Today it came around to that time again, the time that every cat owner dreads, the three monthly worming pill. Most people only have to do this once every three months; we however have four cats, so four cats means four pills. Whilst they are usually cute little creatures they seem to sense that it is time for a pill. Our cats include two semi feral boys and two girls that we have raised from kittens. Obviously you are expecting that the problem lies with the semi feral rescue cats now named Oscar and Oliver. However these two cats whilst capable of delivering a very nasty bite (as my husband recently found out) are easily fooled. I wrapped their pills securely in a piece of ham and each cat took their pill on the first go… Job done… Two more to go.
Next the girls named Willow and Lucy. First I tried the ham trick with no luck. Both Willow and Lucy looked at me suspiciously as I tried to feed them the doctored ham. Willow tasted it and spat out the pill… lucky I brought some extra pills just in case. Lucy seeing Willow’s reaction to the ham proceeded to go and sit outside in the rain where she felt safe from the evil human who was obviously attempting to poison her. Whilst Lucy was sulking outside I came up with a new idea. We buy some crunchy biscuits that she really likes that have caramel in the middle. I decided to cut the biscuit in half and cunningly insert half a pill into each half of biscuit. Then I proceeded to reseal the biscuit and give it to Lucy. Success it went down first time. Just one more cat to go.
Whilst I was feeding Lucy the doctored biscuits Willow expressed an interest in them. Willow is famous for not taking pills, even the vet cannot get her to take one but on the off chance I gave her a doctored biscuit with half the dosage inside it. I was amazed when she took the fist biscuit without any fuss. Stupidly I thought the second biscuit would also work. Willow did take the biscuit and started chewing but it was soon spat out and discarded to be gobbled up by a hungry Oscar. I then decided to leave Willow until my husband Rory arrived home from work, she always liked him more then me anyway. When Rory got home he tried to trick Willow into taking the pill by putting it into ham. “I tried that already she is not that stupid” I said. Then he tried to grab Willow and put the pill down her throat (this method is not recommended and does cause injury) see http://www.thejokeshop.org/index.php/2007/02/22/how-to-feed-a-cat-a-pill/
Yes Rory did get bitten and this method should come with a health warning. As a last result he once again tried my earlier doctored biscuit trick. My response was “there is no way that will work” but Willow trusting her favoured human took her next dose of pill without problems. So that amounts to: Four pills into four cats with only one bitten finger and two wasted pills. That must be a record.
