Purritos!

If you follow any pets on social media, you've likely seen a cat wrapped in a blanket or a towel and called a purrito, but did you know that it's not just a cute photo op for a cat? Cat burritos are actually a technique used to restrain a cat to give it medicine, look at it's ears or face, or you could leave out the paws in order to trim their nails. Thesprucepets says swaddling a cat into a cat burrito helps you handle them with as little stress as possible for the cat. The blanket or towel adds gentle pressure to help comfort your cat and also helps create a barrier between you and those sharp claws. 

You can create a purrito at home! All you need is a blanket or towel and a cat! The spruce pets notes that a beach towel is a good size to make purritos, so if you are using a blanket, you might want to fold it up before starting on your purrito, then lay it out on the floor or table, add your cat "filling" somewhere around the middle, and start wrapping! Wrap one side over and then the back, making sure the back legs are tucked in so that they can't kick, then wrap over the other side. TheSprucePets notes that you can encourage your cat to lie down by putting your hand on the back of their head and then gently encouraging them to lie down, but don't force it! The idea is to make this less stressful for your cat, not more! Once you have wrapped both sides of the towel or blanket over your cat, they also suggest offering it a treat so that your cat will associate being "burritoed" with something pleasurable.  

Once your cat burrito is all wrapped up, you now have safer access to it's face to give it medicine, ear drops or even brush it's teeth. TheSprucepets says to keep your purrito braced against your body with one arm and cautions not to let go until after you are done to keep it from escaping it's towel wrapping. 

AtDove offers this helpful video on a 2 layer purrito using towels. In this video, they leave one of the cat's front legs out so that they can access it to give medication, and it also may be a good way to swaddle your cat for trimming their claws if they are too squirmy and anxious when you try to do it without it. Since there is one leg out, the 2 layers help keep the cat from wiggling out of their purrito because the second is wrapped in the opposite direction from the first. 

Of course purritos can just be a chance for extra cuteness, so if you're looking for that cute factor, cat-lovers-only.com suggests using a sleeve or sweatpants leg as your purrito wrapper. 

Get out there and make some purritos! If you don't have the ingredients to make your own purrito, or if you just want this more permanent version that you can show off, check out our purrito pin!

Thank you to Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash  for our cover photo!