How to give cats oral medications: liquids and tablets
Hi, I'm Haley, a registered veterinary technician with Green Valley Veterinary Care. I have Ace here with me today, and we are going to demonstrate how to give two different types of medicine. I have some liquid in a syringe, and I also have a little ball here that is covering a pill. So, I'm going to show you, if I were by myself, how to administer these medications.
Haley Force, RVT
Green Valley Veterinary Clinic
I've already got him wrapped up so that he's nice and snug and can't go anywhere. You can see how to make a perfect "purrito" here! We're going to start with the pill first. The biggest thing is that I need to control his head. So, I am going to use my thumb and my middle finger to hold his head while using my elbow to keep him close to me. And then I'm going to use my dominant hand to push down his bottom jaw here.
And then we stuck that in there, and he swallowed it on his own. Not every cat is this easy, so Ace is very good for demonstrations here. Sometimes you want to have water and a syringe afterwards to follow with, and then you will actually administer that just like we're going to administer this other liquid medication here.
We're going to keep him nice and cozy here, and then I'm just going to have my hand around his face. We're going to bring the medication in. You never want to open up the mouth and shoot it straight in the back of the throat. You want to try to give it slowly in the cheek pouch. So, on the side of his mouth here, I'm going to gently insert the syringe and then just do a little bit at a time. And as you can see, he is starting to swallow. So, then we're going to come back in and keep on going.
That is how to administer either a tablet or a liquid form of medication to a kitty cat!
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