When I had Pizza and Tiger, one of the most frustrating things about it was we couldn't tell whose was whose, so unless you had the actual cat, you couldn't do the fecal test. We usually ended up assuming that what one had, the other one had.
I never thought I'd be so grateful for Colby and Thimble's fascination with pooping in front of me. They love having human company while they are in the litter box and will often make one of their rare vocalization mews to get me to come and watch. I was liking this because, since it smells, this enables me to scoop it immediately into the pail with the lid, and then the litter smells much less. Now I was liking it because when the vet said that, in our phone conversation last Thursday, I could say, "I can do that! But it'll have to be tomorrow because they poop in the morning."
Friday morning, sure enough, Colby goes in front of me, I scoop it up, and instead of putting it in the litter pail, put it in another plastic bag I had ready. Then it got triple sealed in three separate ziploc bags and put in the trunk of my car. I was very glad it was cold all day Friday. I really didn't want my car smelling like a litter box and I couldn't get to the vet's until after my job finished for the day.
Well, the test came back positive. There's a bit of an issue with the identification of the parasite egg that was found, (a second opinion said "that's impossible, those parasites aren't around here"), but I'm figuring, a parasite egg is a parasite egg. We have to treat for parasites.
It finally occurred to me where it could have come from. When I walk in the morning, it's dark. If I stepped in some dried dog poop (because rude people walk their dogs and leave the poop on the road or sidewalk like they expect someone else to clean up after them) and I didn't smell it or feel it because it was dried, then when I got home, they might have investigated my shoes to the point of ingesting an egg from a parasite in there. I know I've found my walking shoes on the side instead of on the base of the shoe sometimes. Gross, but the only possibility that makes any sense to me.
Anyway, the antiparasitic is a liquid in a syringe without a needle. I have five days worth to give them and the last day is today.
Now I might be an expert in giving pills to cats who are semi-willing to cooperate. But I'd never done liquids before (except for once which was a total disaster).
Poor Colby, Friday afternoon, was the one that gave me one of my tips for you. Don't put more into the cat's mouth than they can swallow in one swallow. That was my only incidence of a cat "slinging" it everywhere, as the vet put it. And the slinging it everywhere is unpleasant because then I have to clean it all up, and it's a thin white liquid that dries almost instantly and has to be scraped up off a solid surface and, well, there's still some areas of the carpeted box that are lighter than others. Luckily my carpet (that's on the floor) was the same color as the medicine so you can't really tell where it's stained.
Colby is always the one these sorts of things happen to. I don't know why. I usually give Thimble anything new first. I did this time, and gave him multiple squirts from the syringe, which worked fine, but for some reason, with Colby, I thought he could handle the entire syringe at a time. Perhaps because he was fussing more about having it (the syringe) in the front corner of his mouth.
Colby's also the one that I missed the throat when I put the pill in and got it stuck in the back corner of his mouth, and it partially dissolved which meant he really tasted it, and did not like it. If I'm going to trip over someone, it's usually Colby. If a cat is going to misjudge a jump or a run-and-pounce and slam into a wall, it's usually Colby.
I feel for him. I'm kind of like that in my life.
So I've done four doses for each cat now, which makes eight, and I think I've got a system down.
The initial preparation is exactly the same as for giving them a pill. After you've opened their mouths with the open button, then you stick the syringe so the tip is between the teeth in the front corner and depress the plunger so you're squirting the liquid into the opposite back corner. Yes, try to aim for the throat, but actually not directly down it. They need a chance to make their swallow mechanism work properly. Otherwise--well, imagine if you got liquid squirted directly into your throat ... half the time it might go into your lungs if you weren't prepared.
And thanks to Colby, I know don't do it all at once. You're going to have to, for a normal sized cat and a 2 ml dose, squirt two or three times to get it all down. Unfortunately, this means you have to open their mouths that many times too, because to let them have a chance to swallow (and they will), you have to let them close their mouths. (How easy is it for you to swallow with your mouth open?)
Thimble is fairly patient with this, but Colby feels like putting up with having his mouth forceably opened once is quite enough and he gets increasingly more difficult the more I do it. So he generally gets his dose in two squirts whereas Thimble, the bigger cat, gets his in three.
So you remove the syringe from their mouth and watch while they swallow and make faces and in general express that this doesn't really taste good and did you have to do that. This liquid the vet says probably doesn't taste bad, exactly, it just doesn't taste like much of anything. Which, since it's white and dries so fast, probably means it tastes chalky. Yuck. I apologize quite profusely (and give treats) after it's all down in their tummies, because this to me, seems way worse than the pills. The pills are a swallow and it's over, and if I did it right, they didn't even taste it.
The liquid is going to be tasted simply because they have to manipulate it with their tongues to be able to swallow it. Nasty. I know that most vets think liquids are easier to give to a cat because I have to make sure that I say, "does it come in pill form?" or I will always get a default liquid. I don't see why, though. Pills are so much quicker and simpler and less stress all around.
They gave me liquid antibiotics for Pippin after his surgery, and I had to go back and get it in pill form because neither of us could handle it. So honestly I was a little nervous about this antiparasitical in liquid form for Colby and Thimble, but it seems to be going much better this time.
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| On Saturday. No, they aren't hiding from me. I opened the drawer to put laundry away and they expressed a desire to explore it. |
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