Sassy and Missiger had a diarrhea problem recently and had to go to the whitecoats. I was given a bottle of pills and instructions to give them both 1/2 pill daily.

That was six days ago and I can now bring you a progress report.

Missy is as good as gold about taking her pills. Giving Sassy pills is like wrestling an alligator, so I tried to come up with an alternative. First, the soft sell approach. I took a piece of cheese, hollowed it out, inserted the pill, and gave the cheese to Sassy. He carefully ate the cheese from around the pill and spat the pill out onto the floor. Okay, back to the Neanderthal method.

Contrary to popular belief, giving pills to cats is easy. The procedure is as follows:

1. With one hand, hold the cat still.

2. With the other hand, open cat's mouth.

3. With the third hand, push pill down cat's throat, using the tube-like thing from the vet's office.

4. If the cat struggles, you will need more hands.

There are four more days to go with this treatment. Think we will all live through it?