Pill-Poppers Rule!

I know what you are thinking!

I have not suddenly become a druggie in my old age, although I must admit that there are many times when my hips ache and my shoulders don't turn and my knees whinge when I am climbing the stairs, that I can easily imagine becoming hooked on pain killers and anti-inflammatories.

But no. This has nothing to do with drugs!

Last week I decided that it was time to de-worm the animals! We try to do it every few months when I have gathered the strength needed to do battle with the lot of them.

I am sure that you have read the 'How to give a cat a pill' followed by 'How to give a dog a pill'. For those of you who have not, very briefly it goes something like this:

First catch the cat. Wrap it in a blanket, don gloves and goggles and tuck the blanket-covered-cat that is by now a struggling demon with claws at the ready, under one arm while with the other you try to trap the legs and with the remaining hand prise the jaws open and flick the pill to the back of the throat. Once you have released the cat, you notice that in the ensuing chaos, the cat has gone 'ptooo', spat the pill onto the floor and has sauntered away, sharpening it's claws on the couch on the way out.

Then it's the dog's turn: Grab the pill, wrap it in a piece of bacon/cheese/ham/peanut butter smeared bread/ sausage/liver paste and simply chuck it in the direction of the dog who gobbles it down and sits grinning at you.

Whoever wrote this is lying.



Yesterday I went to the vet and bought the pills. One large white pill for Alfie and small pinkish pills for the cats.
Home I went and without saying a word about 'vet', 'pills', 'dog', I put everything in the kitchen. I know that Alfie is a nightmare when it comes to pills, so ignore the bit about 'wrap in bacon etc and chuck at the dog'. It doesn't work.

We have tried all kinds of things from wrapping  and putting it on Rob's plate so that Alfie thinks he is eating what we are eating, to scooping out a sausage, shoving pill in and putting the sausage meat back, to a chunk of ham/boerewors and even a piece of FILLET STEAK!!!!

He will not look at it.

So yesterday we knew that it would be the grab and shove routine.

Eventually Rob and I were exhausted, Alfie was a trembling, drooling  wreck and the pill was scattered around the floor in various stages of decomposition.

And the cats? I crushed their pills between two spoons, mixed each one in a spoonful of Morris' expensive bladder food and put the bowls on the floor.............. to be ignored.

All that I had achieved was a waste of all the pills and a sachet of expensive food.

So, after my stint at the Hospice shop today, back I went to the vet to buy more pills.

Open and ready for business.

And, an amazing little gadget called a pill-popper! It looks a bit like a syringe with a rubber piece on the end that holds a pill securely. Then once the mouth is open, in goes the popper, the end is pushed and the pill is released at the back of the throat, too far to be spat out!

The pill is by now down the throat!

Within five minutes everyone was done and wondering what had happened!

Except Alfie who still managed to spit it out............

But I bought an extra half to make up for the half that ended up all over the floor.

Pill poppers rule!