Diane - heart murmurs and pilling

[Nina]

Hi Diane, I would get another vet to confirm that "heart murmur" before you fret about it.  From what you describe, I'm betting it's not as big a concern as you might fear.  Even if she does have a slight murmur, (I'm hoping she doesn't), it's not that uncommon a condition.  Get backup on this possibility before you worry about it too much. Missy sounds like a real trial to pill.  Did you try my "trick" with using small amounts of pill pocket to hide her pills in a tiny bit of yummy food?  That's the easiest way to pill someone that is still interested in eating.  Don't just offer her the pill in the pill pocket.  (My cats looked at me like I'd offered them pencil erasers when I did that).  If you can't get my trick to work, then for Heaven's sake, wrap that girl in a towel before you try pilling her.  If she's wrapped up like a little mummy, with only her head poking out, then she can't scratch you on "dismount".  It will also keep her calmer because she'll soon see that struggling does her no good.  You can even do this without a helper.  Put her in the middle of a laid out towel, hold her in place by gently scruffing her and wrap one end around her, tuck, and then tuck the other, (nice and snug), tuck the end of the towel under her butt.  If you do this on the floor, you can "mount" her, putting her between your legs with her head in between your knees, (keep your feet together so she can't squirm away backwards).  Or if she's on a counter, you can put your left arm around her to hold her in place, scruff her gently and pill her with your right.  Practice makes perfect!  I remember someone else suggesting the pill popper.  Have you ordered one yet?  Please do.  That will save your hands and help you get the pill down faster and also help in getting it close enough to the back of her throat to go down the first time.  Just put the end of the pill popper close to the back of her throat and plunge gently.  Try not to suppress her tongue, or you'll make her gag.  Follow it with a few ccs of water or tuna water to make sure she swallows it all the way down.  I used to give the oral interferon after pilling.  If she's not too stressed out, you can offer her something yummy to eat as a thank you after you're done.  When I was pilling Gracie on a regular basis, her "thank you treat" was to get to go outside for a supervised play session.  I'd release her and she'd run to the back door and wait for me. Nina Rosenfeldt, Diane wrote: The heart murmur is something new as far as we know.  The vet who looked at her (not her regular, when you keep the hours I do you pretty much need to take whoever has the late shift that day) noticed it, said it was very slight, and could even have been something else like a breathing noise.  Missy is murder to pill, she's chomped on me a number of times.  She's got the jaw muscles of a Great White, and the tongue dexterity of, er, Monica Lewinsky (sorry) so often what goes in comes flipping out unless you can poke it way far back.  Hence most of the chomping is done with her molars rather than those sharp canines, and the skin isn't broken, but it still hurts.  Then, when we actually jointly pill her, there's the dismount, in which she disgustedly bolts away from the caretaker who's doing the holding-down, usually me, leaving large angry scratches all over my chest with her sharp back toes.  I'm grateful that I seldom have to strip for doctor appointments....   The only other bites I ever really got were from our Tribble, who's a psycho, and that was years ago (he tries every day, but we know how to stay away from his teeth), and then from (Wini)Fred, our quasi-feral-turned-scritching-junkie, when we first got her.  This was my first exposure to a hard stray, I was doing everything wrong.  She allowed me to pet her, looming over her as she hid behind a couch, for 20 minutes, then deservedly chomped.  She never did again, but of course I got infected and had to go to prompt care and get a big rumpful of Ro-whatsis and 10 days worth of Augmentum.  Plus the prompt care practitioner told me I HAD to report the bite, since we'd only had the cat a few days and she hadn't had shots yet.  The very bored cop who turned up to follow up really wasn't aware of me HAVING to report it, and said that as long as the cat was in our place to observe, he didn't even write it up.    Diane R.