his sister round the house, climbing our fugly faux velvet curtains, lying on windowsills and being brushed. He also likes me a bit too much and has been known to do little urine scent mark on me. He doesn't sit on my lap anymore, dirty bugger.