Bats in the Belfry - Cats in the Car!

[BUM]

OK so I spend an hour in Barnes and Noble looking through "All About Cats" books. DW has a PIA cat DW has a lovely tabby that just misses her terribly when we hit the road for a month or so.

Usually we have someone come in once a week to tend the kitty. However this time we'll be gone during the winter and I want to save on the already too high energy bill. Hell, with a little twist of logic - thats why we are leaving in the first place...too damn cold.

Anyway the books say forget it. Not worth it. Cats hate the car...messes with their equilibrim the vet says. Drugs probably won't work the vet says. The trip is 11 hours with 2 stops for gas and leg stretching.

Heating the house for the cat is not gonna happen. I plan to turn the 'stat down to 40something. The cat could probably hack it since the sun warms the living room to 60-70. DW thinks thats a barbaric idea. So we are bringing the cat.

I've built a darling travel carrier complete with comfy bedding and her favorite toys. I keep it near us in the den and she is now napping in it and otherwise getting used to it. Next step is to latch her in for a few minutes at a time. Later we'll take her on a short ride I guess to see what might happen

So if you see me chasing a cat down the interstate...best not to get involved.


Anybody ever done this?

 

[brewer12345]

Your biggest worry is the cat barfing along the way. You ain't smelled stink until you've smelled cat barf.

 

[Andre1969]

I know it sounds barbaric, but that cat should have no trouble dealing with 40 degree temps. After all, plenty of cats stay outdoors all the time. My mother has a barn, and with barns I guess there's an unwritten rule that you'll have stray cats. Well, those cats do just fine outside. They just find a nook out of the wind to curl up in and sleep. And in the barn it's going to get well below 40 degrees. And much more drafty than a house.

I think as long as the cat has a small, confined area to curl up in inside the house, it should be fine.

As for transporting a cat, the furthest I've ever taken one was about an hour, so my experience isn't going to be any help there.

 

[REWahoo]

Hey BUM, in case you missed it when I posted a few days ago, here's a website on an alternate means of cat "transportation"...

http://www.richsalter.btinternet.co.uk/cks1/index.html

 

[Howard]

My Brother did that, came back, one dead, the other two took off.

You don't dump cats for a week, if they get outside, they go Feral, I have shot several this winter, the noise of their fighting plus the constant howling was too much.

I back onto a large tract of bush land.

 

[SteveR]

When I moved from TN to NC it was an 8 hour drive. We had two cats and a 5 month old baby. We loaded the kid in his car seat and the cats in individual carriers. Besides the constant death cries from the cats, everything went well until.........rush hour traffic in Atlanta. One of the cats escaped his carrier and went nuts trying to get out of the car. He climbed over the baby waking him up and scaring him. Now I have a screaming baby, a screaming cat and another one under my feet and a screaming wife telling me to catch the cat while she is leaning over the seat to deal with the screaming baby....all while I am trying to drive through downtown Atlanta traffic on a Friday afternoon.

My first impulse was to open the window and throw out the cat and let him fend for himself on the freeway....however, my wife nixed that idea. Eventually, I was able to grab the cat by the scruff of his neck and cats being cats..he was soon "paralyzed" so I could pull the car off on the shoulder and stuff him back into his carrier. Moma got the baby calmed down and we did manage to get to our destination more or less intact.

The cats lived a long and happy life. My kid still loves cats. And I divorced my wife a few years later. No moral to this story...just my experience driving with cats.

Then there was the time I flew 1800 miles with three cats by myself and had to hide them in a "no pets" apartment for two months. But that is another story.

 

[Andre1969]

I might not have been clear in my last post. I wasn't advocating putting the cat outside and letting it fend for itself. Heavens no, that would be sure death for an indoor cat. But what I was showing was that if a cat can live outside with no trouble, then having a cat stay indoors in a 40-degree house should be no trouble at all, if BUM just wanted to leave the cat in the house and have the friend check on it every week or so.

When I was a kid we used to have outdoor cats all the time. They'd come inside to be fed, cry when they were ready to go out, etc. But that was a kinder, gentler time. These days there's just too much traffic, and with all the development raping the countryside, it's forcing wild critters like squirrels, 'possums, raccoons, foxes, and other potential threats into progressively smaller areas to fight for scarcer supplies of food. So even if the cars don't get the cat, chances are it would get into a fight with something that would. So nowadays, I keep them solely indoors.

 

[TromboneAl]

About 25 years ago I drove from Michigan to San Diego with my cat in the car.

It was a "driveaway" deal. That is, I drove someone else's car, and got a small fee for transporting it. When I went to pick it up, I was told that the trunk was filled with the owner's stuff, so I had to fill every square inch of the passenger compartment with my stuff.

The cat was in a carrier on top of other stuff in the front seat.

The problem was that the cat did not poop for the entire trip. Other than that, it was OK.

 

[grumpy]

Our cat hates the car (probably because most trips were to the vet). We moved last February from Maryland to Virginia. It was only an hour trip (but could have been much longer due to D.C. area traffic on I-95). The travel was to take place on the same day as the movers were packing and unpacking. The vet gave us pills to sedate the cat. We gave him half a pill before the movers arrived and closed him in a bathroom while they worked. We gave him the other half one hour before setting out in the car. He slept the whole way to the new house. At the new house we closed him in the bathroom while the movers unloaded. When we opened the door he ran under a bed and stayed there for the rest of the day. The next day he came out, explored the new house and made himself at home. After that he was fine. The bottom line was that he adjusted to the move MUCH better than my wife did.

