Night of the Angry Kitten

[sheepwhatsleeps]

I finally tracked down some tapeworm medicine at the Petsmart up in La Jolla, near where we used to live. I got the last bottle on their shelves. I also picked up a supply of Advantage, since tapeworm is contracted from fleas, so we need to guard against them as well to prevent re-infection, although we hadn't noticed any on the cats. After

Comments

[girloclock]

Here's a tip in case you ever need to give them pills again. We have to give Clementine a pill every day and have found that coating it in a little olive oil not only helps it slide down better, but I think she actually likes the taste of it as well. When Jason shakes the pill bottle, she actually comes running!

[sheepwhatsleeps]

Ah, that is a good tip. We will keep that in mind, although hopefully we won't have to do this again for awhile.
I just don't understand why they can't make the pills taste better. It was obvious from the cats' expressions and behaviors that they taste *awful*. With all the artificially fish-flavored treats, toys and doodads that they make for cats, you're think they'd be able to achieve something similar for the medication. I did see at one of the stores a little package of "pill poppers" or something like that, which was a little round, open ended cylinder of fish flavored material that you could pop a pill into the center for. I suspect the cats would have just eaten off the outer layer and dropped the pill out again, though.

[elchaz]

How did you know they had a tapeworm? Are there specific symptoms?

[sheepwhatsleeps]

You know they have tapeworms when little white worm-like things come squirming out of their butts. It's super gross. The worms die after a few seconds in the air, but you can occasionally find them crawling on you briefly if the cat's been sitting on you. This is how I noticed the problem. (Ew ew ew) Also, you'll see little white things, like grains of rice or seasame seeds, in the litter box and around their bed.
The cats didn't seem to notice much, except for the fact that they got real attention starved for the few days when we weren't holding them very much. Brief tapeworm infections are apparently fairly common in cats, and don't do them any real damage. The tapeworms come from fleas (fleas eat the tapeworm larvae, cats eat the fleas = cats have tapeworms), which is why you have to flea-control at the same time. The tapeworms generally don't transfer to humans-you have to be eating fleas too, and the human stomach is less hospitable to the worms in general, so it takes a lot of effort to pick it up.
Fun!

[newsgal81]

Reminds me of Thread.

[sheepwhatsleeps]

Yeah, only without the acidic burning and (hopefully) without the need to cleanse it with fire. I definitely don't think the cats would handle that well.

[riot_nrrd]

Wow. You win. I thought I had it rough when I had to give tapeworm pills to our cats, but they just dropped the uneaten pills out of their mouths, licked clean of the delicious tuna substrate. They didn't actually spit the pills *at my face*.

[sheepwhatsleeps]

Yeah, it was pretty awesome, I had no idea cats could spit things out of their mouths so forcefully. I couldn't believe how much arc and distance she got out of it. And you really expected it to be accompanied by a cartoony sound effect like "Patooie!"

[leather_lady]

I am sitting at work laughing out loud at this image. HIL-AR-IOUS! And I really feel your pain (and your kitties' too

[sheepwhatsleeps]

Amazingly enough, they didn't scratch us at all. Violet thrashed around a lot, but she didn't have her claws out. She also made all kinds of sad yowly noises while we held her, but she makes those noises all the time, including when she 1) is hungry, 2) is bored, 3) has wandered into another room and forgotten that everyone else is in the room she just left, or 4) just kinda feels like it. Aside from Violet's foaming at the mouth thing, which was her own damn fault, they haven't shown any adverse reactions to the Advantage.

[sexxyred1]

I am not wanting to jump in here, but I will and just say please read more than the Western Medicine view of Flea & Tick stuff and Vaccines. Please do it the very least amount you can. (I used to work for a holistic veterinarian, and this is a great alternative site http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com and here's a link to the flea/tick info: http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/avictim.htm) Sorry if I am out of line.

[sheepwhatsleeps]

I'm always open to alternative practices. I'm having trouble on those pages, however, determining what exactly the alternatives are. There's plenty of stuff about how dangerous and scary the OTC medications are, but I don't see any concrete suggestions on what else to do. Do you have recommendations for other ways to deal with flea infestations?

[sexxyred1]

I do, but I'm late for class right now... will email you tomorrow?

[sheepwhatsleeps]

Sounds good to me. I don't care for Advantage very much-it smells funny, it's expensive, and the cats don't like it. If there's an effective alternative, I'm willing to try.

[jazzs3quence]

if it turns out they do have fleas and you need to treat it, we found the flea mousse works really good. we fostered a totally flea-ridden kitten that got all our other cats fleas, and had to mousse them like once a week and then give them a bath in flea death shampoo every couple weeks. ultimately, after much perserverence, we prevailed over the fleas.

the other thing that helped, tho, was moving. it was right before we moved out of the appartment and fleas like to live in carpets when they jump off the cats because their fur is so toxic.

the pill thing is hard...erin's really good at that having worked at the humane society for 2 years. i let her deal with that stuff -- i could never shove a pill down our cats throats and a) not get a finger bitten off and b) have it go down. kudos for getting it!