Getting an indoor feral kitty to the vet

Clocat

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Hi all, I've posted about HLA here: Socializing a senior (10-plus year old) feral kitty

She needs to go back to the vet on Thursday, and I'm trying to plan my strategy for getting her in the carrier.

Right now, she is staying in our spare bedroom, where she spends 99 percent of her time hanging out in a cat bed on top of a desk, or sitting on a cat tower. She has no interest in hanging out in any kind of enclosed space, whether it's a carrier, a box or whatever.

I have ordered some compounded 100 mg gabapentin chew treats through my vet. I was going to give her one Thursday morning two hours before her appointment. My hope is that this will make her loopy enough that I can walk right up to her, put a towel around her, and move her to her carrier.

I have some questions, though--should I test this sometime before Thursday, to see if 1. she eats the treat, and 2. it has the desired effect on her? Have others had good experience with gabapentin in getting ferals contained?

My biggest fear is that Thursday will arrive, she either won't eat the treat or won't be sufficiently zonked out, and I'll be all out of tricks. I really want to avoid having to chase her around the room, and destroy any sort of trust we've been able to build so far. She tolerates my hand next to her face when feeding her, but she is very wary of me when I'm just walking around the room, however slowly. I really want her to be so out of it Thursday morning that it doesn't even register what's going on.

Does my plan seem sound? Thanks.
 

fionasmom

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Did your vet give you enough to do a test run? If so, I would definitely try that, maybe sooner than later just in case it is not successful or the dose does not seem sufficient...in which case call the vet and ask for advice as to dosage.

Even if she appears to be very sedated, protect yourself with a big jacket, gloves, etc, whatever sounds right. My cats are all ex ferals, although they live and act as indoor pets. Regardless, I take precautions with a couple of them when I have to crate them.

The chase around the room is definitely something to avoid.

If you are uncertain that the dose will sufficiently knock her out, call the vet first and discuss this and see if they want to increase it. She has been to the vet, as I recall from your other threads, so they are aware that she may be difficult to handle.
 
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Clocat

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Did your vet give you enough to do a test run? If so, I would definitely try that, maybe sooner than later just in case it is not successful or the dose does not seem sufficient...in which case call the vet and ask for advice as to dosage.

Even if she appears to be very sedated, protect yourself with a big jacket, gloves, etc, whatever sounds right. My cats are all ex ferals, although they live and act as indoor pets. Regardless, I take precautions with a couple of them when I have to crate them.

The chase around the room is definitely something to avoid.

If you are uncertain that the dose will sufficiently knock her out, call the vet first and discuss this and see if they want to increase it. She has been to the vet, as I recall from your other threads, so they are aware that she may be difficult to handle.
Thanks--I ordered 10 pills of 100 mg each, and am waiting on them to arrive. They should *hopefully* be here Tuesday at the latest, at which point I could test.

She's been to the vet before, but in all cases was caught outside, not in her room. I want her to think of her room as a safe space where nothing scary happens, but this is unfortunately going to be scary.

Once caught, she tends to go limp rather than fight, although I will still wear gloves and a coat.

My main concern is creating as little psychological trauma for her as possible.
 
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Clocat

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Replying to my own thread to say, I think what I will do is set up her carrier in the spot that we normally feed her in and see if we can get her to eat in there between now and her vet visit Thursday. Then, hopefully Thursday morning we can draw her in with a plate of food and just quietly close the door behind her. It will be messy with the food in there with her on the way to the vet but better than a frantic chase around the room.
 

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Whenever I use gabapentin for my feral boys it is definitely trial and error. I have found that sometimes 2 hours is not enough time for it to work. I get the best results when I give it the night before. Usually around 11 pm. Then in the morning 2-3 hours before the appointment I give another dose of 100 mg. This has worked the best for my boys. Yet if your appointment is later in the day this would not work well for you.

My boys tend to get very loopy/drunk like. I don't even need a towel. I just place the cat carrier in the room a few days ahead of time.

If you have enough then give it a try and see how they respond. Do have pill pockets on hand. I have used the compounded form and my cats did not like it at all. I still needed to use a pill pocket. I now use tiny tabs. They are very small and fit easily in 1/2 of a pill pocket.
 
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Clocat

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Whenever I use gabapentin for my feral boys it is definitely trial and error. I have found that sometimes 2 hours is not enough time for it to work. I get the best results when I give it the night before. Usually around 11 pm. Then in the morning 2-3 hours before the appointment I give another dose of 100 mg. This has worked the best for my boys. Yet if your appointment is later in the day this would not work well for you.

My boys tend to get very loopy/drunk like. I don't even need a towel. I just place the cat carrier in the room a few days ahead of time.

If you have enough then give it a try and see how they respond. Do have pill pockets on hand. I have used the compounded form and my cats did not like it at all. I still needed to use a pill pocket. I now use tiny tabs. They are very small and fit easily in 1/2 of a pill pocket.
That's good to know. Her appointment is at 11 am, so I will give 100 mg that morning, and also the night before. (I'll run it by the vet, too!)
 

