Nov 10th, 2024

Author: donich_admin

Purrito

For anyone who doesn’t know what a “purrito” is, it is something which happens to very naughty cats who won’t take their medicine.

Saphy has a urinary infection, and yesterday R had to take her to the vet in Dunoon. She was not good on the way there or the way back, or when we tried to give her the liquid antibiotic the vet prescribed after we got her home. After several attempts at getting the syringe into her mouth, R finally managed to squirt most of it in. As he did so, Saphy gave a jump and with the strength born of desperation, sprang out of my grip, scratching me on both hands and knocking the remainder of the bottle of antibiotic all over the floor and all over R’s groin (it was a milky white colour which rather had the appearance of him having had an involuntary emission). Then Saphy shot down the hall, frothing at the mouth and vomiting periodically. So that was it for the liquid form.
Today, back to the vet, this time for a injection followed by tablets. We went to give her one, and I will say, I have had many cats over the years, and many have been quite difficult to give tablets to, but none of them came in any way close to Saphy for sheer tenacity in refusing to swallow the (tiny and apparently “palatable”) tablet. We put it in, she spat it out. We put it in and held her mouth closed. She waited until we let go and then spat it out. We put it in, held her mouth closed and rubbed under her chin. She waited until we stopped and spat it out. You get the picture – and during this process she bit me several times quite hard.

So in the end we restored to the “purrito”. Purr for cat, and it is the shape of a burrito. Basically you wrap the cat up tightly and comprehensively in a bath towel so that it can’t struggle or claw. It can still bite, but any cat with any sense gives up at this point. Saphy had one more bite at R and then swallowed the tablet (or we think so anyway). This was not fun for any of the three of us.