Here are the methods that work, in the order most owners end up trying them, plus the one dosing trap that catches people out.
For the amount itself, see CBD dosage for cats. For frequency, see how often can I give my cat CBD.
Before you start
Open the bottle before the cat is in the room. Child-resistant caps are fiddly and a cat watching you struggle with a bottle learns that the bottle is a thing to avoid. If your Proof cap is being difficult, there is a trick to it.
Draw the amount before you approach. Measuring while holding a cat is how people end up guessing.
Pick a calm moment. Not straight after a car journey, not while the vacuum is out, not when they have just come in from outside. A cat that associates the dropper with a bad moment will remember.
The methods, easiest first
1. Into a small amount of wet food
The most common approach and the one most cats accept.
Use a small portion, not the full bowl. That is the whole trick, and it matters for a reason covered below.
Mix it in properly rather than pooling it on top. Strongly smelling food helps: many owners find a pate texture or a fish-based food covers it better than a chunks-in-gravy product.
2. Onto a lickable treat or a spoon of something they love
A squeezy treat, a spoon of plain wet food, the water off a tin of tuna. Anything with a strong smell and a small volume.
The advantage over a full bowl is that you can watch it disappear.
3. Directly into the mouth
Not the first thing to try, and it works for a minority of cats.
If you do it, aim for the pouch between the cheek and the back teeth rather than the front of the mouth or the throat. Go slowly and let the cat swallow. Never tip a cat’s head far back and never squirt anything toward the back of the throat, which risks it going the wrong way.
If your cat objects strongly, stop. There is no version of this worth turning into a weekly fight.
4. On a paw
An old trick and it does work for some cats. Put the drops on a front paw and most cats will groom it off.
Two caveats: you lose track of how much actually went in, and a cat who resents having their paw handled will not tolerate it twice.
The dosing trap almost everyone hits
If you mix drops into a full bowl of food, you only know the dose was delivered if the bowl is finished.
A cat who eats two thirds has had an unknown amount. If they walk away entirely, they have had none. Either way the careful measuring you did beforehand has become a guess, and you cannot tell whether a week of no visible change means the product does nothing or means your cat has been getting a third of what you thought.
The fix is small portions. Put the drops in a spoonful, watch it go, then feed the rest of the meal normally.
When the cat refuses
Some cats simply will not have it, and that is a real outcome rather than a failure of technique.
Try a different food. Palatability is individual and the third food is often the one that works.
Try a different time of day. A hungry cat before a meal is a more cooperative cat than a full one after.
Give it a break. A cat who has decided the dropper is the enemy will often reset after a week of not seeing it.
Then accept the answer. If your cat has refused everything for a fortnight, forcing it is not the right call. A stressed cat is not being helped by a calming supplement, and the stress of a daily struggle is likely to outweigh anything you were hoping to achieve. Talk to your vet about alternatives.
Mistakes worth avoiding
Do not use a human product because it is what you have. Concentrations are built for a much larger body and flavourings are not formulated with cats in mind.
Do not change the method and the amount in the same week. You will not know which change did anything.
Do not put it in the water bowl. You cannot measure what a cat drinks, it degrades in standing water, and in a multi-cat house you have just dosed everybody.
Do not chase a cat around the house with a dropper. You are teaching a lasting association for a marginal gain.
Do not dose a cat that is unwell without talking to your vet first. A cat that is off its food or behaving abnormally needs a diagnosis, not a supplement.
Storage and handling
Keep the bottle somewhere cool and dark, and out of reach of pets and children. Do not let the dropper touch the cat’s mouth or the food, then go back in the bottle, because that is how a bottle gets contaminated.
Check the certificate of analysis for the bottle you are using. Proof publishes test results for each product.
The short version
The short version
- Small portion of strongly smelling wet food, mixed in properly, is the method that works most often.
- Never mix into a full bowl. You lose all certainty about the dose.
- Direct-to-mouth goes into the cheek pouch, slowly, never toward the throat.
- If your cat refuses everything for two weeks, stop and talk to your vet rather than escalating.
- Measure before you approach, and open the bottle out of the room.