How to give your cat medication

How to tablet a cat

We’re going to show you how to tablet a cat. So here we’ve got worming treatment. Most worming treatment, if not all, will have a weight range on it. So it tells you what range of weight of cat is appropriate for that tablet size. So in this situation, it’s a four to eight kilo weight range, and we have an almost six kilo cat, so nice and comfortably within that weight range. If you’re unsure, just consult your vet or you can have a chat with the vets on VetChat, and they’ll be able to give you some advice about, particularly if they’re on the border and you’re not sure whether to go up or down, they’ll be able to advise you based on your pet and the specific medication you’re using. Here we have some cat scales. I think they’re actually baby scales. So if you do happen to have those at home, you’re more than welcome to use those to weigh your own animal.

All vet practices will also have suitable scales, and they’ll be able to let you know the last weight that your pet was at to get a good idea. Alternatively, you can weigh yourself with and without your cat in your arms at home and subtract the difference to be able to work out the weight of your animal for giving the worming treatment, if that’s what you’re using. Obviously there’s lots of other tablets out there that you may be advised to give based on vet advice. This is generally, this video is more for just all purpose medications, so things like your worming treatment that’s over the counter. So to tablet your animal, you may need an assistant. I’ve got a really tolerant cat here. So this is Tofu. She’s very tolerant, she’s very patient and very obliging and still, so I shouldn’t need an assistant in this case, but I would have the cat facing away from me.

I’d use my dominant hand. So I’m right-handed, so I’m using that hand to hold the tablet. I’m using my left hand to hold the cat’s head. So in this case, I’m going to grab just behind the canines on Tofu, I’m going to lift the head and tilt the head back, drop the tablet to the back of the throat. I wouldn’t stick my fingers into the cat’s mouth. And then hold the mouth closed until the cat swallows. She’s been really obliging. She’s swallowed straight away. Not all cats will be that good. Little tips we can use is to stroke the throat. That can sometimes stimulate them to swallow. We can also gently blow onto the cat’s face and the cat’s nose, which just shocks them into swallowing. So it’s not mean, it’s not cruel to do that, it’s just giving them a little bit of a, ooh, what was that? They swallow without thinking, tablet’s gone, job done. You can also use a syringe of water and just gently squirt that onto the back of the tongue to make them