The chances are pretty good that while you are reading this, YA and I are in my car, headed to my mom’s service and to get her condo cleaned up. I am in charge of the service and also the cleaning up/organizing/donating. My middle sister has taken over most of the paperwork and financial stuff.
Initially we had planned to take the dog with us. With her anxiety/lashing out, there weren’t any boarding places that would take her. YA had purchased a new collapsible kennel for the trip and we were acclimatizing Guinevere to it. The neighbors were going to watch the house and come over a couple of times a day to feed the kitty and take down the garbage – all that good neighbor stuff.
After a couple of days of ruminating on it, both YA and I have decided we want to take the cat with us. She’s a little discombobulated by the dog not being here so leaving her in an empty house seems cruel. In addition, after both my mom and the dog going so very quickly, we’re just not emotionally ready to not have the cat with us.
So… purchased a new cat carrier as her old one is pretty small (only used for the 2-block trip to the vet every year). Found a harness that fits her in the “pet drawer” (we have everything from every pet ever in that drawer). All the travel-with-cats websites say make sure she’s micro-chipped. Check. When I was at Petsmart getting a top-off of cat food, I decided to get her a new kitty bed. She has two on the radiator in my bedroom but one is so horribly scruffy and dirty – it would be too awful to take that with us. Yes, I know I could probably toss it in the washer but I think the shed kitty fur is the only thing holding it together.
The list now includes new carrier, new bed, littler box w/ litter, little litter bags, harness, kitty dish & kitty food, kitty treats. Hopefully we haven’t forgotten anything!
Wish us luck!
Any good animal road trip stories?
Trail Baboon 
So glad you are taking your kitty. I’ll have to think about the crazy trips I took in the 90s when everything seemed possible and get back to you.
But I did want to wish you and YA and kitty a safe journey!
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The Birds travel easily the half hour it takes to get to the vet but getting them in smaller cages is traumatic for all of us. It necessitates removing ALL the perches, toys and feeding trays. They know what’s up and try to escape the aviary. I use a butterfly net. Grabbing them using a towel does not work. I hate having to do it.
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Yes, I don’t envy you that..
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Kitty didn’t think getting out of her carrier with her harness on at the rest stop was a good idea. Haven’t seen her that puffed up for quite a while!! Sigh.
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I’ve told of driving, eventually all the way from Brooklyn NY to Palo Alto CA to deliver our cats to Wasband. Olga (named for Olga Korbut, the gymnast) spent a good day sort of wrapped around my neck and shoulders. Ollie was on the floor behind the passenger seat. They finally relaxed, and I don’t remember much except smuggling them into a motel room…
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I’ve never intentionally travel led with an animal. Does a mouse in the tractor count?
Loading cattle into trailers is easy if they know what’s up, like move to another pasture. When I was a kid it was the tall trucks and they had to run up a ramp and no one liked that; lots of yelling and hollering and tail twisting.
Nowdays with the low cattle trailers, it’s much less traumatic on everyone. Again, assuming the people are calm and the animals are calm.
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I guess having said that, I take the dogs with me in the truck all the time. I guess I didn’t think a trip to pick up ditch junk, or for parts counted as traveling.
Humphrey and Bailey are great in the truck. No issues. Luna, I’ve said before, get’s all weird about it. She whines, she doesn’t like to be petted. I can’t get her out unless we hook a leash on her and she thinks she’s going to the vet, otherwise she just moves front to back– where ever I am not. I open the front door, she jumps to the back. I get in the back, she moves to the front. Even food won’t lure her out. But then that run for home; she loves that run! Or it looks like she does. Or maybe she’s running in order not to be left behind? I don’t know. Need to get into her head…
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Let this be the Pet Tripper.
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Our cat was rather unhappy when we put her in her carrier to transport her to MN in October. She protested for the first 100 miles, then settled down for the remaining 400 miles. Kyrill was surprisingly chill for his trip to the new house. We took them on separate trips to reduce the chaos.
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The one and only time I’ve ever tried to go anywhere with a cat in the car was a bit of a nightmare. My kitty Mariah was an independent cat from the time she was very small. She was also very vocal. I didn’t have a kennel for her when I moved her from Faribault to Waterville, so I put her in a cardboard box with a blanket inside. She tried hard to get out the whole 16 miles. She yowled and howled and screeched all the way. I knew she would hide once I got her there, so I left her in the box and set up her litter box in a room in the lower level of the house. I put food and water in the room, brought the box down, opened it slightly, and laid it on its side, then left the room. She calmed down in there and the next day I let her explore the house.
