The other day when I stopped into my friendly vet’s office, Melody reminded me of what she’d said previously. “Sitka is sooo easy to pill.” And I replied “That’s because he’s in a cage when you do it. It’s not so easy at home, where he has the run of the house.” My little bud just proved me right…again.

In our efforts to isolate our 3 cats while they eat the food solely prescribed for their diets, Sitka is shut in the laundry room with his dishes of wet and dry food in the morning. After a little while, he’s let out to roam…play…and snooze with his fellow felines, Juneau and Sunkist. Later in the day I’ll put their respective containers of dry food down on the floor in the main hallway, where I can monitor their comings and goings to make sure one’s not eating another’s food…as I do my housework.

Twice a day I have to give Sitka a pill which helps keep his colon flowing. The past couple of mornings I’ve given it to him in the laundry room, before letting him out. When I opened the door today, he eyed me warily before running behind the dryer. Blocking his escape out the other side with a ladder, I peered down the back of the dryer. Sitka was nowhere in sight! Checking the side and back of the nearby washing machine, I found no trace of the little bugger.

Sitka had gone from behind the dryer to the nearby storage unit of shelves, and crawled inside a large backest filled with vacuum cleaner tools that sat on the bottomost shelf. When I bent down to get a closer look, I could see his eyes peering out from above the brim. As I got him out, we toppled backwards onto a nearby floor pillow with me chuckling…giggling…and laughing. I don’t think Sitka saw the whole situation as a laughing matter, however.

As I struggled to pry open his clenched teeth, insert the pill toward the back of Sitka’s throat, and close his mouth firmly while stroking his throat with my free hand, I cooed “I know…you probably want to stuff the pill down my throat. I know. I don’t like doing this any more than you like having to swallow pills, twice a day. Poor kitty. I know.” Sitka’s eyes were bugged out as if to say “Get off me…you #$%&* so and so!” Who could blame him?  

Last night I observed to my husband that Sitka no longer trails me looking for me to “uppy…uppy” him. In fact the night before as he was relaxing in his favorite chair, I stepped out of the kitchen to spy where he was. He looked up; our eyes met. I returned to the kitchen island to prepare his medication. When I stepped back into the living room, Sitka had disappeared like a “bat out of hell.” I found him huddled downstairs on the bed that he and Juneau share.

…i may have to put sitka in a cage…so i can have it as easy…as melody…

………hugmamma.