2025, animals, Family, home, Travel, Uncategorized

Traveling Kitty

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Today as you read this, Husband and I are making the first of two trips to Luverne over the next two weeks. The main purpose of this trip is to go to our 2 month old granddaughter’s baptism in Brookings on Sunday. The other reason for the trip is to bring to the new house as much food from our freezers and liquids the moving company won’t transport.

Wedged in the back of our van, surrounded by coolers filled with frozen food, boxes of home canned tomatoes, cans of olive oil, and jars of fancy vinegars will be our cat, Luna, in the dog crate. We decided to move her on this trip since it seemed rather too stressful to move both the cat and the dog at once.

The last time Luna made this trip was nine years ago when she was a kitten and had been rescued by our son and daughter-in-law from underneath a deck in Brookings. Our daughter was visiting them at the time and drove the cat to Dickinson after staying with Daughter and her college roommates in Moorhead a few weeks. Her only trips since then have been excursions to the local vet. It is a 550 mile trip to Luverne. Once we get her there she will be boarded at the Rock County Vet Clinic until we are moved into the new house on the 22nd.

We are going to try to make her as comfortable as possible with a litter box, soft blankets, and a small water bowl in the dog crate. I am not optimistic about her being happy at all with this trip and then being subsequently boarded. I will let you all know how it is going as the day progresses.

What are your experiences traveling with pets? Any advice for us today?

39 thoughts on “Traveling Kitty”

  2. You’re being very considerate toward Luna, Renee. I had a cat, Mariah, years ago. I moved her 16 miles in a box with her blanket in it. She howled and yowled, got out of the box after only a few miles, then proceeded to try to climb onto my head with her claws fully extended while I was driving. It was a long 16 miles. I dreaded ever taking her anywhere again. A kennel is a good idea.

    I’ve never had a pet who was good in the car. Most dogs love riding in the car. I had two dogs and both of them hated it. Bailey got terribly car sick, and Pippin was simply terrified. It’s like he understood that we were going much faster than he could ever go on his own and it terrified him.

    Have a great trip! Is this the first time you have actually seen your new home?

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  3. That’s probably a good idea to keep her crated while driving.
    I wish you the best trip possible, Renee!

    I drove Olga and Ollie from NYC out to Palo Alto, CA, where Wasband was settling, when I left that marriage. This was done in two phases, first leg to Iowa, and then a month later to Calif. One or the other of the cats was on my head or shoulder for most of the trip, but we all survived.

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  5. A crate is definitely the way to go.

    I hope you have all of the canned tomatoes and fancy vinegars well packed and secured. I shudder to think of the mess you could have on your hands with even a minor mishap. Please drive carefully. I wish you a safe and uneventful trip.

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  6. Our third golden retriever, Gracie, had come to us at about a year old from a woman who worked long hours and had left her alone all day. Gracie needed lots of attention and was terrified of car rides. She had defecated in the woman’s car on the way to our house.
    I set about reassuring Gracie about the car by taking her on short rides to places she liked, such as the shore of Cedar Lake. Gracie never became wholly comfortable with the car and would stand rather than settle down but she wasn’t panicky.

    We took her once on a drive to Ely in the winter, where we helped a friend harvest blocks of ice for her ice house. Her husband had injured his back and was unable to participate in the annual harvest. Their cabin was about a mile and a half back into the woods from the nearest passable road, so we had to ski in, with Gracie running alongside through the deep snow. When we were engaged in cutting and pulling the blocks of ice from the lake, Gracie ran back and forth across the lake with our friend’s sled dogs. It was way more exercise than Gracie had ever been subjected to in her life. She seemed to have a great time but on the drive home she slept so soundly it was a little concerning.

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    2. I had the same experience with my first Irish setter, Katie Scarlett. She was a droplet and a panter even as a puppy. Every few days I would put her in the car and drive her up to the park, which was only a block and a half away. After she got used to that, then I drove to the next closest park. After two years we got about six parks away; at that point, she was pretty much OK except for long rides in which there was still panting.

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  7. It is traumatic for The Birds and me to go to the vet. They are not “step up” trained. Treats will not entice them to enter the smaller cage. I can get them on my hands but they refuse to go in. I have to net them within the aviary for transfer into a carrier. I use a butterfly net but the pursuit is exhausting physically and mentally.

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    2. Taking Gizmo, our late amazon parrot, to the avian vet to have his beak trimmed and wings clipped was always traumatic. He would be upset and angry for days after each visit. Not fun at all.

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        1. We can’t take credit for that. He was twenty-three years old when he came to us, and he knew he was Gizmo. He lived another twenty-three years with us.

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  8. Our second-hand Airdale terrier was named Bandit when we picked her up from the Animal Humane Society near Como Park. During the ride from the AHC to our house she was so anxious that she vomited two or three times.

    On the advice from our vet, we started taking her for very short drives to a nearby softball field, stopping every block or so to pet and encourage her. At the softball field we’d let her out and play with her. After half an hour of play, we’d drive home again, again stopping to pet her with short intervals. It took only a few weeks, before Bandit – who we had renamed Bessie – would happily jump into the car whenever there was an opportunity. She never had trouble riding in cars after that, even on long drives to the Iron Range.

    We loved that dog to pieces, but as it turned we should not have renamed her. Bandit was the perfect moniker for her strong willed personality.

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  9. Rise and Shine, BAboons,

    Our Rat Terrier, Coco left us in 2011. She was a terror of a terrier, with a bolt reflex. If there was any crack in the door she would get it open and be gone, flying through the neighborhood. I tried all kinds of training and that never left her. She had spent her first 9 months in a crate after the first owner decided she wanted a lap dog. Coco was not a lap dog.. She needed a lot of exercise. At the time we had a Ford van. Coco loved to ride in the car, but early on I found it was best to have her in a crate. She wanted to look out the window, with her feet on the armrest where she learned to press on the button that lowered the window. She did that one day while on a leash, jumped out the window and dangled there outside the car. I pulled over and got her back in and everafter always transported her in a crate.

    She died at age 14 after a long life of running away at every opportunity. In her last 6 months she slowed down considerably. She had arthritis, especially in her neck. I am sure that was due to the dangling incident. She was a smart dog with no common sense.

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  10. We are at the Sputh Dakota border south of Fargo. Luna cried constantly for the first 100 miles. Now she is quiet, but very spooked. About 200 miles left to go.

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  13. Im glad you and Luna arrived safely, Renee!

    I’ve had a lot of pets over the years, with a wide range of travel behaviors. Our first cat, Figaro, and our beautiful Hermione (many years later) loved riding in the car and would sit peacefully on the seat. Hermie often came with my husband to pick me up from work. She’d sit on my lap until she knew we were close to home, then would get up and watch out the window. When we got home, she’d walk to the door of the house and wait to go inside.

    Her sister, Margaux was the opposite, and absolutely hated the car. Getting her to the vet was a team effort, requiring one person to wrap her in a towel like a burrito, while the other person held the carrier on its end so she could be dropped in before she managed to unwrap herself. She would then howl throughout the ride.

    One dog was sick in the car so often, we nicknamed her Barfy. Our yellow lab was better, but the car windows always had to be washed afterwards to clean off the nose marks and dog slobber.

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