But when the large animal practice split off and there were two, large and small animals, the vet I normally use doesn't do anything but horses and the occasional goat. For thirty or so years the worse we had to do was fasten up the cats in a confined space for the vet to treat.
One of our barn cats was fastened up in the feed room for the vet to give vaccinations. We stored the feed sacks on wooden pallets since the concrete floor would condense moisture and the damp feed would go bad. When the vet went in to give the cat his shot, the cat crawled into the 3.5" space between the parts of the pallet. The vet just moved him to just the right space and gave him the shot in between the boards. The cat was completely outraged and would never go into the feed room again, which was not good since part of his job was to keep mice out of the feed.
Now the cats have to be stuffed into boxes and carried to a vet. The practice I have begun to use with these three is only a ten minute drive away - nice since when we bought this farm in 1978 nothing was closer than a thirty minute drive.
If you can't train the cat to go into the carrier, start feeding it in a room with little furniture. Then you can put the carrier in that room the day they are going to the vet, feed the cat in there, and when it finishes, catch it with a towel to protect you and get it in the carrier.
We did that with Sabra the first time she had to go to the vet. Before we adopted her in September, she had been traumatized. We didn't even see her the first three weeks. We knew she was eating, drinking water, and pooping but she was invisible - a black cat under the bed. The first time she went to the vet, I put the carrier in the master bath, closed the door to the closet, lured her in with food, then she was easy to catch and get into the carrier. She is so sweet, she does not fight but is it heartbreaking to make her put up with handling if she doesn't want it.
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