Benadryl + Cat = sleep for both of us.

I swear the cat is allergic to the dog.... He's had coughing episodes since a kitten. Vet told me it was hairballs-vet is definetly wrong! Big difference between coughing from stomach and from lungs. Not to mention he's only given me a hairball present like 3 times in his life! And no amount of hairball goop helps. And when my cat does present a hairball, he makes the weirdest yowling sound that sounds like he's talking right beforehand! That's a good thing as it allows me to immediatly get him to a tiled spot versus a carpeted spot!

He sounded to me like a human with asthma/allergies. After seeing a video of a cat that was diagnosed with asthma, I realized my hairball suspicion was right-it's a different type of coughing than what my presents.

About four days ago he was keeping ME up, right after the pine pollen was really bad outside. A previous vet had told me to give the goats/dog Benadryl for allergies, start with a half dose by weight first and then move up to a full dose by weight if needed. So I decided to try it out on the cat after a quick call to another vet who ok'd it and gave me the same half dose advice.

Operation Cat Getting Pill.
It was not pretty. He's pretty laid back, but no animal likes having a pill poked down their throat. I broke a 25 mg tablet into 1/4's (he weighs about 11 lbs, so that was actually a quarter dose) , put him siting up in my lap, opened maw, tossed pill in, held mouth closed and stroked his throat for about 5 minutes. He let me do that......but as soon as he was free he spit it up! The brat! In went the other 1/4, and immediatly after a piece of tuna....so to get the tuna he had to swallow the pill. Eventually it went down......but he wouldn't talk to me for a long time. He did sleep through the night! Yippee!

Or so I thought. Fastforward a few days and no sleep for either of us AGAIN last night. However, I had been thinking about the pill problem and remembered I had some of the Childrens' Fastmelt type of benadryl from when I was taking it and had a sore throat so I couldn't swallow.... I got one of those out, broke it into 1/4's.......

Grab the kitty......

Ignore the big eyes and plastered down ears.....

Open maw, toss in pill, close mouth, scratch ears for a few minutes.

Let him go......and watch as he tried to figure out where the thing I had put in his mouth went!! Success! Within an hour, not a cough out of him!

As I write......he's sound asleep on the bed. I plan on getting a full nights' sleep now!

So it looks like kitty will be getting Benadryl a couple time a week until the pollen stops. Heck, I think it works better on him than on me!

And now, we're all off to bed. Thanks for reading!