Ninja Cat Pilling Techniques, by "R"

According to Wikipedia, a Ninja is described as: "a warrior specially trained in a variety of unorthodox arts of war. These include assassination, espionage, and other martial arts."

"Pilling" or rather the forcing of a small object, made up of pressed medicines and binding agents down your cat's throat, utilizes the same techniques of a skilled Ninja.

I've used my skills in espionage to sneak up on my cat in hopes of pouncing on him, tossing him into the bathroom, where I can be sure of rendering him helpless on the bathroom counter. It is then, I use my martial arts skills to twist and turn my body so I can both hold my cat's head still, open his mouth, avoid getting bit and keep him from rearing up and clawing the shit out of my hands with his front paws while I stuff the pill into his mouth.

I use the "hot potato" technique to switch from holding his mouth shut with one hand until his front paws start to scratch me. I move that hand out of the way and use the other hand to clam onto his mouth. This will force him to swallow the pill, of course.

Or not.

Ninja cat-pillers must remember never to give up and also that they must embrace unorthodox techniques to get the job done. I'm not above trying to:

1. Crush the pill, and hide it in crappy canned cat food to disguise the smell of the medicine.

2. Instead of nunchuks, use my handy-dandy "Piller" to thwart the villianous refuser-to-be-pilled by loading the pill into the rubber tip and jamming it into the cat's throat.

3.Bribing with treats. Give a treat. Give a pill. Give a treat. Ha! Doesn't work.

4. Crying. Really only makes me feel better. Cats just run when they hear loud noises.

5. "The Mummy"-wrap the cat in a towel, or heck, blanket! Wrap him up tight like a mummy with only his head sticking out. It should be esay to pill the cat, only some how he wriggles enough to get one paw full of CLAWS out of confinement and, again, claw the shit out of my hand.

6. Surprise! Wait until the cat is asleep, use your Ninja stealth to sneak up on him and get the pill into his mouth before he realizes what you're up to. Only works ONCE in a cat's life.

In the past 8 days I've had to dispense about 75 pills. During this time, I watched the Pill Master-Debbie, in action. She gave Gracie a pill with such a blasè attitude and with such a relaxed countenance that I was aghast. She showed me the ONE thing I've been missing all these years. It's not the Mummy technique or the treats. It's all in the angle, baby.

I owe you a diagram, but for now, read this...

Get the cat onto a surface where you are comfortably positioned straight above the cat. Grab the cat's head with your index finger on one hinge of the jaw and the thumb on the other side of the jaw. Wrap your hand around the cats head, sort of like a hand-shaped hat. Now pull the cats head back, which will open it's mouth about to a 45 degree angle. If you keep the cat's head UP and throat straight, you can drop the pill down the throat so fast they don't know what you did. Also a good grip on the head makes it tough for them to wriggle away.

Lastly, wear a nice leather GLOVE on the hand that goes on the head. Just in case. You can't pill quickly with a glove on, so the pill holding hand should be bare.

Last night I was able to do this a few times. Sure, the cats struggled, but it went so quickly they didn't have time to react. Afterwards, I had a Scotch.

Hey, even Ninjas need a Scotch once in awhile.