Dogs are pretty easy to give medications to; they will usually gulp down anything tucked into a delicious treat without too much fuss. But cats are pickier, and it’s harder to get them to take medications. Their taste buds are a little more delicate. Hiding ground up pills in their favorite treats can backfire after a while so it is important to try a lot of different tasty treats to see what will work and switch when one treat stops working.
Giving pills with a pill shooter and liquid meds with a syringe can be tricky too. You may find yourself resorting to wrapping your cat up in a blanket or towel and hold them down on a table, grabbing them by the head or the scruff of the neck and sticking the syringe into the side of their mouth to pump them full of meds.
Not a pleasant experience for human or cat. Often you end up with more meds on the table than in the cat. So, if possible, figure out what treats your cat likes that you can hide medications in or find a way to make a game of it with a special toy to distract them from the pill situation.
One way to make sure the cat will get all the meds in is to make sure she is hungry enough to eat a little treat before breakfast and dinner. This might mean taking the kibble away and stop free feeding if you are used to leaving out a bowl of kibble during the day.
Once the cat is hungry enough, she is more likely to eat a bit of her favorite food with the meds mixed in, especially if she knows she will get more food once she has eaten the little bit with the meds in it. Another good way to get meds in is to see if your vet has liquid forms that are easy to mix with wet food.
I recently did a ten-day overnight cat sit with a delightful older cat who was 11 years old. Taylor was very used to taking his meds in cat food. I would grind his quarter of a pill and add his fish oil and other supplements to a tablespoon of his favorite food. Once he had downed that he was used to stepping aside to let me fill his dish with the rest of the delicious salmon flavored food. So, there was no chasing or forcing him to take his meds. But Taylor was an exceptionally reasonable cat.
If your cat has a condition where he needs to take medicine on a daily basis limiting feeding times to twice a day might help. You may need to keep trying different treats to find something that’s palatable and pleasant so you don’t end up having to hold your cat still and force medicine into him. Don’t be discouraged if one type of food doesn’t work. Keep trying different things until you find something that adequately masks the bitter taste of the medicine.