Looks familiar? If you’re a cat owner, I’m sure you can definitely relate. I honestly hate feeding my cats medicine. Feeding cats medicine is like feeding medicine to babies. They would put up a huge fight; spit, foam, struggle, bite and scratch. To me, each feeding session was a nightmare until I found the right tools and technique to do it. I have come up with a list below on the various methods you can try on your cat. Hopefully you can you can find one that works for you!

1. Drop pill directly in cat’s mouth
2. Use a pill popper and empty capsule
3. Stuffing the pill in food
4. Use a pill pocket
   
   

1. Drop a pill directly into cat’s mouth
   My success rate in using this method was roughly 40%. DO NOT ATTEMPT this method if you are short-tempered and have zero tolerance for mess and nonsense. This was my go-to method long before I chanced upon a better way.
   
   Below is an illustration of the steps involved when I perform this method on Ah Mao
   
   Steps Involved:

• Squat above Ah Mao
• Use thighs to clamp her down
• Bend her head upwards and backwards so her mouth would open
• Use fingers to drop the pill as far back into her mouth as possible
• Once pill is in, use hand to clamp her mouth shut and hold it there for a minute to make sure she swallows the pill

This method is good as it requires no preparation prior to feeding. However, the fail rate is high because my cat is a bitch. Whenever I tried to drop the pill in, she would struggle then the pill won’t fall as far back as intended. As a result, she would either push the pill out her mouth using her tongue or the pill would touch her saliva and start dissolving. Once it dissolves, she would taste the bitterness of the pill and start foaming. Whenever that happens, I would have to repeat the entire process until she swallows the pill. Hence, I would often waste a couple of pills before succeeding. You know how expensive some medicine can be!!! Sometimes she really pissed me off real bad. Not forgetting that with every try, she struggled even more and got more aggressive. There were many instances where she clamped down on my finger with her evil little teeth before galloping away in triumph. The pain is seriously mind numbing. In my fury I would shout expletives after her, telling her things like I give up on her asking her to do whatever she wants; only to go back to becoming a loser five minutes later, apologising and begging her in a gentle tone to swallow her pills. Those were the days…Sacrifice for the better good I always told myself. This method to me is the most primitive method. If you’re really not willing to invest in tools, then by all means, try this.

2. Use a pill popper and empty capsule
   Quick say a prayer of thanks cause you’re about to introduced to a life changing hack!
   
   One day, I was complaining non-stop and begging our vet to stop prescribing so many types of medicine since Ah Mao was being a little bitch at home for making it so darn difficult to feed her medicine. It was then that she introduced to me the best invention of all time…….A….Pill…..Popper!!! *Let’s all clap!*
   
   She did a live demonstration to show us the power of this pill popper, waving it like at wand at Ah Mao’s face to piss her off and make her hiss. The moment she hissed, our vet shot the pill right into her mouth. The shot was cold; ruthless; accurate. “It’s in.” she said without emotion. The whole thing was so fast, I didn’t even see the pill fly. All I saw was Ah Mao’s shocked face and her doing a swallowing action. I seriously doubted that the pill went in so I started checking all over the place to find it. I even pushed Ah Mao aside to see if it rolled underneath her. Nothing. It really went in. Our vet was my new heroine. She just made my life a whole lot easier. No more nasty bites, no more foaming, no more stupid do overs. Happily, I bought the pill popper (see pic below) and skipped right home with hope and excitement. That crazy puss don’t know what she’s in for.
   
   Night fell and it was the dreaded time of the day again for the both of us except this time, I had the pill popper and some much needed hope. I. WAS. WRONG. The stupid pill popper was harder than what the vet made it look. I couldn’t eject the pill. It doesn’t have the shooting effect like the way the vet did it. No matter how hard I pushed the trigger, the pill just fell off weakly from its tip, especially the smaller pills. Amidst all these, the naughty girl was losing her patience. As I wasn’t able to juggle with the pill popper and still hold her down, I thought of an idea. I wrapped her up snugly in a towel and sat her down on an ironing board. That was the only place that was perfect for my height (1.5m tall) to carry out the task. Since she was bound, she couldn’t run nor was she able to struggle and swat me. I tried a couple more times and finally managed to get the pill into the back of her mouth. Once the pill was in, I closed her mouth with my hand so that she cannot spit the pill out using her tongue. At the same time, I blew some air onto her face. Cats automatically lick their noses when you blow lightly onto their faces. This licking action will result in them swallowing the pill. Next, I would gently stroke her neck to help her swallow.
   
   You should always check the surroundings after feeding the medicine to make sure that your cat has indeed swallowed the pill. Ah Mao has a sneaky way of pretending to swallow (she literally did the swallowing action) but in actual fact, she hid the pill in her mouth and spat it away while I was not looking. I would often find out very much later when I see the pill at some corner in the house. That smart chit.
   
