On vets and taking medicines

One word on this topic: UGGHH!

Going to the vet is bad news. It all begins with the car ride there. I hate going out in the car. It entails being put into my pet carrier and not understanding why trees and buildings which don't normally move on their own start moving.

And then I end up in this strange place with all its disgusting smells and The Vet who would most certainly cause me pain or panic - often both.

Although I was an indoor cat while living with my human and therefore not likely to catch unusual illnesses, she brought me for my shots every year, around July, if I remember right. Her reason: I needed the resistence against the bugs lurking at the Pet Hotel, where she would board me once or twice a year when she and her husband took off on holiday. [Life at the Pet Hotel: That's for another post!]

When panic overcame me at the vet's, I never shrank back and went on the defensive. Sweet ol' me became aggressive instead. At the vet's clinic, I would hiss and spit and raise my hackles - yes, even at my human, when all logic told me it was just her, trying to calm me down. I'm a regular Jekyll and Hyde, I am.

The vet eventually gave up examining me. I dunno why Dr N didn't have one of those fang-proof gloves she could wear when lifting me out of my carrier. She just remarked to my human that "your cat looks kinda healthy" [while yours truly yowled and hissed away] without carrying or palpating me.

So I've not been "felt up" by a vet for a while now. Goodness knows what growths I could be nursing that would have been picked up in such a manual examination.

For the past few visits, I just sat tight in my carrier while the vet administered the jab to the back of my neck through the little trap door at the top of the carrier.

I don't even want to think of that one time she did carry me out, after telling my human that "it would be best" for her to leave the room for a bit. Just picture this: Her clinic, slightly larger than a bathroom in a HDB flat, with sliding doors on both sides closed off, and me vs. her in a face-off.

It was just me hissing and her going "nice cat, nice Nookie..." in that small space for an interminable length of time before she overpowered me - knocking over some steel kidney bowls in the process - and got me on that examining table, gave me my shot and stuffed me back in my carrier before I could rattle her even more. Harharharharh

Taking medicines: I'm like your average cat - a tough customer when it comes to taking medicines. I'm sure my human hates it as much as I do.

She can't decide which is worse - administering liquid medicine with a syringe and then having to wipe up the mess all over the floor, or forcing me to swallow a pill which slowly disintegrates from repeated handling and my saliva. Either way, she has to steel herself for some scratches down her forearms. Harhararharh

Credit to her, she's tried other tricks. She once pulverised the tablet, mixed it up with honey and smeared it all over my paws - which I was then compelled to lick to get them clean. The downside here was that she couldn't be sure I was taking in the full dosage.

Her other trick (which didn't work): Mixing pulverised tablet or liquid medicine in my favourite wet food. One sniff told me it was "off". What did she take me for - STOOOPID?

The few times she succeeded, it was plain awful. I'd start drooling big time, I'd gag and retch and let out a plaintive yowl to win some sympathy...

There was an old email joke circulating about the difference between feeding medicine to dogs and cats. For us cats, it's a complicated, multi-step process which begins with "Remove tablet from foil pack." Then it goes on to "Open cat's mouth by squeezing gently on jaw", to "Put pill on back of tongue, hold jaw shut and stroke throat to stimulate the swallow reflex".

The next step: "Retrieve pill from corner of kitchen floor. Hold down cat with old towel and re-insert pill at back of mouth..." and so on and so forth, the later steps even including "Summon husband to help with holding down the *&%# cat".

For dogs - those silly, fawning things - feeding them a pill is a one step process: "Wrap pill in bacon and make him beg for it." HAHRHARHARARHARHAHWOWWHWHARHAR!!