Male 10 y/o cat, around 17 lbs, with chronic constipation. Have been giving him lactulose almost every day with little success. He's been pretty backed up so I decided to get extreme and do an enema myself. Taking him to a new vet (we just moved) would cost around $500 because they'll want to x-ray him, etc. I got some glycerin enemas (4 in a pack) from the pharmacy.

I rolled the cat up in a towel, but he escaped from that once I tried to insert the enema. The little enema applicators were weird and not easy to clear, so I emptied two of them into a large plastic syringe and used that instead. I got about 3/4 of the liquid into the cat, the rest squirted on his butt while struggling to hold him down. He ran out of the bathroom after I was done and started cleaning his butt. It was a mistake to let him out because the first discharge was done on the carpet in the living room, and it was nothing but brown liquid. Thankfully I got a Bissell Pet Bot shampoo vac to clean that up. He later pooped a small piece outside of the litter box. I thought that the whole thing had been a failure. However, I woke up this morning to a good size pile of poop in the litter box and the cat seemed much happier. I had also given him some vegetable oil by mouth for the first time.

Lessons learned: put some of the glycerin on his butt to facilitate penetration. Do not let the cat out of the bathroom until he's done his business (keep litter box in there). Wipe his butt afterwards because it will have smelly liquid on it.