Recently I had a bit of a health scare with her but it turns out to be something not too serious but that does require daily medication. This wonder drug, especially for my cat’s unique problem, is Pepcid AC. Yes, the little pills you get at the drugstore. The vet said, :Oh, just give her half a Pepcid each day, she will be fine.”
Now, I have owned a few cats in my life, I have even helped with other people’s cats before, but Chloe is no ordinary cat. I tired the usually methods for “pilling” a cat. Nope. I tired Pill Pockets, an ingenious invention that is simply a hollowed out treat that you stick a pill in. The dog falls for it every time, but the cat…pill pocket injected, pill in a slobbery mess on the floor. Dog eats pill.
SO then the vet suggests I crush up the tablet, put it in an empty capsule, lubricate it with a bit of butter, and try to get it down her that way. Once again, the dog wins the round.
At this point even the vet had lost her compassion for Chloe and gave me a 9 inch long syringe-like contraption. You put the butter-rubbed, crushed pill filled capsule in the end of this thing, hold open the cat’s mouth, and shoot it into the back of her throat. Would have worked fine if Chloe had not shot it right back out of her mouth onto the floor where, of course, the dog ate it.
Last try. Chloe gets shots. I have to act like some competent nurse on E.R. and hold the bottle of liquid Pepcid upside down, fill the syringe, flick out the air bubbles, and stick the cat. Interestingly, the vet said that cats do not possess the pain receptors for a needle-type stick pain (only in their faces) so Chloe feels nothing, which is too bad for my sense of justice.
Seems Chloe first associated the syringe with the shot, which is expected I think. But now she has associated the post-shot treats with the shot itself, so she runs from the treat bag as soon as I open the cupboard. Sometimes she hides when I just THINK about the shot. Damn ESP cat.. At first I could not figure out why, if she did not feel the sticking, did she hate the shots? My guess is now that the medication has to be refrigerated and, though she may not feel the needle, she will certainly feel the icy cold liquid going into her skin. So the next step? Put the treat in front of her to eat while giving her the shots, and letting the syringe of Pepcid warm up a bit before administering. (She also gets B-12 once a week).
What prompted me to write this boring tome? Here is Chloe, the master huntress, hiding from the shot:
But really, can you blame her?
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