Administering medicine to animals is a difficult and often painful task.

 

This is how you do it "right"...

Cats:

1. take the cat on your left arm and cradle it like a baby. Place your right index finger and thumb on either side of the mouth and apply gentle pressure to the cheeks. Meanwhile, hold the tablet ready in your hand. When opening the mouth, place the tablet in the cat's throat. Close the cat's mouth and wait for it to swallow.

2. pick up the tablet from the floor and bring the cat out from behind the sofa. Cradle the cat in your arms again and repeat the process.
3. get the cat out of the bedroom and throw away the softened tablet.

4. take a new tablet out of the packaging, cradle the cat on your left arm and hold the hind paws with your left hand. Open the mouth and push the tablet deep into the throat with the right index finger. Close the mouth and count to ten.

5. fish the tablet out of the aquarium and pick the cat off the cupboard. Call your partner for help.

6. kneel on the floor and hold the cat firmly between your knees. Hold front and rear paws firmly. Ignore growling and hissing. The partner holds the cat's head firmly with one hand and rams a ruler into the cat's mouth with the other. Slide the tablet down the ruler and rub the cat's throat.

7. unwrap the cat from the curtain and take a new tablet from the packet. Carefully sweep smashed vases and figures out of the way.

8. wrap the cat in a towel. The partner sits on the cat so that the head just peeks out from under the armpits. Put the tablet on the end of a drinking straw, open the mouth forcibly with a pen and blow through the straw.

9. read the package leaflet to check whether tablets are harmful to humans and wash down the taste with a beer. Bandage your partner's arm and remove blood from the carpet immediately.

10. fetch cat from neighbour's shed. New tablet. Another beer. Put the cat in a cupboard and close the door so that its head is still sticking out. Break open the cat's mouth with a spoon and catapult the tablet into its mouth with a slingshot.

11. get a screwdriver from the garage and reattach the cupboard door. Get a bottle of whisky. Drink one and use the rest for a compress on the cheeks to sanitise. Check last tetanus jab. Throw away T-shirt and put on new one.

12. call the fire brigade to rescue the cat from the tree opposite. Apologise to the neighbour who drove into the fence because of the cat. Take the last tablet from the packet.

13. tie the front and rear paws together with strong twine and attach to the leg of the living room table. Throw the tablet into the open mouth, place a piece of meat behind it and wash it down immediately with a litre of water. Hold the head upright.

14 Have your partner drive you to hospital. Sit still while the doctor stitches your fingers and arms and removes the remains of the tablet from your right eye. Stop at the furniture shop on the way home and order a new living room table.

Dogs:

Wrap the 1st tablet in a piece of bacon.