www.simplystacie.net
Recently COAL contributor RetroJerry told us a story about traveling with a cat in a Chrysler PT Cruiser. In the comments, Oh!Gust made mention of driving a cat from Czechoslovakia into Slovakia.
These comments disinterred memories of my travels with animals, all cats in my case.
Before I pose the ultimate question, here’s some contextual lead-up to a memorable experience traveling with animals.
In March 2007, shortly after we moved to Hannibal, Missouri, we visited the animal shelter so our then four-year old daughter, Eileen, could pick out a cat.
The young female feline Eileen picked out, soon named Cinderella, had moments of being a mean old bitch. A charcoal colored long-hair, Cinderella would sometimes bite for no reason and would attack without provocation. She and I had a tortured relationship, which should be read as my having little patience with her, due partly to her habit of being, shall we say, an out of the box type of cat among her list of un-endearing habits.
The biggest decline of our relationship happened one morning when, unbeknownst to me, Cinderella was on the bed.
As one who tends to sleep on his side, I invariably roll onto my back before climbing out of bed. This particular morning, similar to so many others, a physiological thing had occurred, a phenomenon that happens with healthy males.
For whatever reason, Cinderella viewed a specific high point of the bedsheet as a threat.
When presented with threats, cats either run or attack. Cinderella was not a runner.
Did I mention it was summer, so there was only one, thin cotton sheet? Yeah, despite being miraculously free of injury my day was off to a rotten start.
A year or so later, while I was out of town, a second cat appeared from the animal shelter. A gray and white short hair female, Samantha was barely weaned when she arrived at our house. Soon enough we would discover she and Cinderella didn’t get along, either.
We moved to Jefferson City from Hannibal in January 2012. Naturally, part of the move involved the whimsical fun of transporting two kitties, one of whom (Cinderella) relished bullying the other.
My wife, Marie, and Eileen, who was nine by this time, transported the fleabags felines in our 2000 Ford E-150. Somehow we had succeeded in getting both cats into the same large cage. We placed the cage on the floor between the first and second rows of seats.
Marie and Eileen were following me as I piloted my employer owned 2009 Ford Escape.
The distance from Hannibal to Jefferson City is an easy 105 mile drive. We were approaching Mexico (57 miles from Hannibal, and the town in which I had my mother believing every restaurant there is a Mexican restaurant because, well, they are, even McDonalds, as it’s in, well, Mexico) when disaster struck challenges arose. I had seen some unusual movement inside the van, so I knew something was up.
After a few moments my phone rang. The conversation went something like this:
Me (chipper and nonchalantly): Hey, sweetie-pie, how’s it going?
Marie (noticeably animated): Oh! Not good. We need to stop at a gas station. Quick. How close are we to Mexico?
Me (curious, but not letting it show): About five miles or so.
Marie (even more animated): Okay, we need to stop. We’ve got a problem.
Me (suspecting, but playing coy): Is the van running okay? Flat tire? Something else?
Marie (annoyed and excited): No! Samantha pooped. Oh, it stinks in here. We reeeeaaaalllly need to stop. The windows are rolled down and the stink won’t go away. Are we really five miles away?
Really, it was more like ten miles. But, to me, it seemed like Samantha’s problem was over. Then again, her residual was there for everyone’s enjoyment. So maybe there was a problem.
In retrospect, I was the only one to grasp the irony of Samantha being the unloader.
Once inside Mexico, I whipped that go-cartesque Escape into a gas station. Marie barreled in behind me, not even slowing to make the left turn into the lot, with the running boards on our E-150 nearly rubbing the ground. Both she and Eileen come rolling out of the van, coughing and gagging, tears running down their cheeks. My attention had been captured.
Our daughter filled me in:
“Daddy, it was horrible. I was sitting in the back, playing with the kitties through the cage, and Samantha went potty. I could see it come out! Then Cinderella laid down in it. It was so nasty!”
