To pill a cat

So!  In preparation for his upcoming dental surgery, the vet put Tinks on antibiotics. 

Antibiotic capsules.

As I have probably said here before, Tinks is not a very ... handle-able cat.  While I love him dearly, the combination of his Siamese quirkiness, his Maine Coon strength, and his feral beginnings make for a cat that does exactly what he wants to, and nothing more.  Getting him into a carrier for a trip to the vet's is an experience.  I actually had to cancel one appointment this week and reschedule because Tinks would not cooperate and I didn't feel like losing an arm.  Pilling him?  Well ...

While I am very good at pilling cats thanks to years of unfortunate experience, and have a patented (not really) method for getting pills down the throats of uncooperative cats, I knew that Tinks was going to be a problem.  For one thing, I knew that once the first couple of pillings went down, he would just start avoiding me. That has been a recurrent problem with all of my cats.

Nothing says rejection like having a cat flee from a room in terror when you enter it.

"They're capsules!" the vet said.  "Just break them apart and sprinkle the insides on his food!"

Yeah.

The problem with THAT is, the medicine is nasty-flavored.  Making anything it is mixed into similarly nasty-flavored.  Take a cat who is not really food-motivated to begin with, like Tinks, and mixing the meds into food is not gonna work.  The ONLY food that Tinks will beg for, in fact, besides deli ham and chicken (which the medicine sprinkles will not stick to), is

wait a minute.

Tuna.  Tinks LOVES tuna juice.  That stuff that comes out of the can when you drain it to make a sandwich.  And tuna is nothing if not strong-flavored.  Maybe ... if I mixed the meds with some tuna juice ...

IT WORRRRRRRKKKKKS! 

Now when it's dinner time, I just get everybody's food bowls ready, mix up a separate wee bowl of tuna and meds, and give that to Tinks first, before his regular food.  He BEGS for it.  He BEGS for his meds.

All these years, and I've finally discovered an absolute, sure-fire, easy-peasy way to give a cat his meds.

Thank you, tuna!