Hi there, responding to your PM on pilling. Fun stuff (not!)
What has worked for us:
1. Temptation-pill pocket sandwiches. (eta: this is Jojo's trick). Take half a pill pocket, put pill into it, stick it onto Temptation treat and offer with treat side up. Worked well for a few weeks until she bit into the clavamox pill one day, then she wouldn't touch a Temptation sammich or treat (which she loves!) for MONTHS! ohmygod_smile
2. Take a soft treat (Friskies Tender, Whisker Lickin's Tender Moments), squish pill in and mould so that entire pill is covered. You may have to break pill into two or three pieces if is bigger pill, check with vet if the pill can be cut (if you're crushing it, it can be cut). Start with a yummy treat that she likes (we use IVD), then soft treat without pill, then soft treat with pill, then yummy treat again.
3. Coat pill with butter and push it down throat. Remember to chase with plenty of water - I think I give 6 mls. This method worked three or four times . What sucked about this was her tongue was all buttery afterwards, and she couldn't pick up any food/treat, everything just slid off her tongue. :sad:
4. Pill gun, followed by water chaser. This one worked once, then she wised up to it and got really good at spitting long-distance ohmygod_smile
5. Manual pilling, with bare hand. You'll have to act QUICKLY in flicking pill over hump of tongue or she'll spit it back up. Also, sticking kitty in a klaw kontrol bag is the only way we could do this. We actually managed to pull it off, with help of said klaw kontrol bag, for ten days. :thumbup Kitty burrito didn't work, she'd work one paw out, and start smacking us while we were trying to peer into her mouth to see if pill was gone. Remember to always follow with water chaser.
What I've read about but haven't tried, or tried but it didn't work for us:
1. Coat pill with cream cheese. Found out she didn't like cream cheese :roll:
2. Butter bullet. Stick pill into butter, freeze for a little bit to solidify, shove down throat. She spat it out :lol:
3. Mix in food. You know about pills and food aversion.
4. Wrap in small slice of cheese or ham and feed as treat. Figured she was too smart for that, didn't try it.
5. Crush and mix in tuna/clam juice, then syringe down throat with needleless oral syringe. Too stressful for kitty and beans, and kitty wound up wearing what looked suspiciously like more than half the med.
Here's a
site with more tips. PJ (of PJ and Cagney) tried the Kleenex method - she swallowed a pill covered with a thin layer of Kleenex to see how it'd go. She lived to tell the tale :mrgreen:
eta: Meowzi can keep a pill in her mouth and not swallow. We've held her for a whole five mins, opened her mouth, and pill was still there. So watch for that too.