Then she laughed, reminding me of me when she said “It would have been fun to have had a 3D camera on the ground beneath her. But then she went stink again!”
Marie then interrupted our festivities, seeking my labor advice.
“Jason, it looks like this is the first time that cat has gone in a week. If we let them out of the cage, we’ll never get them back in. But we have got to get that mess out of there.”
I knew Marie’s “we” really meant “Jason”. She didn’t appreciate my reminding her I had told the cats to use the litter box prior to departure and how they didn’t listen.
Looking inside the cage (from a distance; I only feign being stupid) I had a grand epiphany upon seeing the half-dehydrated looking fruits of Samantha’s gastrointestinal tract, realizing her puny fluid intake could actually work to Marie’s our advantage. Stepping into the adjacent grassy area, I found a thin, long stick and handed it to my wonderful and loving wife who has not aged a bit in our twenty-two years of matrimony.
I then turned on the baloney charm. My idea was truly beautiful, dripping with its simple, yet highly functional, elegance.
Others might call it a shoot-the-moon type idea but they would be naysayers.
“Honey Bunny, if I get in the van it will just get Cinderella worked up. We don’t need that. So here’s what let’s do. I’ll keep Eileen occupied. You take this stick, run it between the spokes of the cage and poke what Samantha left. Then pull it out of the cage and flick it into the grass. Poke, pull, flick. Cats are self-cleaning, so Cinderella will take care of what’s on her. It’ll be easy.”
I then smiled in a great big reassuring manner. Plus, I even whittled the end to a sharp point with my trusty old pocketknife.
Marie, desperate, apprehensively tackled the poke-pull-flick endeavor. Oddly enough it worked like a charm. And we continued on our way.
For some reason, I suspect many of us have had some type of adventure while traveling with animals. What memorable experience(s) do you have from traveling with animals? What were you driving? Where, and how far, did you go?
Ha. Two cats that don’t get along in one carrier? That sounded like a mistake right there.
We never travelled much with animals, but growing up we took in a stray black cat we named Panther. She was a very capable huntress with razor sharp claws. Mom decided we should really take her to the vet to get a checkup, so we put her in a cardboard box, closed the lid and headed off to the vet.
It turns out Panther didn’t like riding in the car, within a few minutes she had destroyed the cardboard box and was tearing around inside the car, trying to jump out the windows. We had to go home and cancel the appointment.
For take 2 we actually purchased a plastic cat carrier with a wire mesh door, and placed the carrier between my sister and I in the back seat. Once underway a lighting fast paw shot out of the mesh and sunk it’s claws into my leg. I got detached and kept as far from the carrier as possible while Panther shredded the car seat between us. At the vet my bloody leg got stares from the other people in the waiting room.
Despite these early setbacks Panther was a great pet and even graduated from cat college. For many years this picture hung in my parents home next to the grad photos of their three children 🙂
Wow. It would seem that a fresh wound, while at the vet, would be self explanatory to a certain degree.
Cinderella was similar in the scratching. A trip to the vet necessitating tackling her with a blanket.
Sadly (no, make that thankfully), nothing major. The dog, Melbourne, vomited in the back of the new Explorer when we got both around the same time. A little disconcerting but close to home. She eventually got used to the Explorer but really enjoyed travelling most in the 740 Turbo Wagon, as the rear window line is very low and she had shortish legs.
The same dog more or less happily traveled all the way from CA to CO in the back seat of our Civic Hybrid during The Great Move Of 2010. She pretty much laid down and slept the entire way, about 1250 miles, which I did non-stop. The same trip also carried Fluffy and Applesauce, my daughter’s two hermit crabs at the time, in their terrarium. They were completely quiet and well behaved. Melbourne ignored them.
Dogs seem to be so much easier to travel with, which you and Paul (below) have confirmed.
Hermit crabs sound ideal for hauling around. We did goldfish on the same trip from Hannibal. Easy peasy.
