My cat just got spayed. She has a head cone on. She has fresh sutures on her belly. She is a fighter, and she is clearly mad about this whole thing. I have to give her 1cc of antibiotics (amoxicillin) in a syringe twice a day. Also I live alone, and I can't call somebody to come over to help me twice a day every day for the next two weeks, that's not feasible.
I can't do it. It's simply not happening. I struggled for an hour this morning and got nowhere.
I read How do I give my cat oral (liquid) medicine?. I watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFRf9PB17Wo. I read http://www.wikihow.com/Give-Cats-Liquid-Medicine. I have a towel. I have treats. I have a work surface of comfortable height. Except none of these instructions take into account that it's impossible to grab the head of a cat wearing a cone.
I tried wrapping her in a towel. Looks easy in pictures, except my body does not contort in the way necessary to keep her from moving. I tried wrapping her in a towel, then using my left hand I guess... I grabbed the front of the towel to keep it tight around her body then leaned in to trap her between my chest and my elbow, but then I can't keep her head still.
I tried tightening the towel then awkwardly leaning on the towel itself to hold it closed, while using one hand to sort of reach into the cone and grab her cheeks, but she backs up and my body isn't constraining enough to keep her from slipping into the towel.
She's the softest cat I have ever met and has zero friction against the towel, which is making this even more difficult.
No matter how tight I have the towel her front paws have a way of... almost squirting (lol) out the front of the towel and directly into my exposed skin. I put on a long sleeve shirt and tried again.
I can't grab her chin because she has a cone.
If I scruff her and hold her down I still can't keep her head still in the cone, and I can't use any spare fingers on my scruff hand to hold her head still because... the cone. And I don't have a third hand.
I tried holding her between my legs facing me, with one hand holding her down, and the other hand grabbing her head with thumb and index finger while somehow holding the syringe between pinky and ring finger, then using my chin to depress the plunger. That... didn't work. It might of, if I were a contortionist.
I tried sitting on the floor, with her between my legs facing me, my right leg flat on the floor but bent to keep her from going backwards; my left leg over top of her to keep her from jumping out, one hand on her face and the other hand coming over top of that hand with the syringe. I couldn't figure out how to make this work and gave up.
I tried with her facing away from me, on the floor, where I kneeled and tried to hold her between my knees, with my feet touching to keep her from going backwards, and one hand holding her head, but then the head holding hand gets in the way of the syringe because I have to reach in from the front because of the cone. Nothing makes sense.
I also don't want to be too rough with her underside, given that a surgeon yanked her ovaries out then sewed her back up less than 24 hours ago.
Plus she was terrified of the syringe right off the bat, and is really, really angry at the cone. I'm being gentle. I'm petting her. I'm talking to her softly. I'm doing everything I can to calm her down, and everything seems to go so well until the moment she sees the syringe.
I looked at the cone after reading the suggestions below to take it off. It's got a lot of plastic tabs to undo and after current struggles I'm not confident I could get it back on, so I am not going to attempt to remove it, even though I'm sure this is the way to go. A more easily removable cone would be nice; but it will take a few days for one to arrive unless I can find a vet with a nicer one.
I've also tried giving her canned food (half of a small can) with the liquid mixed in. She can't really eat it well with the cone on, though, and also doesn't seem to be into it (her normal diet is hard food). I can sort of convince her to eat it if I put it on a spoon and hold it out for her, but not enough to get her the full dose.
This appears to be impossible.
How do I do this? But like, really how do I do this? It's one thing to say "wrap your cat in a towel and hold her still" but keep in mind that I have a fairly typical human body with two legs that bend at the knees, two arms that bend at the elbows, and five normal length fingers on each hand with the standard set of knuckles. Plus the normal laws of physics apply.