nothing makes you, as a pet owner, feel more like an asshole than having to give your cat medicine
there’s no good way to do it. theres no winning. you put the drops in your cat’s ear or smear flea stuff on their neck or give them a pill and you ALWAYS come out of it being the asshole. sorry that i love you, wallace! i want you to not be filled with parasites! please endure my curing slime!
This whole post is probably the best advertisement for why you should train voluntary medical behaviors with your pets long before they have health issues. If your cat is used to you fussing with their ears and eyes and has been taught that allowing it gets them super high value rewards, then when you do have to smear goop in their eyes or put drops in their ears you’re starting with something that is a normal part of their day and something they like – not with an interaction they’d already hate even before you introduced the medicine.
When I first got Aster I knew right away I wanted him to be willing to sit still for a veterinarian. My previous cats growing up had to be sedated, they were dangerous. That wasn’t going to be Aster.
So I started messing with him, just a little, every day, and rewarding him with a little treat every time. This proved very fruitful because he wound up having to go to the vet multiple times for recurring ear infections for which he had to take oral and topical meds. Every time he took his meds he got a little snack, so when it was time to dose him he didn’t fight or cry or run away, just took it and waited for the payout.
To this day he’s incredibly well behaved at the vet and gets his ears cleaned and his shots without a struggle. I may have failed to train him not to destroy blinds but at least we have this.
Downside to this: Ashiko has damn near KO’d a vet tech with affectionate head bumps.
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Thoughtfulfangirling 