How Not to Pill a Persian

It’s late. I have just survived a marathon late-night pill session with the funny little Bella, as we have named our silver Persian foster kitty. Bella needs an appetite stimulating pill three times per day, and we also feed her a syringe of vitamins twice per day. Upon closer look, I have changed my initial assessment of little Bella. It would seem that Bella has been mistreated. She is incredibly sweet, loves to be petted, and purrs contentedly, but she does not like to be picked up. She doesn’t trust humans further than she can throw them (and being that she only stands ten inches high, that’s not far). As long as she is stretched out on the floor, you are free to pamper and spoil her as much as you wish, and she will purr obligingly, but don’t try to pick her up.

Bella is a funnysad looking little creature. Her face and head are super fluffy, Persian-style (like the toilet paper commercial kittens). Her tail and legs, also incredibly fluffy. Bella, however, has had a major haircut on her body. So the hair on her body is relatively short, while the rest is super-fluff. She sadly has all kinds of uncomfortable mats and tangles which we are working on (and her body must have been fairly severely matted for them to have clipped her), and the vets have shaved around her throat right to the pink – it almost looks like she had a too-tight collar which caused chafing or something. Yes, she is a bit of a scruff-meister, but each time I see her I laugh out loud at her sky-high “cute factor”. She is incredibly cute.

Anyways, the point of my story. She is a bit of a tough customer when it comes to “pilling” as it is called. Normally when you pill a cat, you secure the cat in your lap, gently squeeze their jaw joint to open their mouth, and then place the pill at the back of their tongue and gently close their mouth. Well, Bella is a much more skilled kitty than most (not that it’s ever a terribly easy task to shove medicine down a cat’s throat). I think Bella was a member of the Special Forces, because she is a wily little critter. She also knows the trick of hiding the poison under your tongue until your captor turns her back, and then spitting it out. Ya.

For starters, it is nearly impossible to get anywhere near the back of Bella’s tongue to place the pill. I put her in my lap, facing me (taking my life in my hands, I know). I swear to you, she looked me dead in the eye, and firmly closed her mouth. I tried to find that sweet spot, right at the jaw joint that makes them open their mouth involuntarily, but being a Persian her head is a different shape and I can’t find it. Her jaw is more square than triangle like other breeds, and I couldn’t for the life of me get her to open.

So then I tried sticking my finger in her mouth. Dangerous, I know. I once had a black bruise on my fingernail for months from an orange guy we called Thor and Thunderhead (Thunder for short) because of the freakishly giant size of his head. He wasn’t eating and was creeping steadily towards the brink. I spent half of a Saturday afternoon with him trying to coax him to eat. I finally resorted to force-feeding him kibble. He was adamant that he was not hungry and snapped his jaw shut with the sheer force of a nail gun on my thumb. I swear to you, I have hit my thumb with a hammer before and it didn’t come close to the searing pain of that perfectly aimed feline incisor punching easily through my thumbnail into the flesh below. Yes. I did cry a little.

Anyways, finding Bella’s little mouth in all that fluff wasn’t easy. Tickling her lips didn’t work. Touching her nose didn’t work (often touching their noses makes them lick it, and I thought I could superstealth in during a nose lick…) Pressing on her little teeth didn’t work. The best I could do was to give her some kibble, and then when she delicately licked her lips after, I’d try to bust in with a finger and then slide the pill in with the other hand. This was all well and good until she promptly projectiled it right back at me. I had it in her mouth four times, only to have it spit out with increased vigour each time. On the fifth time I held her mouth closed after (I know, it sounds sad. It was.) and after waiting with held breath for a second afterwards, I thought we had it. I rejoiced, I petted her, I picked her up, we celebrated, and then a good 20 seconds later, thwop! Out she spats it, onto the floor. My spirit was broken.

It was an epic battle of wills, and I am stubborn. Oh yes, I am a stubborn lass. My stubburnity was feeble and amateurish however, compared to the unbreakable Bella. I wish I could tell you the triumphant end to this story, but the triumph was all hers. He of Larger Hands and More Patience (holhamp) was sound asleep by the time I admitted defeat and capitulated*, and understandably holhamp could not be coaxed out of the warm bed in the middle of the night to launch his own tiny battle with the undefeatable Bella, so with tears in my eyes I retire for the night as a failure.**

* word used with full permission and release by the hilarious SO.

** holhamp was able to pill her twice today (the following day), so I feel better. I give her the syringe of vitamins, because I am handy with the syringe (after Sage and Piper, kittens who almost starved to death). It smells like gravy, but she still spats it at me… The lovely little beast will get healthy whether she wants to or not I tell you!

*** Other than that, we get along famously. She is unbelievably sweet and cute, and we love her to death after only 24 hours. And in spite of the fact that we accost her 5 times per day for meds, she still rubs up against us and seems to love us back.