From an Anonymous poster:
>Her sister Louise is sick right now, we were at the vet last night - she
>had runny (almost liquid) stools yesterday, so off we went.  I will get the
>fecal results today some time.  I have to give her peptobismal and amoxy.  -
>any tricks on helping her get the pepto into her - she hates it??
 
Unfortunately, I have had to develop a few tricks for giving meds to my
ferrets ... Bandit and Slinky have been on and off various meds for the past
month or so recovering from surgeries and subsequent problems.
 
My first method is to scruff the ferret and squeeze small amounts of the med
onto the ferret's lips and then rubbing their throat till they lick.  This
works for most meds, I have found.  I also use the scruffing method for
feeding duck soup.  In this case, I only have to lightly scruff ... just
enough contact to allow me to position the ferret's head so that I can see
that I'm not dispensing too much too fast and whether or not the fuzzy has
had enough.
 
Bandit has perfected the "statue" reaction in response to med time ... I'll
put the meds on his lips and he'll just hang their looking at me, mouth
clamped tightly shut.  To get him to lick up the meds, I smear a little bit
of my duck soup recipe on his lips (on top of the meds) and out comes the
tongue!  Of course I get an indignant scowl from Bandit after each lick as
if he's saying "That was a dirty trick, Dad!"
 
Bandit hated one particular med so much that I had to take extreme measures
to get him to take it (if I tried to just put drops on his lips he would
violently shake his head sending droplets of the med all over the place!).
I mixed the dosage of the meds with a couple teaspoons or so of duck soup
and blended it until there were no pockets of pure med left.  Then I
smeared little dollops of this mixture on his lips.  He still hated it but
he couldn't stop his tongue from licking up the duck soup!  This method is
definitely time consuming but it allowed me to give Bandit his meds!
 
Watch out for the "Paws of Death" ... as I would bring my med mixture-laden
finger up to Bandit's mouth he would grab it with both his front paws and
then use the finger as a springboard to jerk away from the dreaded meds!
Initially this succeeded in sending the meds mixture everywhere but up to
his mouth.  Then I got smart ... I would lead with the heal of my hand.
Bandit would counter by putting his paws on the heal of my hand.  Then,
before I brought the meds mixture close enough to draw a reaction, I would
gently push the heal/palm of my hand up against his chest ... pinning his
paws in the process.  The beauty of this method is that your index finger
will be right about where the ferret's mouth is!  Bandit had no choice but
to lick up the meds mixture!  It worked but the glares I got from him spoke
volumes about the unpleasant consequences to me from these invasions of his
personal space!
 
Hope this helps!
 
Marc Wilson and the new Tres Amigos (Bandit, Slinky and introducing Chloe ...
all missing Rascal)
[Posted in FML issue 2336]