Give the Cat Pills: These Tricks are Sure to Work

The cat is sick and the vet has prescribed pills. But how do you get your velvet paw to swallow the necessary medicine? This article will tell you the best tricks for giving pills to your cat.

Giving Cats Pills: The Challenges

Open your mouth, put the tablet in and take it down – nice if it were that easy. For many cat owners, giving tablets is a real challenge. Many a treatment had to be stopped because the kitty just didn’t want to swallow the pills.

Unfortunately, you cannot explain to your cat that the medication is necessary. So only cunning and trickery will help. This article will teach you the best tricks for giving pills to your cat.

In principle, you have three options for giving your cat tablets:

1. Crush tablets and mix them with paste, food, or water to camouflage them.
2. Hide the whole tablet in a treat and give it to your cat.
3. Put the tablets directly into the mouth.

There may be several ways you need to try to find the best pill-giving trick for your cat. Don’t be discouraged, either of these methods will definitely work.

Giving the Cat Tablets: Crushing and Camouflaging

To outsmart your cat, you can finely grind the tablets and mix them with cat paste, food, or water to camouflage themselves. All you need for this is a commercially available mortar with which you can crush the tablets. If you want to dissolve the tablet powder in water, you will also need a syringe.

If your cat has to take the tablets for a longer period of time, it may be worthwhile to buy a special tablet mortar. You can get this at the pharmacy, for example.

Important: Ask your veterinarian beforehand whether the tablets can be ground.

Grind the tablet and mix with the paste

For this trick, mix the crushed tablet with a cat paste or cat cream that your kitty likes. Alternatively, you can also use liver sausage.

Use the mortar to grind the pill until it becomes a fine powder. Then mix this powder thoroughly with a small portion of cat paste. About a teaspoon should be enough.

Then let your kitty lick and enjoy. With a bit of luck, she won’t notice anything about the tablet powder.

Crush the tablet and mix it into the food

You can also try simply stirring the medicine into the food. This trick of giving pills to your cat will also require a mortar. Then mix the powder thoroughly with your cat’s food.

However, this trick only works if the pill does not have a strong taste of its own. In this case, you can add a couple of great-tasting treats to the tablet in the mortar. Dreamies with cheese, for example, are well suited. Mix everything together well before stirring it into the food.

Caution: Some medications must not be taken together with dairy products. To be on the safe side, ask your vet whether there are any objections to cheese pastes or cheese snacks.

Syringe and Water

Alternatively, you can dissolve the tablet powder in a little water or another liquid – for example, chicken broth. Then draw the solution into a syringe (without a needle!). You can get the syringe from your vet or pharmacy.

Then carefully inject the mixture into your cat’s mouth.

No exact dosage is possible

With the mortar method, however, no exact dosage of the drug is possible. A few crumbs always fall by the wayside. Like sick people, sick cats often have a poor appetite. Your cat may not be in the mood for cat paste or it may not eat up its food ration. Then it is better to mix the tablet with liquid or to give it whole.

Trick to Give Your Cat Tablets Directly

Sometimes even the best pill-giving tricks to your cat won’t help. Especially when the kitty is very sick and does not eat much, it makes no sense to mix the medication into the food. Also, some patients do not have an appetite for treats in which to hide the tablets.

In such cases, you can try putting the tablet straight into your cat’s mouth.

Not entirely harmless

In the following section, you will find a brief explanation of how it works. However, it is imperative that you have this method shown to you in advance at the veterinary practice because this method is not without risk: your cat could accidentally bite your hand.

Hold on tight

Hold your cat firmly while giving the tablets. It works best when there are two of you. Sit on the floor and take the cat between your legs. The cat’s bottom points in your direction. So the way back is cut off.

Carefully open mouths

Take the tablet in one hand between your index finger and thumb. Right-handers take the right hand for this, left-handers the left.

Then use your other hand to open your cat’s mouth. To do this, slide your index finger into the gap behind the pointed canine. Your cat’s head should point slightly upwards.

With the middle finger of the hand holding the tablet, gently press your kitty’s chin down. Now push the tablet into the mouth from the front.

Place the tablet in the back of the mouth

Make sure that the pill is placed at the very back of the mouth at the base of the tongue. Otherwise, the cat will likely spit out the medication right away.

Important: Always put your fingers into your cat’s mouth from the front to avoid being accidentally bitten. Cat bites are dangerous to humans too. If you have any doubts, it is better not to use the direct method.

Trick to give cats pills: The pill-giver

It is much safer to administer the pill directly with a so-called tablet dispenser. These devices are also available from the veterinarian.

Pill dispensers look and work a lot like a syringe. First, water is drawn up, then the tablet is clamped at the front of the device. Then you carefully insert the donor into the cat’s mouth so that the tablet is at the very back of the cat’s mouth.

If you now carefully press the stamp, the cat has no choice but to swallow the tablet together with the water.

This method also requires a lot of tact and a calm cat that doesn’t fidget. Otherwise, you run the risk of injuring yourself or your cat.

Trick to “Hide” Whole Tablets for Your Cat

While tablets can be camouflaged by giving them a tasty shell. There are different ways. Basic requirement: Your cat must find the coating really tasty, otherwise the trick won’t work.

Chewing sandwich

Most cats love chew sticks. You can take advantage of this preference to “hide” your cat’s tablets in them.

For the chew stick sandwich, you need a cat chew stick and a sharp knife.

First, cut the chew stick into small pieces. The sections should be about two inches long. Then carefully cut the length of the chewing stick section up to the middle.

Then push the pill into the gap that has been created and carefully press the “sandwich” together with your fingers.

Make sure that the tablet does not slip out when you give your velvet paw the chewing stick sandwich. With large tablets, it is sometimes easier if you split the tablet and make two sandwiches.

Tip: Alternatively, you can trick your cat with a small piece of wiener sausage. Use the knife to cut a pocket in the piece of sausage and carefully push the tablet into it.

Tools to buy

If the sandwich trick is too cumbersome for you to give your cat the tablets, there are various hidden aids available. You can buy them from the vet, for example.

For example, there is a special modeling clay into which you knead the tablet or small snacks with a cavity for the tablet. Disguised as a treat, you can give your kitty a whole pill this way.

Important: Try a few times beforehand without a tablet to see whether your cat likes the product at all.

Giving Cat Tablets: Ask Your Veterinarian

No matter which trick you choose, be sure to discuss your approach with the veterinarian. Not all tablets should be divided or crushed. Some snacks are also incompatible with certain medications.

Especially if you give your cat the tablet directly without any further “camouflage”, you should definitely be shown the appropriate handles beforehand. This also applies if you use a pill dispenser on your cat.