   Out of the different types of pills, the extremely big and the tiny ones are the hardest to feed. Not sure if you have seen the big ones before but when I say it’s big, it’s crazy big, almost the size of a segment of your thumb. I mean who does that? I bet the cats who are prescribed these pills must be thinking “Are you f*cking kidding me? Do you really want to save me or kill me?” If you’re a cat pill maker and am guilty of making humongous pills like that, think about that. Ridiculous.
   
   So, tiny pill is difficult to be fed to a cat because it usually dissolves before it can reach the back of the cat’s throat, thereby sending the cat into a foaming frenzy once it tastes the bitterness of the medicine. It makes matters worse when you have more than one type of tiny pills to feed to your cat. I was so super lucky to have another vet who taught me another life-saving trick. Buy empty capsules (see pic below) and fill it up with all the tablets that do not come in a capsule form. In this way, not only does the size make it easier to feed, the cat will not be able to taste the bitterness of the pills and will more likely swallow it. You can get them from traditional chinese medicine (TCM) shop or from Amazon.
   
   If the size of the empty capsule is too big, you can trim off part of it with a pair of scissors. To allow the pill to glide down your cat’s throat with more ease, apply a little bit of lysine (Viralys – gel that supports cat’s immune system – see post on Feline Herpes Virus) on the exterior of the capsule. Do note that you need to feed the pill immediately once you apply lysine if not the capsule will start to melt. Once it melts, you will need to replace it before you can proceed. With the combination of a pill popper and empty capsules, feeding medication became a lot less stressful for the both of us.
   
   A word of caution though, although useful, pill poppers come with their own risks. For example, some pill poppers come with rubber tips. There were many instances where the tip came off during use and the cats swallow it together with their medicine. As a result, surgery was needed to remove the rubber tip. Hence, do make sure that the rubber tip is attached to the plastic body snugly each time before you feed your cat. If the pill popper comes with a plastic tip, make sure that the tip is intact (no cracks) every time before you use it so that it doesn’t break and get swallowed by accident.

In conclusion, feeding with a pill popper includes the following steps (you can refer to the video below for a better understanding as well):

1. Put pill(s) in empty capsule
2. Load pill popper
3. Wrap cat in a towel, only if your cat struggles a lot/is aggressive
4. Apply lysine on pill
5. Lift cat head upwards and backwards
6. Open cat’s mouth
7. Shoot pill into cat’s mouth
8. Close cat’s mouth, hold gently but firmly
9. Blow at cat’s nose
10. Wait for cat to swallow pill
11. Gently stroke cat’s neck to help it swallow
12. You can feed a little bit of water with a syringe to help pill glide down cat’s throat
13. Check cat surroundings to make sure pill is confirmed swallowed

3. Stuffing pill in food
   For this to work, either the medicine is tasteless or your cat is not that particular. You can either stuff the pill into the wet food and wait for your cat to eat it or you can roll it into a small ball of wet food and stuff it into your cat’s mouth. Some cats are not that particular and they will just swallow the pill together with the food. Both my cats are too smart to fall for this trick. They would sniff out the pill, avoid the entire part of the food that has the pill in it and eat the rest.

4. Pill Pockets
   There are also pill pockets available online where you can feed it to your cat like a treat. Personally I’ve never tried it before. Perhaps I would update my posts once I’ve tried it.
   

Is there a best time to feed medicine?

Of course this depends on the instructions given, whether the medicine has to be taken before or after food but all these aside, I usually prefer to give my kitties the medicine before meal. In this way, it will relate eating medicine with being treated with nice food after (somewhat like classical conditioning). After some time, it will be less resistant to eating medicine. It’s like giving treats to your kitty after it has done a good job.

Actually, each method of feeding medicine to a cat has its pros and cons. There is no one best way. You just need to find one that suits both you and your cat most. By the way, I haven’t found a good way to feed medicine in the liquid form as yet. So for those of you who are still struggling with that, HANG IN THERE!!! Hopefully, someone will invent a hassle-free way of feeding some day!

Oh yes, by the way, usually the pills that are prescribed to cats need to be cut into smaller pieces. If the nurses at the clinic is kind enough, they will cut it for you. But usually, you are required to do it on your own. So the best way is to invest in a pill cutter. That way, you can easily cut the pills into the prescribed amount. Also, if the pills are too large to fit into the empty capsule, you can cut it with the pill cutter first so that everything can fit. I truly hope that my tips can help you guys in some ways. Do leave a comment to let me know if my posts are helpful! It will be most encouraging for me.


Love,
TG