Can I crush pills?

My cat was prescribed an antibiotic for an eye infection and we're having a heck of a time trying to get them into her. They're in pill form, which is supposedly chicken flavor, but she's not interested. Here's what we've tried:

* I splurged on pill pockets, but I don't think she likes the texture. She'll lick them, then pick them up in her mouth and spit it back out.

* I tried disguising them in cheese....no such luck.

* We hate pilling her, because it's a pain and she's really good at forcing the pill back out of her mouth (I did get one to go down this morning though). I have a piller.

* We tried disguising the pill in wet food....she ate all the wet food and ignored the pill.

I'm starting to think I need to try crushing the pill into wet food or tuna. However, I thought heard somewhere that some pills lose their effectiveness once they're crushed.

Anyone have any ideas? Could I crush them?

I'm no expert, but that's what we've done sometimes. Crush it, then mix it up in some nice smelly wet food.

I work in a hospital and at times there is a need to crush all pills, and open up capsules to get the powder out too.

Chynna hates pills too. I can get her mouth open and I can get the pill inside. the challenge is getting her mouth closed and kept closed before she gets a chance to spit it out.

Before her dental surgery I had to give her Cipro pills. What a chore that was. Took 15 minutes to get each pill into her, and she started to run when she saw me coming toward her

She also needs blood pressure medication. I give 1/4 of a pill so it's small. I wasn't able to get her to swallow it whole, so I dissolved it in about 1 tablespoon of tuna juice in the centre of a saucer and gave it a stir. She usually drank it right up, but it had to have a good amount of tuna juice to disguise the flavour. However, antibiotics are much larger and way more bitter, so I doubt even a can of tuna juice per pill will disguise the taste enough for your kitty to drink it.

If your kitty likes vanilla ice cream, you can try mixing it with some ice cream.

If you have someone with you, it's easier to give a cat a pill with help from someone else. One holds the kitty in a towel, or firmly so that it can't scratch. The other opens the mouth and drops in the pill and quickly closes it and holds it shut while stroking the front of the neck.

You can ask your vet about SQ injections for the antibiotic. They are much easier to give than pills. I made a special request for injectable antibiotic after Chynna's surgery because of my difficulty getting her to take pills and the fact her mouth was going to be very sore afterwards and the last thing she needed me to be doing was prying her mouth open and me shoving my fingers inside to hold her tongue etc etc etc.

I had to give my foster kitty antibiotics and there was no way he was letting me near his mouth so I cut the pills into roughly 1/4's and stirred them into canned food. (The pills were about the size of baby asprin.) He generally ate the pieces no problem, they were so small, but if there was any pieces left that he ate around I would just dissolve them into the wet food--it helped that it was also slightly heated and I added extra water. Good luck!

I use Liquid Antibiotics instead of Pills. Workd better for me. Coco kept spitting Pred Pills out when i had thought she swallowed them.

What kind of antibiotics are they?

Originally Posted by cloud_shade

What kind of antibiotics are they?

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They're Baytril tablets

Originally Posted by mews2much

I use Liquid Antibiotics instead of Pills. Workd better for me. Coco kept spitting Pred Pills out when i had thought she swallowed them.

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Yeah, we've given Spot liquid antibiotics in the past....she spits the liquid out, and DH and I end up covered in liquid antibiotic

You have it hard both ways. Maybe try the antibiotic Shot then.

http://www.petplace.com/drug-library...ril/page1.aspx

It should be crushable (since it's flavored, it's probably designed to be chewable). You may also want to ask about the injectable, particularly if you are unable to get the medication in any other way. I personally choose to pill my cats--I hold them firmly so they have no other choice, and then I hold their muzzle firmly but gently closed until they lick their nose--then I know they have probably swallowed. I always follow any pill with food and/or water so that the pill gets into the stomach and doesn't get stuck in the esophagus.

Ask your vet if that particular pill can be crushed and put in food. If not, maybe there's an alternative that can be.

The only way I can get medicine into my cats is by crushing it and putting it into something they really like (and smelly enough to disguise any smell).

Good luck!