Friday, July 18, 2008

How to (not) medicate a cat

Our cat Roxy is now only getting Prednisone once a day. Nobody is happier about that than we are. That's because she's on to us now and knows that we usually give her the medicine around the same time in the morning. That turns out to be the time when she becomes Houdini and disappears mysteriously. This morning was the hardest one ever. As if the heat and humidity weren't enough to wipe us out, we had to chase Roxy all over the house. First, she crawled under the couch and I grabbed a broom to flush her out of there. Unfortunately, she ran under our bed next. I brought her syringe in and closed the door. We had her trapped, but how to coax her out from under the bed? The broom came to the rescue again. Finally, she came out and a very exhausted "mother" cradled her in her arms while my husband administered the medicine. We are going to have to alter our time schedule a bit because we are too predictable. I can understand why she doesn't want to swallow cherry-flavored medicine (it's made for children), but take it she must. She is eating much better now but still looks like a feather-weight. I have bought some prescription dry food for her and am anxious to see if she eats it. Little Miss Finicky won't just eat any old food, you know.
On the gardening front, we are having hits and misses this year. Because of the wet, cold spring, only two of the flowers we started in the house actually survived. Then we went out and bought a pot with three sunflowers for our flower island. The next morning, almost all its leaves were eaten. We suspect a rabbit as the culprit. So, now we have to buy rabbit-prove plants. Sunflowers seem to be particularly tasty since we are having bad luck planting them. Too bad, because we really love them. Our native plants are faring better this year. Last week, I photographed a honey bee on a common milkweed. Now the milkweed stopped blooming, but the purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans bloom now. I haven't seen any monarchs yet and am wondering what happened to them. The insects sure like our little garden and it's always buzzing until late in the evening. And, best of all: we don't have to water our native garden since they're all perennials.

1 comment:

Annette said...

Oh, that cherry-flavored stuff is the absolute worst. Have you tried plying her with treats after dosing her? It seems to make them hate us less for torturing them.

If you're looking for cat food that Roxy will eat, try Googling Tiki Cat. They make a line of wild-caught seafood that my Sammie loved and ate until her oral cancer got so bad she couldn't eat anything.

For less expensive food, Fancy Feast Gourmet is Skye's food of choice.

Good luck!