Elaine Miller
Scarring may be permanent. You never know.
There Must Be More Than One Way To Worm a Cat -- by Elaine Miller
Has anyone ever noticed that the directions of the package of worm medicine for cats goes something like "simply give the cats the pills... pink ones first week, fawn ones next week, and pink ones again for the last week.." Just simple little instructions. "Give the pills to the cat."
The little pink pills went down nicely last week in tuna, so I had high hopes this morning. The fawn pills, may I add, are flat, round pills of about 1/3 inch diameter.
They give you a nice l'il dosage chart, which shows that, for instance, my fat 12 lb tabby Frodo needs five fawn pills on the second week, and my slim 9 lb Siamese, three. It helpfully suggests that the fawn pills in particular be given after a day's fasting.
My usual technique of giving cat pills consists of encasing the pill in a stiff blob of butter, sneaking up on the cat, and abruptly poking a finger down the cat's throat from the side, pushing the pill ahead of the intruding finger. This provokes dirty looks from the cat, but gets the pill down without a great deal of hassle. You can imagine how that would simply not go over with 5 huge, nasty pills that would never fit down a cat's throat. Cut them in half and we have 10 repeats of the finger-poke thing? My cats are smarter than that.
As you can see, I had a problem on my hands.
I mashed the pills into a fine powder and adulterated them with a small amount of tuna. They had a nastier smell by far than the pink ones, and I worried slightly. I put Frodo "Fat Boy"s plate down first. He dashed at it, frantic for food after a day's separation anxiety. He skidded to a stop a foot from the plate, shot me a despairing look, and set up a renewed wailing for something to eat. Random, sequestered in the bedroom, had much the same reaction when he was presented with the doctored fish..
OK, so I was going to have to be helpful.
I tried Random first, placing him between my legs and speaking nicely to him... I opened his mouth, took a fingerful of adulterated tuna, and stuffed it way at the back of his mouth. I then tipped his head up and spoke gentle, encouraging words as he attempted to run backwards through my leg, and spit tuna at the ceiling.
At least a tenth of a teaspoon went down, the rest flew about the room, making nasty splats on my sweater, my lap, the floor. I would have needed the jaws of life to get Random's mouth open again, and strange bubbles of saliva were leaking out the corners of his mouth. He looked forlorn. I left him in favour of "helping" Frodo.
In the kitchen, Frodo must have overheard Random's culinary review of today's entree, as he approached me suspiciously, hoping I was hiding real food somewhere in my pockets. My attempt to quell his appetite with the poison-laced tuna were met with violent struggles, and similar huge ropes of saliva and loud gakking noises.
I've given up temporarily. I am surrounded by drooling, glaring cats, and I am thinking of pureeing the tuna mix and perhaps running an IV tube with it...