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Definitely run it by the vet :)
I board and groom pets, and if anyone needs any mild sedation for any reason, I always tell them to talk with their vet and do a test run at home. It's rare, but some things like that can have an opposite effect, or affect them negatively and make them angry and paranoid, etc. Gabapentin seems to be well tolerated and safe and I haven't seen that opposite effect with that particular sedative, but I would do a test just in case because every cat is different.
shadowsrescue shadowsrescue made a very good point about placing the carrier in the room a few days ahead of time. Some cats get very upset when they even see the carrier come into the room. I learned (the hard way!) that cats that are boarding really benefit by placing the carrier in their room a day or two before they're scheduled to be picked up so they can re-acclimate to it before it's time to actually go inside of it.
 

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Safety glasses or goggles. They are cheap and worth the price for both of you as you will be more relaxed if she smacks your face. Face scratches heal quickly. Protect your eyes.
 
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Clocat

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Definitely run it by the vet :)
I board and groom pets, and if anyone needs any mild sedation for any reason, I always tell them to talk with their vet and do a test run at home. It's rare, but some things like that can have an opposite effect, or affect them negatively and make them angry and paranoid, etc. Gabapentin seems to be well tolerated and safe and I haven't seen that opposite effect with that particular sedative, but I would do a test just in case because every cat is different.
shadowsrescue shadowsrescue made a very good point about placing the carrier in the room a few days ahead of time. Some cats get very upset when they even see the carrier come into the room. I learned (the hard way!) that cats that are boarding really benefit by placing the carrier in their room a day or two before they're scheduled to be picked up so they can re-acclimate to it before it's time to actually go inside of it.
Thank you, I'd heard about the paradoxical effect of some sedatives and that worried me. I'll do a trial run as soon as we get the treats.
 

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Have you tried keeping a crate in with her? I've found with ferals they tend to go towards small spaces, so if I leave the crate in with them they will end up climbing into it themselves relatively quickly. I've even used a small dog crate with a blanket over it if they don't like the cat carriers. It's worth setting one up in general as their safe space, it's maybe to little time to help at the moment, but long term it should make it a little bit easier for you if that's where she goes anyway when someone walks into the room :)

I should add I've only worked with ferals under one so this is only my experience with younger ferals, I know the older they get the more difficult it can be 🙈 if you've enough tablets I'd definitely do a trial run, better than both you getting super stressed and being on a time restraint the first time :)
 
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Clocat

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Have you tried keeping a crate in with her? I've found with ferals they tend to go towards small spaces, so if I leave the crate in with them they will end up climbing into it themselves relatively quickly. I've even used a small dog crate with a blanket over it if they don't like the cat carriers. It's worth setting one up in general as their safe space, it's maybe to little time to help at the moment, but long term it should make it a little bit easier for you if that's where she goes anyway when someone walks into the room :)

I should add I've only worked with ferals under one so this is only my experience with younger ferals, I know the older they get the more difficult it can be 🙈 if you've enough tablets I'd definitely do a trial run, better than both you getting super stressed and being on a time restraint the first time :)
Thank you-- she does have a crate and a cardboard box on its side in there and has shown no interest in spending time in either of them. :( my plan this afternoon is to wash out the carrier and see if we can coax her to start eating in it. The easiest thing would be to just have her in the carrier versus trying to snag her somewhere else in the room and get her in there.
 

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Thank you-- she does have a crate and a cardboard box on its side in there and has shown no interest in spending time in either of them. :( my plan this afternoon is to wash out the carrier and see if we can coax her to start eating in it. The easiest thing would be to just have her in the carrier versus trying to snag her somewhere else in the room and get her in there.
Good luck 🤞
Though I'm convinced it's a cat porogative to make everything more difficult than it need be haha
 

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You might want to use baking soda rather than soap when you wash the crate. Some cats don't care for the smell of soap.
 

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You might want to use baking soda rather than soap when you wash the crate. Some cats don't care for the smell of soap.
This is a very good point. If she won't eat in the crate, start maybe moving her food closer and closer to it.
 

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You might want to use baking soda rather than soap when you wash the crate. Some cats don't care for the smell of soap.
I've always been told to use biological washing powder for cleaning anything to do with animals, it gets rid of all smells including ammonia as long as you get one that's not scented :)
 
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Clocat

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Well, I just learned that she is supposed to be fasted starting at 10 pm the night before her appointment. Her appointment is not till 11 am the next morning. Not only is she going to be ravenously hungry (the high-dose pred really amps up her hunger levels), I won't be able to rely on treats or gabapentin to do anything. Argh. Very frustrated.
 

fionasmom

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Can anything about the appointment be changed to accomodate this, including the vet holding her there for a longer period of time before the procedure?
 
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