I have never gotten one of these to work. I just shove my finger down their throat. I usually don’t get bit, but occasionally I catch my thumb or forefinger on a fang. They gets treats right after and a ton of love, so after a month or so they get excited at medicine time.
Interesting. With my cat I had maybe 2/3 pill failure rate he’d spit them up no matter how hard I tried with my fingers. Then they’d get caught in his fur and I’d have to fish them out lol. The piller has worked every time for me
Oh, I also get a pill pocket (which doesn’t work on its own) and tear it in half to make a tasty coating for the pill then down the throat it goes. I think most pills are chalky and get stuck in the back of their mouth or at the top of their throat and they cough them back up.
As the other person noted, pill pockets or pill wraps help a lot. My more difficult cat initially kept spitting them out even with the wrap, but he eventually learned that I’m going to try again and again, and he doesn’t get the treats until he swallows, so now he’s pretty good at swallowing on the first try AND I can get away with the occasional unwrapped pill.
The other trick I used was using my younger cat to help train the older one. I started off using a syringe of water, followed by treats to get them used to the general process and the understanding that they get treats after. My younger cat would line up for another syringe of water knowing he would get treats, so we’d do a few rounds of syringe water every evening, and I just kept doing that until the older cat got curious enough to voluntarily participate. Once they were both voluntarily participating in the syringed water, they would at least come to me for pills, so the only fighting was to get them to swallow.
Some tricks to encourage swallowing include holding their mouth shut and stroking the underside of their neck, and/or following that pill immediately with a syringe of water.
Cat pillers are amazing for anyone who doesn’t know
I have never gotten one of these to work. I just shove my finger down their throat. I usually don’t get bit, but occasionally I catch my thumb or forefinger on a fang. They gets treats right after and a ton of love, so after a month or so they get excited at medicine time.
Interesting. With my cat I had maybe 2/3 pill failure rate he’d spit them up no matter how hard I tried with my fingers. Then they’d get caught in his fur and I’d have to fish them out lol. The piller has worked every time for me
Oh, I also get a pill pocket (which doesn’t work on its own) and tear it in half to make a tasty coating for the pill then down the throat it goes. I think most pills are chalky and get stuck in the back of their mouth or at the top of their throat and they cough them back up.
As the other person noted, pill pockets or pill wraps help a lot. My more difficult cat initially kept spitting them out even with the wrap, but he eventually learned that I’m going to try again and again, and he doesn’t get the treats until he swallows, so now he’s pretty good at swallowing on the first try AND I can get away with the occasional unwrapped pill.
The other trick I used was using my younger cat to help train the older one. I started off using a syringe of water, followed by treats to get them used to the general process and the understanding that they get treats after. My younger cat would line up for another syringe of water knowing he would get treats, so we’d do a few rounds of syringe water every evening, and I just kept doing that until the older cat got curious enough to voluntarily participate. Once they were both voluntarily participating in the syringed water, they would at least come to me for pills, so the only fighting was to get them to swallow.
Some tricks to encourage swallowing include holding their mouth shut and stroking the underside of their neck, and/or following that pill immediately with a syringe of water.
These don’t work for me at all. Pill pockets on the other hand? Lifesavers.
For some reason my cat only likes the ones thst are for dogs though.
We like this stuff. Lasts longer, sticks to the pills better.
Oh thank you, I’ve never seen that but it seems like a good idea. We currently split the treats anyway and kind of treat them like play-doh.
That’s what we did with the pill pockets too. This stuff works like that but we like it way better and the cats seem to too.