Having trouble medicating

[Cyber-Wizard]

Well, we had a partial success. I tried just holding her on the floor of her cage as well as wrapping her in a towel. Neither worked particularly well. Even with her butt in the crook of my arm, she managed to kick out no matter how tightly I wrapped her. We had decent success when her butt was in the corner of her cage. We managed to get two meds into her in that position before she leaped over my shoulder, across my back, and out into the room. The whole process only took about 45 minutes with calming her down after each escape.:rollseyes

We managed to get almost all of her meds except the dewormer and the arthritis med. Hardly a success but we did much better than on any previous attempt. If nothing else we got all of the pain meds into her.

It was interesting that, at one point she decided to take the high road to escape. Her cage is against a wall and beside a large piece of furniture. We take the cage portion off and sit it beside the base while we work on giving her meds from the one open side. Against the back wall behind the cage/base is a piece of cardboard to prevent any litterbox overspray from reaching the wall. (This hasn't been a problem, just planning ahead). She stood on her hind legs and decided that the best way to escape was to jump over the cardboard. She glanced off of the wall with a surprised look on her face. I guess her depth perception isn't so good when in flight mode.

She's out in the kitchen now sulking and throwing our shoes around.

 

[Zeroshero]

Is there a room with a door you can close so she can't get away? I think the trick is to get the towel a little more snug around their neck and chest without choking her. You have to stop the forward movement (flight response).

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

No, the ground floor of the house is wide open. I snugged the towel up around her shoulders, put my hands around her chest with her front legs between my fingers. It seemed pretty likely that she wouldn't lunge forward but she managed to do it anyway. she's like an eel when she really wants to get away.

 

[curiouscarrot]

No, the ground floor of the house is wide open.

Maybe confine her to a pen during her treatment?

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

She has a 3'x3'x3' cage that has a plastic bottom. We lift the cage part off and leave her in the bottom. With the cage placed beside the bottom it's blocked in on all three sides leaving the front space for us to reach into. It seemed feasible...

As I suspected, we just need practice. We just gave her the evening dose of meds without too much trouble. She still fights like a demon, but the secret seems to be to get her facing into a corner with a hand or two on her butt, then it's actually not too hard to get the meds into her even without a towel. It's equally possible that she's just tired of fighting with us and takes the meds but either way, it's technically a win.

When we first started trying to get the meds into her tonight, she suddenly peed on the floor of the cage. She'd been on the top shelf of her cage all day snoozing and we remove her litterbox and dishes when we get the meds out so it's reasonable that she might just have had to pee but it seems a little odd.

I've put her water bottle on the top shelf along with a bit of hay and her litterbox, hay, pellets, and water dish are on the bottom floor of the cage. I figure that way she can snack and drink no matter where she sits. She still hasn't touched her pellets but she's eating plenty of hay and is happy to eat the parsley we've been giving her in the morning and evening. I haven't seen any significant improvement in activity levels since she came home but she's not getting any worse and she's fiesty and active when she has to be.

 

[curiouscarrot]

Yay! You can't really blame her for not liking it. She's just used to running around having a good time and suddenly she's being grabbed and forcefed yucky stuff. I hope she continues to improve and has decided permanently that the meds are a necessary evil and not worth fighting about.

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

Right now she's sitting on the floor outside her cage sulking. She seems to need an hour or so of alone time to recover from being manhandled. She's shifting around a little bit like she might be uncomfortable but has been sitting up and grooming still. She hasn't done much else but lay stretched out since she came home. I'm hoping that the meds will have her up and about again.

 

[sgbinky]

Sounded like she is doing well on her own now..

 

[Cyber-Wizard]

A little too well in fact...

We've been medicating her in the bottom of her cage as I've mentioned. Instead of her learning that the medication process isn't so bad, what she's taken away from this is that her cage isn't such a great place, doubly so for the bottom. She stays on her top shelf as she knows that we can't lift the cage off with her on the bottom.

After she's been medicated we generally let her roam around to calm down. Now she's decided that flopping in the middle of the living room is as homey as she needs to be and won't go near her cage again. I managed to lure her back in last night with some greens but I suspect she'll get more headstrong as she feels better. She spent all last night wandering around the house tearing strips off of books and plucking at wires, boxes, shoes, etc. Stuff she hasn't done in a long time. It was like she was doing anything she could both to get back at us as well as avoid going into her house.

She's improved significantly in the last 24 hours and is now fighting harder than ever. We had to give up on this morning's dose after she leaped 2-1/2 feet straight up to go over the top of her cage to get away from the syringe. She's supposed to have another 10 days of meds and I don't see how that's gonna happen.

One strange thing is that she's not eating pellets. She'll eat hay and greens all day long but won't touch pellets or the little pieces of Alfalfa Slims I was giving her as a post-medication treat. She takes a slight nibble at the Slims but then puts them down and won't touch them again. It's as though she's steering clear of anything crunchy. I'm wondering if we did something to her lips/cheeks/tongue when trying to get the syringe in her mouth.