How to Get Your Cat to Take a Tablet

Cats are gorgeous creatures, each and every one of them boasts their own unique personalities and character traits. If you share a home with a pussy cat, you can be sure they are the boss of their environment. Our feline friends soon let us know when they are hungry, when they would like a cuddle and when they want to be left alone so they can snooze a few hours away.

Sadly, like all living things, cats too can get ill at some point in their lives and would therefore need to be taken to the vet. More often than not this involves them being given some sort of treatment followed by a course of antibiotics or other medication which means owners having to give their pets some pills which is not always that easy to do. It often requires a lot of patience and quite a bit of inventive thinking.

Getting cats to swallow a pill can be challenging, Not only do you have to make sure they swallow their medication but you also need to make sure you don't get bitten or scratched in the process! Some treatments are ongoing which means cat owners have to give their pets tablets every day. Hiding the whole tablet is some wet food sounds easy but in truth, this is not as easily done and all too often a cat finds it hard to swallow the food and the tablet all in one go.

Crushing the Tablet

Although it's pretty easy to crush any tablets up so you can add them to your pet's food may also sound like a good idea, a cat sniffs out the medication and turns up their noses refusing to touch the food. Not only does this turn out to be a waste of cat food, but of a tablet too! This is why it's a very good idea to crush a little bit of the pill up first and add it to a small amount of food to see if you cat will indeed eat any of it.

Another trick is to miss out giving your cat a meal so that you know your little feline friend will be hungrier than usual because they may decide to eat the food even though it has an unusual smell and taste to it. Making sure a cat gets their medicine often means having to experiment quite a bit.

Using Fresh Food Containing a Crushed Tablet

Some cat owners find that the best way to get their pets to take their medicine is to cook up some fresh food and then add the crush tablet to it. Again, it's worth adding just a little of the medication to a small amount of food first to "test the water". If your cat is particularly fond of cooked chicken you should feed them a nice cool plate of chicken that's been cut into small pieces so they can easily swallow it. It the chicken is really tasty it will help disguise the smell and the taste of the tablet! You should always add the crushed tablet to the food at the last minute making sure you mix it in well.

Some Cats Prefer Fresh Fish

If your cat prefers fish to chicken, you can feed them raw fish and add the crushed tablet to it. However, you need to make sure the fish you offer your cat is the sort they like because cats are incredibly fussy eaters with some liking white fish, others prefer prawns and some refuse to even look at oily fish! You need to make sure there are no bones in the fish because these could get stuck in your pet's throat. Again you also need to cut the fish up into small pieces so the food is easier for your cat to swallow and always add the crushed tablet last thing making sure it is well mixed in.

However, some cats will only eat cooked fish which means you need to wait for the food to cool down before adding the crushed tablet to it. Once the fish is cold enough you can then feed it to your cat making sure they eat it all so you know they've ingested the whole tablet.

The thing about warming food up is that hotter food always smells stronger which means it's easier to disguise the smell and the taste of a tablet. However, you should always wait for any fresh food to have cooled down to room temperature before adding the crushed tablet to it otherwise you might end up changing the tablets make-up which means it might not be quite so effective. The other problem being that if you heat up the medication, it could alter the active ingredients which could then make them toxic to a cat.

Conclusion

Getting a cat to swallow a pill can be quite challenging which means you need to get creative. There are devices you can use, but you may need two people even when you use these which is not always an option. You need to show a lot of patience and do a little experimenting to find out which method is the easiest but with a little trial and error, most owners find that eventually they do get their cats to swallow their tablets. However, if it proves impossible, then you should discuss the problem with your vet who may come up with an alternative.