I don't use liquid antibiotics anymore because they taste vile and almost always elicit a major battle. Instead, I request tablets or capsules and use a piller to place it as far back in the mouth as possible. First, though, I offer the cat some canned food gruel or tuna juice or chicken broth or maybe even a tiny bit of milk - just a few laps to wet the cat's throat before I administer the med. That makes it MUCH easier for the cat to swallow the pill (just like a drink of water makes it easier for us to swallow pills). As soon as I've given the pill, I let the cat lap up some more of the desired liquid to wash down the pill. It also helps to coat the pill with a tiny bit of butter which not only masks and taste of the pill, but also helps it slide down the throat easier. Since you're also syringe feeding, you can simply load the med into the piller and have it handy to administer between syringes of food. The syringed food will wet the throat and wash down the pill. With a very skittish cat, your best bet is a firm towel wrap, then sitting on the floor with him between your knees. With one of my boys who required syringe feeding, I was able to keep him adequately controlled and prevent him from hooking me with his front claws by simply pinning a hand towel around his neck and letting it extend down his front like a long bib. Your boy may require a more encompassing wrap, though. You just need to experiment to see whether more or less restraint works best with him. With his extremely high WBC count, it is imperative that he gets the antibiotics every day as instructed, even if you have to take him back to the vet or hire one of the vet techs to come to your house to help you administer them. As far as the food in concerned, keep trying to tempt him to eat on his own. Eating the veterinary diet would be best, but it's more important that he eat something - anything. Try some baked chicken torn into small bits for him. Try small amounts of tuna. Or perhaps deli ham. When a cat is inappetant, he is easily overwhelmed and put off by large meals. Offer him only very small amounts at a time, but offer them every couple of hours. Warm his food to really bring out the aroma. If all else fails, make yourself some Tuna Helper or a nice salmon filet and sit down next to him to eat it. Even when my CRF boy, Billy, won't eat anything else, he'll sometimes try to "steal" something tasty off of my plate while I'm eating. And of course, under the circumstances, I let him. Once you get his infection under control with the antibiotics, I expect his appetite will return. You just have to do whatever it takes to get food into him until he's feeling well enough to eat on his own again. You can figure out a way to handle this. I know you can! Laurie

We are approaching our 6 month anniversary and I wanted to update interested parties (and those looking for answers to their own issues) on our progress. Suffice to say, the progress is slow. So slow it's hard to see it. That being said, even teeny tiny steps give me hope that one of these days we will have at least a tolerant, if not friendly, household. We have tried the following over the counter (non-Rx) fixes: rescue remedy, GNC Calming Treats, Feliway Calming Collar, Composure calming treats, harness/leash, crate introductions, Feliway diffusers. We have also had my girl on the following Rx meds (pardon the spelling): Clomicalm, Armitryptilan, Prozac. Nothing has been a life saver. We are currently using (and having the best success so far) the following combo: Rescue Remedy applied to the ears off all cats about 15 minutes before allowing in the shared space. Feliway plug--in diffusers in all main living areas (3 for us), GNC Calming treats once per day for all cats, Armitryptilan (5mg, once a day for my aggressive cat). While we are at work, we keep all the cats seperated. (They are all girls). We have 3 cats, two that get along ok, one (mine) that does not. When we come home from work we open all the doors and allow Molly (mine, the most aggressive one) to come out at her leisure. We keep an eye out, and if the other two are around we start talking to them reassuringly and encouraging Molly to be nice. This may help us more than them, but I also think it helps everyone stay calm. If Molly displays signs of stress (stiffening body, raised tail), we try to intervene before it goes into an attack. If I get up or speak sharply to her she will usually turn and head back into 'her room'. This isn't ideal, but it has helped prevent the full attacks she was waging on the other girls. If she does attack one of the cats, we use a spray bottle to break it up, which generally causes her to run back to her room also. We close the door of her room while she calms down (about 10-15 minutes), and then open the door up again and let her decide when she wants to come back out. This is a tiring, time consuming project. BUT, there have been some marginal improvements. Bella, the older, larger of the two 'resident' cats and Molly seem to have called somewhat of a truce. They clearly are not friends, but they don't hiss and growl too much any more. I think this is in large part because Bella is not a territorial cat by nature and does not challenge Molly, and also because they are evenly matched in size. Our 3rd and youngest, Sophie, is a tiny cat and also very skittish. My husband found her in the street when she was just a couple of weeks old and nursed her through some scary times. She trusts him implicitly but is very skittish with all other situations and people. Because she has been attacked by Molly so frequently, she runs the minute she sees her. This often triggers Molly to chase her which is not good. This has been our biggest trial. If Sophie does not run (sometimes she does not realize that Molly has come in the room) Molly will stare but not attack. We feel that if we can keep them both calm in the same room they may get used to each other in time but so far that has not been possible. We have just restarted Molly on the Armitryptalin. After going all the way thru the available meds ending in Prozac without good results we had taken her off everything a while ago. Now that we have made some improvements and Molly is becoming more confortable in the house over all we decided to try it again to see if it will help. As always, ideas or suggestions are welcome. :) Molly's health is good, as are the other two cats.

Thank you for the responses. Our cat is on a wet and dry food diet called Royal Canin Urinary food. She had bladder stones. She is better with that now. But she was licking before the food or the bladder problem. It probably is an anxiety thing - the past couple of years I have been going through the change so it's very possible she is sensing my stress. I love cats and the thought of getting another sounds good - my husband and I discussed it. But our cat is very shy and nervous and I'm not sure how she would handle another cat - young or old. She is very dependent on us and sometimes follows one of us or both of us from room to room. She loves her toys (even at 8 yrs. old!)and likes to play by herself. We have tried to figure out what she might be allergic to and we can't seem to find out what it could be. Nothing has changed in our home in the past few years. I wish she could talk and tell us what is bothering her!

Mites can burrow down into their ears out of site and drive them crazy. Our older cat had them so bad we were constantly at the Vets. Ear infections can also cause a similar response of over grooming. You sound like you love your cat very much so you probably already know this, but they do tend to hide symptoms when ill so your kitty could be sick with an infection and you wouldn't know it. Happens all the time. The majority of cats don't like going to the vet, but part of being a good animal parent is doing what's in the cats best interest even when it's not what the cat would want. And if he's skittish already, it's also better to have someone else do the cleaning and treatment so your cat doesn't relate that negative experience directly to you. Lastly, I've never used a harness on our kitties and it sounds like a great way to enable an indoor cat to step out once in a while, but when in a stressful situation, the carriers do tend to make them feel more secure. Just a thought.