Pet tips - from me to you

Quote of the Day:

"This is more fun than giving medicine to a cat!" - Me

Saturday morning I noticed something odd about our cat, Smokey. Odd may not be the right word. Gross or disgusting perhaps might better describe it. He had yellowish pus oozing down the side of his little cat face. Quite a lovely sight, let me tell you. Naturally, our vet is closed on the weekends, so we had to wait until Monday morning to call.

The vet kept him overnight, cleaned out his wound, and returned him to us along with a bottle of antibiotics. For anyone who has never given medicine to a cat, you don’t know what you’re missing.

It starts with the towel. This is a trick we learned from some random cat book, a trick that served us well when Smokey was attacked as a kitten by some unknown nasty assailant and left severely wounded. He had to be given medicine something like twenty-seven times a day, and on top of that he needed drops for ear mites. The towel kept all of us from needing antibiotics to treat all of the cat bites and scratches we certainly would have otherwise received.

What you do is, you wrap all but the cat’s head in a towel, then force his mouth open and medicate him. First, of course, you have to find him. Because I guarantee you, when the cat sees you coming with a towel, he will disappear, and quickly. Last night, for example, he hid in my closet, where it is nigh on impossible to see him, let alone get him out.

Once you’ve caught the cat, one person must hold him while the other wraps the towel tightly around the body and all four legs. The cat’s head sticks out, but you have to be quick. If the person administering the medicine is not fast enough on the draw, the cat will disappear inside the towel like a turtle, except he’ll come out the other end of the towel and make a break for it.

If you’re fast enough, grab the cat’s jaw and gently pry his needle-like teeth apart with your bare fingers. Slide the dropper into one side of his mouth and release the medicine. Usually about half of it will make it into the cat, the other half will decorate his fur with a nice pink stain. I don’t worry about that – I figure if he licks it off, as cats are wont to do, he’ll get the full dose.

Then release the cat and stand back. Depending on the cat, you might be on the receiving end of a playful swipe of the claws as a little “thank you” for helping to keep him healthy. He loves you, really he does.

And you only have to repeat this process twice a day for ten days! Nine days left to go…