How to give a cat medicine

Ok so it is a great internet joke. I am sure you have all seen it but in case not ... here you go

How to give a cat a pill:

Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.
Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.
Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.
Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.
Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for glueing later.
Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil, and blow down drinking straw.
Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
Retrieve cat from neighbour's shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard, and close door onto neck, to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with an elastic band.
Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of Scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply a cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.
Call fire department to retrieve the damn cat from tree across the road. Apologize to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take the last pill from foil-wrap.
Tie the little @!!@#@#$%'s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table, find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of steak filet. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.
Consume remainder of Scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and remove pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on the way home to order new table.

Well we have usually been very good at giving pills. We had one cat who had to have a pill plus 5ml of liquid paraffin every day for 12 years - no problem. We had another on thyroid medication for 2 years. Then we had a Fiki. The vet wanted him to have probiotics. It's very palatible she said. Put it on his food, she said. well we knew that wouldn't work. He is so finicky. Tried it - nope! So the other option was - as t is in a syringe dispenser - just squirt it in his mouth. Well, it is thick, brown and gloopy and Fiki was having none of it. He is a big cat and we have never wrestled with him before. He is seriously strong. And he WON! We wore quite a lot of it but what we had left I smeared over my fingers and then stuffed them in his mouth and I think he possibly ingested some of it!

Deep joy - that was dose one. We have three days of this. Consider there won't be scrapping from a girl with no fingers left.

However, no diarrhoea today so that at least is good.

I do have some new scrapping to share though from a kit due to be released tonight by Cheryl Day Designs - it is a series of circle templates and I also used her Strut Your Stuff collection. You can find her store here

It was apt to share this page as it is from the zoo - which is today's holiday journal.

today I am thankful for

two of us - I'd never even have attempted the stuff on my own
the fact I still have eight fingers, two thumbs and most of my skin!

Day 18 San Diego to Anaheim

1st November 2019

Start miles 6100

Start time 7.30

End miles 6260

End time 6.30

The one with Cats!

We were up early and I think that was in part because we wanted to get out of a depressing hotel room. The Sun was just starting to rise as we left and so I stopped to take some sunrise pictures which I think turned out better than the sunset pictures.

We had already discovered a nearby Dennys in readiness as we knew the hotel didn’t provide breakfast. It was nice to have a treat of French toast which I confess is my absolute favourite and most hotels do not have it on the menu. Because we were early, we were able to linger over breakfast and have a relaxing start to our day. Today was the day we have both been looking forward to as it involves animals. San Diego Zoo is world renowned and we had been before and absolutely loved it. We arrived before the zoo opened, but they let you go in to the entrance area where we could sit and enjoy the early morning sunshine. It was a beautiful day and boded well.

One of the things that we loved last time was the chance to see animals that you never see in the UK such as bears of all kinds and so as soon as the zoo opened we made our way over to the smallest bears of all, the koalas. In my view they are not particularly attractive bears facially, but they are so cute and furry and we were able to watch them at close quarters for a long time. One of them was sounding out and it was a most peculiar honking noise that we didn’t expect koala bears to make.

We also stopped by the enclosure for the giraffes and watch them for ages. They were very unusual giraffe As they were a completely different colour than you normally see. Instead of orange and black they were more of a grey with orange manes where you would normally see the darker.

We walked back to the entrance area and hopped on the bus to do a loop around the park which was narrated by an excellent guide who stopped whenever he saw something interesting, gave plenty of time for photographs and explained what we were looking at. We stopped for ages by the monkeys who were making the most incredible sound. The guide explained that you didn’t often hear this and that we were really lucky to get the complete show. We couldn’t help but compare it to the safari ride in the animal kingdom which appears to be designed to be deliberately bumpy so that your photographs are absolutely dreadful. We spent a fair bit of the day comparing the zoo to a Disney park as it was so incredibly quiet, a little like Disney used to be in the good old days. There were no crowds, no dashing from place to place it was just a very relaxing visit.

We wandered around a little more and then decided to take the skyway to the far part of the zoo to the polar bear area and then make our way round from there.

Before we got to the polar bears we decided to check out another animal that you do not see in UK zoos, the puma, Cougar or mountain lion. This was to be our most memorable part of the day and was absolutely incredible. As we got to the enclosure, knowing from the guided tour that the cougars were likely to be asleep in the shade during the day, one of the cougars came out of the shaded part of the enclosure and fixed their eyes firmly on us. That isn’t wishful thinking or imagination, there was no doubt that this beautiful big cat was staring straight at us. And remarkably at me as well as Nigel. The cat Proceeded to walk along the enclosure until she was directly opposite us, never taking her eyes off us and she stopped. She remained there for almost a quarter of an hour as we watched and she watched. Other people at the enclosure were commenting on how she was staring at us and were fascinated by the interaction between us and the cat. I was not the slightest bit surprised and told the other people it was because Nigel was the cat whisperer. I had seen him do it before with cats where he an affinity with cats which is incredible and this was perhaps one of the clearest demonstrations of that. As Nigel moved slightly to the left the cat followed never breaking eye contact and came right up to the enclosure to be close to him. It was really hard to tear ourselves away from this beautiful beautiful animal and as we walked away the cat followed us around her enclosure. It was an experience neither of us will ever forget.

In a bit of shock at the experience we had had we made our way round to the polar bears. The polar bear enclosure was beautiful and we were able to watch a sleepy bear for ages.

This is great for showing the size of the bears - they are seriously huge

We continued our way around the zoo – it was beautifully landscaped, the animals were well cared for and they have great enrichment programmes for them all. We stopped for a while to see the bears but they were largely hiding and so it was hard to get decent photos of them. You don't see bears in UK zoos.

The merekats are always a firm favourite and they were fun to watch.

Not many zoos in the UK have elephants and so we enjoyed watching them and one of them was being ‘trained’ by a keeper to lift up his trunk so that his mouth could be checked.

We saw camels and llamas and all kinds of deer.

The lions were awake which was amazing in the middle of the day and we enjoyed just watching them, They are not Nigel’s favourite big cat but they are one of mine. I love them.

Finally, we spent ages watching the snow leaopards before catching the flamingos as we left. It had been a great trip to a fabulous zoo. It had been warm but not humid, very quiet and totally beautiful.

We left San Diego and headed to our final stop of the holiday – our base in Anaheim for five nights. On the way we stopped for dinner at a California Pizza Kitchen in Tustin and then finally called in to my favourite ever Joann store on Baranca. I always get amazing thinsg there and this was no exception. They had all of the American Crafts and Pink Paislee papers – the really thick double sided quality papers like Paige Evans, Maggie Holmes etc as 12 sheets for $2!!!! I also had a money off coupon and I bought so much stuff for just over $40 that I said to Nigel we had better high tail it out of there as I was sure we must have stolen it!

We joined the freeway and drove to our final hotel and, as it was for 5 nights, we hoped it would be good. It wasn’t just good it was fabulous. It looked NOTHING from outside but our room – well suite – was awesome with a bedroom with 2 queens, a nice bathroom, a lounge, dining room and kitchen. Just what we needed to unwind at the end of our travels.