Cats and Medications
Tips for Peaceful Coexistence
Voluntary Ingestion: Making Medicine Fun for All
- Give medications before a meal and do not use the cat’s main diet
- The “meatball”: wrap pills in soft food, pill wrap, pill pockets, cheese, etc.
- Size: no larger than a big pea or the cat may bite into the pill and reject the treat in the future.
- Panko: coat with crushed hard treats, bonito fish flakes, etc.
- Chip and Dip: dip in tuna juice or other high value soft food
- Tossing Cookies: Roll meatball to emulate prey
- Most cats will lick a pill or capsule directly from a towel or other rough surface if it is covered with a small amount of a creamy treat or blended diet
Oral Administration Techniques
- Avoid touching the cat’s whiskers
- Start from behind the cat and wrap your hand around the top of the head between the eyes and ears
- It is best to insert syringe/pill popper from the side of the mouth, just behind the canine (fang) teeth, rather than the front
Liquids
Adult cats can only swallow 1/2 mL at a time.
- Use a syringe with a narrow tip. Rinse syringe before and after use.
- Dip syringe in tasty liquid such as chicken broth or tuna juice.
- Adding a layer of blended food to the medication in the syringe may be helpful.
Pills and Capsules
- Tip the head straight up so that the nose is pointing at the ceiling. The mouth will open slightly. Insert the pill popper, push it to the back of the tongue and release the pill.
- If you need to give more than one pill at once, use a pill popper that holds multiple pills or insert all of them into one gelatin capsule. The Bullseye pill popper is recommended.
- To avoid pills sticking in the esophagus: Follow by at least 4ml of water, tuna juice/water or some food or coat with butter