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I hope my current 2 guardians are paying attention as I write this as it will hopefully teach them to be grateful that I have never made them travel!
My first cat was born in Chicago and went with me through grad school, travelling for work to the East Coast by a way of Canada. The Canadians were far more worried I might be bringing guns into the country than that I had papers for my kitty.
She was with me until the s&h was 2. I hate to think of how many miles we made together in those years. Hard to believe I would show up at the airport with a luggage cart with a suitcase, my featherweight sewing machine and the cat carrier!
Once we even got to fly first class and the stewardess asked if I wouldn’t be more comfortable with my kitty carrier buckled into the seat beside me!
Gone are the days!
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We’re here but kitty is not happy. We took her out of her carrier three times, thinking she might like to stretch. Or do some business. In hindsight we should have just left her in the carrier…. Figure by the time she forgives us, it will be time to drive home!
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now you know
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Hope your kitty calms down VS! We’ve had a number of cats over the years and they all had to do at least a little traveling. Some were better about it than others. The worst was dear Margaux. She absolutely refused to get into the carrier and was strong enough to fight like h*ll any time we tried to get her in. The only thing that worked was wrapping her tightly in a towel and quickly dropping her in before she had time to unwrap. The noise she made was ghastly.
The best traveler was Hermione (aka the best cat in the universe). She loved car trips and sat quietly in the seat. Husband used to bring her along when he picked me up from work. She’d sit in my lap until she could sense that we were near home, then sat up and looked out the window the rest of the way.
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word press is not my friend
after entering my thought and quips for 45 minutes it vaporized them
critters all have different takes on car travel. ive had cats introduce themselves to me by jumping into my car. ive had cats howl that haunting mosn from the second they realized what was on the agenda until it was all said and done . dogs the same way…love it or start gagging and foaming at the mouth with the thought of getting in the car.
dylan my first dog loved to travel in the vw van. as a pup we were traveling through a county park and he jumped out the window of the moving van wearing a 12’ leash . bouncing along until we stopped. that cured him jumping out of windows. dylan and i took a summer vacation and brought my girlfriend and brother along. we drove out to salt lake city to pick up buddy of mine who moved there during high school. we arrived and pulled into the driveway said hi to my friends dad and went in. about 10 minutes later my friends dad came in and asked if my dog knew how to find his way back because he had wandered off. i went out and called and whistled and drove around the neighborhood asking everyone on the streets if theyd seen him. lab basset mix looks just like a lab with short legs long ears big feet and a tail that sticks straight up in the air… if you see him call the police or the dog catcher and theyll get a hold of me. they had a radio thing called dog gone that had people informed that you lost your dog and people i met on the street said theyd heard he was missing from the radio messages. i was always one day behind him and then on day 6 i got the phone call and we went to pick him up. he was in a fenced back yard and when he saw me he raced in circles like a demon possessed. my van had the giant roll open roof and i had been sitting on the roof with somebody else driving as i recited my schpeel and asked them to call. my friend was very surprised everyone was so nice as salt lake city was not very hippy friendly. he decided it must have been because i had a beard like joe smith the founder of the mormans. oh we also had a cat join us on the way to salt lake when she came into our campsite in a northdakota cornfield and crawled into my girlfriends lap around the campfire. she had that cat all the time i knew her (the cat traveled well) we drove up to banff via yellowstone and glacier. ran into bears in jasper up above banff and i had to deal with that basset hound howl while he challanged the bear. i had one cat who howled from the minute she understood the car trip was coming (this was in pre car carrier era when a beer case was the carrier of choice. shed see me coming at her with a beer case and that howl would start. im not sure its something you can train i think its just there at birth. i just saw a headline in the paper from last week that said if you want to live longer get a dog. i believe it.
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I can empathize, tim. WP has “disappeared” several of my comments, some of them were pretty long. I try to remember to copy them before clicking the submit button just in case.
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I think kittens are pretty cool with travelling, but if you don’t regularly put them in the car and take them somewhere, a switch gets thrown and they decide that car rides are NIGHTMARES to be avoided at all costs, especially because most car rides end at the vet’s office.
None of my cats liked being in a car. Mournful meowling all the way.
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