I don't know if sedation would be safe for a much longer trip but you could check with the vet.



Grumpy

 

[Nords]

The bottom line was that he adjusted to the move MUCH better than my wife did. 

I don't know if sedation would be safe for a much longer trip but you could check with the vet.

I'm a little fuzzy on the transition. Who needed sedation?

Bum, you could try the travel tips & lodging listings at PetsWelcome.com.

 

[grumpy]

I'm a little fuzzy on the transition. Who needed sedation?

Nords,

We sedated the cat but in retrospect we should have sedated my wife! It took her a good 6 months to get adjusted to the new house.

Grumpy

 

[BUM]

I think the cat will do well in a cold house, esp. on sunny days but DW is having none of it. "What if the temps get in the single digits and its cloudy for several days?" Time to stock up on good drugs.

 

[Kitty]

I traveled cross country with two of the most whinney scardy cats ever. I had it better than most as I had them in a Class A motor home..
They realy didn't like being in their carriers so I let them out as soon as I started the engine they would hide. After a few days the male cat got brave and came out during the day and even rode in my lap for hours at a time.

Some cats just won't calm down until all the noise over for a long while. They adjust just in their own time.

Good Luck wear ear plugs
Kitty

 

[Brat]

Years ago DOL sent auditors from DC to each of the field offices to make sure we were doing good work. One guy traveled with his cat. The travel took a toll on the auditors, he said he needed someone to welcome him at the end of the day and a cat carrier can be tucked under an airplane seat.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My dad drove cross country with his cat when he moved here. He was in a van at the time, so there was a little room. Pretty much the same observation a lot of other people had...freaked out when in the carrier, when out of it found a place she felt comfortable to hide under the seat and after a couple of days started sitting in the sun on the seat and occasionally looking out the window.

As soon as they got into the hotel room, zoom under the bed. Which became amusing the first time they took a room with the solid wood frame under the bed.

The only potential problem here is if the cat decides it wants to "hide" under the pedals or jumps on you while you're in the middle of a driving "maneuver".

 

[Eagle43]

We have a cat with diabetes, so natch, DW wants her with us on most car trips.  She has adjusted well to car travel.  We even pulled down the back seat in the Camry so she could pick a spot in the trunk.  We put down cat litter in a box and cover the seats with a sheet.  In the motel, she will sniff everywhere, then decide she's in charge.  We have had to sneak her into a motel occasionally, when they have the "No Pets" sign.  It seems she knows this and will meow loudly, trying to get us evicted.  This has not happened yet, but it will, I'm sure.  I had a friend who took her dog with her.  After paying and sneaking the dog into the room, they were busted and sent packing with NO refund.

 

[Jarhead*]

We have a cat with diabetes, so natch, DW wants her with us on most car trips.  She has adjusted well to car travel.  We even pulled down the back seat in the Camry so she could pick a spot in the trunk.  We put down cat litter in a box and cover the seats with a sheet.  In the motel, she will sniff everywhere, then decide she's in charge.  We have had to sneak her into a motel occasionally, when they have the "No Pets" sign.  It seems she knows this and will meow loudly, trying to get us evicted.  This has not happened yet, but it will, I'm sure.  I had a friend who took her dog with her.  After paying and sneaking the dog into the room, they were busted and sent packing with NO refund.

Eagle 43: Taking a long trip can sometimes "stress you out" a little bit, but knowing you always have "a little pussy" in reserve can take the edge off.

Of course, that's only my opinion.

 

[Calgary_Girl]

Gee, all these great stories makes me glad that I'm a DOG person

 

[Eagle43]

Eagle 43:  Taking a long trip can sometimes "stress you out" a little bit, but knowing you always have "a little pussy" in reserve can take the edge off.

Of course, that's only my opinion.

Hey, you do other things than just golf! 

 

[REWahoo]

Hey, you do other things than just golf!

Yep, Jarhead apparently also overdoses on wheat bread.

 

[Jarhead*]

Hey, you do other things than just golf! 

Eagle 43: Cut me some slack, we're working on our 9th. day of rain!

Checking out conditions of the course today, an optomistic outlook would be 2 weeks at least before it's playable. Stand by for some wierd posts.

 

[grumpy]

Gee, all these great stories makes me glad that I'm a DOG person

DanTien,

How about a poll of forum participants - dogs, cats, both or no pets?

Grumpy

 

[sgeeeee]

We moved from Iowa to Arizona with two cats and a dog about 4 years ago. We were driving two vehicles, so we brought the dog in one truck and the cats in the SUV. Both the vehicles were loaded with all the junk that we didn't put on the moving van. Our cats had been barn cats in Iowa. We moved the cats into the car in cat carriers, but then left the carrier door open and gave them the option to do whatever they wanted. One of them came up to the passenger seat and sat next to my wife (she was driving the cats). The other one tunneled down into the stacks of junk and hid. The drive took us two and a half days, so during the evenings we moved the two of us, one dog and two cats into a hotel room -- then back into the vehicles for the drive the next morning. The logistics of loading and unloading our stuff and the pets each day was tedious, but we really didn't have any problems. All three pets are still doing fine.

 

[BUM]

From the collective wisdom here I can see this trip will be a crapshoot. Some cats do well it seems others don't. I know it will all be ok. DW is the scardy cat.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

By the way, Motel 6 has a "pets ok" policy at almost all of their locations. So do some others, but my dad was able to just stop at any motel 6 he came to, "declare" the pet, and never had a problem.