The little (big) guy is sick :(. He's been sneezing and we thought it was just allergies, but when his sneezes started, ah, producing I thought it was probably a good idea to take him in. Of course I didn't decide this until later in the afternoon, but luckily the vet who is literally a block away from us had an immediate opening "if we can bring him in in the next half hour." I left to have dinner with my friend Cari in Pasadena so the task of the vet visit fell to Kevin.
Poor Digory, according to Kevin he was quite possibly more of a vet wimp than Scout--and that's saying a lot. Anyway, the guy has kennel cough, which is common and easily treated by antibiotics. Of course, as anyone with an animal can tell you, administering said antibiotics is far less than "easy." For the uninitiated, you have to follow these steps:
1) Attempt to restrain dog by holding collar
2) dog gets the idea of what you're about to do and starts struggling and whining like you were going to pull a paw off
3) restrain the dog with one hand and grab the snout with the other
4) pry open the snout
5) grow a third hand
6) with said third hand, shove pill as far back into the squirming mouth as possible
7) hold snout shut while stroking throat to encourage swallowing
8) watch carefully. If the dog licks his nose, he has swallowed the pill. If not, pick soggy, dissolving pill off of the floor and start again at step 1.
9) give dog a treat for taking the pill.
10) watch dog slink away and hide from you, eyeing you suspiciously, until he forgets what you've done to him.
Digory also got an antibiotic shot from the vet, which solicited a yelp. Unfortunately kennel cough is highly contagious, so the vet said to separate Digory and Scout. Kevin told him that they'd been together for 5 days now, so it's too late for that. We'll just have to hope for the best. Scout has had a kennel cough vaccine, but like the flu vaccine, that only covers certain strands of the illness and it's entirely possible that Digory has one that isn't covered. Hopefully Scout won't get it too, or we'll have to shove pills down her throat just as described above.
Posted by Shelby at February 3, 2005 10:53 PMStep 5! Dammit, why didn't I think of that?
Posted by: staz at February 4, 2005 11:37 AMIt is quite a challenge to feed a cat a pill, too. Oddly enough, I found it easier to give them to the larger of the two cats. I can wrap myself around him, squeeze at the corners of his mouth, and get the pill down. The smaller cat is too small for this, so I basically just have to hope my aim is good.
Posted by: Erik at February 4, 2005 02:21 PMGet well Digory!
Why don't they flavor dog and cat medications with meat?
It wouldn't matter if the pill had the greatest flavor in the world. The dog or cat would *know* and eat around it. :)
Posted by: Erik at February 6, 2005 06:37 AM