Need advice about taking highly-strung cat to vet

it in

Leaving it open and comfy, with favorite blankets, toys, treats, etc.?

Leave the carrier out and soon enough your cat will think “look, a box!” and crawl in for a nap. This always works for my boys but you have to leave it out for a while before the appointment.

like a cat blanket might offer a safe space that becomes a refuge. Patience is paramount.

it makes it much easier to drop the cat in.

this kind of freezes them.

Turn the crate over so the opening is facing up, firm scruff, and drop her in. She was fine in the car and at the vet, just *hated* the crate.

food dish starting now. Slowly move food closer and closer to the door. I had a sorta feral that had to be boarded while work was done on my house. To get him in the carrier I chased him around the house until he was exhausted and crying then scooped him up and put him in the carrier. He was fine at the vet. I know it sounds cruel but it had to be done.

In general if you want her to be more trusting pull her food and hand feed her. Just don’t do that to get her in the carrier.

food. Contains melatonin. About $10 per container.

so your legs are over her and quickly cover her with the towel. Using your legs to stabilize her, and wrap her (leaving her head uncovered) in the towel so her butt and all legs are wrapped. Gently put her in the carrier where she can unwrap herself. (Leave the towel in the carrier). It helps to have two people, one to close the carrier.

..I had a cat who lived on the top shelf of my closet. I had to put her dish up there too.

The doc has me pick up a pill a few days ahead of time. He gets way too stressed about nail trims and blood draws (of which he’s had many over the past two years).
It makes him super mellow, happy, and malleable.

Our vet gives pills in a fun way: set the pill on a flat surface and cover it with a little pile of Easy Cheese (that canned spray cheese stuff). The cats love it and snarf the pill right ip with their snack.

And could have used some of these ideas.

We have a range of reactions - Maya is friendly and calm until she is held. My husband cornered her in the cat door to the porch (we have 10" thick walls and cat flaps on both sides so that makes a cat sized alcove. Usually she is good about not using claws and teeth but she got him a couple of times. It took about forty five minutes to get her into her carrier.

Sabra hides under furniture so we had a good half hour getting out from under a bed and a nightstand. Fortunately she goes passive though she growled and hissed at us while we were getting her out. That was about a half hour of excitement.

Lucas is the easiest - he was at the door of the bedroom where he and Sabra had hidden, so I caught him as he tried to come out the door. His carrier has front and top doors so he was dropped in the top.

So it was over an hour to catch three cats that were just going into the vet's for booster shots. That, even though after their last trip to the vet three weeks ago, two of the cats would go into their carriers here at home to hang out.

I think in a few months I will bring the carriers down from the attic and we will give them their once a week canned food treats in the carriers. That will give them time to forget yesterday and give us time to prepare them for their vet visit next year.

It wouldn't be so bad if my cat eventually resigned herself and let me catch her, but she'll be fighting tooth and nail (literally!) until I can get her in the carrier.

If I had another person to help, it would make it better but I can't ask anyone to help (covid).

Wish me luck! Somehow, I can get this done.

Former ferals can be so loving but they are hard to deal with for the essentials.

Try some of the suggestions here - plus one of the things I have tried was the pheromone that calms cats - I sprayed that on the towels in the carriers. Feliway is one, but Petsmart had the little spray bottles in a different brand. If nothing else it gets rid of the fear pheromones left in the carriers.

I wish the carriers we have made it easier to open the doors so they are out of the way. Then we could leave them open for the cats to explore and find refuge in. If it weren't so hard to take the carriers apart and take the doors off, I'd do that! I'll have to find some bungee cords or something to keep the doors open if we try feeding the cats in the carriers.

Fingers crossed!

Back when I was earning money, I would pay for a home vet visit if things were too difficult. Those were the days...

But when the large animal practice split off and there were two, large and small animals, the vet I normally use doesn't do anything but horses and the occasional goat. For thirty or so years the worse we had to do was fasten up the cats in a confined space for the vet to treat.

One of our barn cats was fastened up in the feed room for the vet to give vaccinations. We stored the feed sacks on wooden pallets since the concrete floor would condense moisture and the damp feed would go bad. When the vet went in to give the cat his shot, the cat crawled into the 3.5" space between the parts of the pallet. The vet just moved him to just the right space and gave him the shot in between the boards. The cat was completely outraged and would never go into the feed room again, which was not good since part of his job was to keep mice out of the feed.

Now the cats have to be stuffed into boxes and carried to a vet. The practice I have begun to use with these three is only a ten minute drive away - nice since when we bought this farm in 1978 nothing was closer than a thirty minute drive.

If you can't train the cat to go into the carrier, start feeding it in a room with little furniture. Then you can put the carrier in that room the day they are going to the vet, feed the cat in there, and when it finishes, catch it with a towel to protect you and get it in the carrier.

We did that with Sabra the first time she had to go to the vet. Before we adopted her in September, she had been traumatized. We didn't even see her the first three weeks. We knew she was eating, drinking water, and pooping but she was invisible - a black cat under the bed. The first time she went to the vet, I put the carrier in the master bath, closed the door to the closet, lured her in with food, then she was easy to catch and get into the carrier. She is so sweet, she does not fight but is it heartbreaking to make her put up with handling if she doesn't want it.

A very resourceful vet, sounds like!
I’m thinking I can put her in my bathroom where she can’t hide, then somehow push her into the carrier. Good idea— thank you.
Enjoy your holidays! 😻