Melbourne?!! Grey and windy, was it?
Cat College of Eating and Sleeping
Our late Emma, whom we lost at age 17 last summer, and who looked rather like Cinderella, never had to go a long distance in a vehicle. But on her regular visits to the vet for checkups, she fought when we tried to put her in her carrier, one time peeing all over me. In the car she moped and cried a little, all the way there. On the way back, the moping stopped about a mile from home. She looked happier, like she knew we were getting close…and probably did know.
Emma likely did know she was back close to home. Animals seem to have an innate sense of knowing they are nearby.
I had a very big Tom cat for 14 years before he passed. He was a gentle giant but he was so big that people were usually scared of him because he was so big. He hated riding in the car. He’d howl the whole ride to the vet, which fortunately was as far as I ever had to take him. A regular cat carrier was too small for him so I used to use a laundry basket with another laundry basket tipped upside down on top of the first with them both tied together on all four sides. He was always the star of the waiting room.
As far as cats go, big Toms are the best. They also seem to be more even tempered than their female contemporaries – but that’s just my experience.
I love the big male cats too, Jason. But then I’m the Crazy Cat Lady. Five in my house at the moment, and I foster for a shelter as well. We moved from Iowa to Utah eleven years ago; we had just two cats back then, and the whole trip was uneventful (at least as far as the cats were concerned; I won’t go into the delay caused by a monster thunderstorm in Nebraska). Took each cat in its own carrier. They pretty much slept the whole way, and there were no messes at all. Once we’d located a pet-friendly motel, we gave them food, water, and a disposable litter box. Then onward to our destination. Fostering has reinforced my belief that every cat is different from all the rest. Maybe we were just lucky to have a pair at the time who liked each other and who were both gentle and sweet-natured. Different story if we’d had a couple of demons from Hell who didn’t get along.
Great story, and great writing! Thanks.
I agree. I love cats, but I refuse to have a female. They can be quite…ahem…”bitchy” A male with his man-parts removed are the best.
Not me, but my friends toy poodle enjoyed car trips. Never had a problem, normally. But he recognized the neighborhood around the vet’s office. If we drove through there, the dog whined and howled, thinking he was being taken to the vet.
About 8 years ago I adopted Otis, the 3 legged runt of a feral litter that hung out in the woods behind our apartment complex in Daytona Beach. When my partner’s mother was diagnosed with cancer we decided to move back to Brooklyn. I’d read that it was safe to give a cat Benedryl, but I didn’t exactly read through all of the particulars. For simplicity’s sake I’ll just say I probably went a little heavy with the stuff. It was a 23 hour drive, and we didn’t hear a peep from Otis. We strapped his carrier to the fold-down armrest in the back seat of our ’03 Durango and Otis peered blearily out of the front of the carrier between naps. It was an unexpectedly easy trip. Otis still lives in Brooklyn the “The Other’s” mother, who is currently in remission. All’s well that ends well.
My current dog, a rescue mini-schnauzer named Klaus, is decidedly NOT a traveler. Riding in the car makes him so anxious that he “sings” loudly and at ear-splitting pitch for the ENTIRE trip, no matter how long or short. The other dog in my current household, a large and intimidating Boxer, loves to take rides so much that she’s been known to jump into the UPS or mail truck when they stop to deliver and leave the sliding door open. Delivery people are generally good natured about this, but she’s scared the hell out of a couple of them.
Our current canine, a mini schnauzer/bichon named Dolly does not like car rides. Shakes like a leaf in a wind storm most of the trip. Must have done a ride along with Tiger Woods before we got her.
Marie had the same experience with Benadryl and cats – her prior cat, Stormy, was in a stupor for over a day after a two hour trip.
How best to travel with animals? Tranquilisers!
…for the humans.
If you noticed, I was not in the van where the action was. That may or may not have been intentional….
Lewis and Clark–Feline longhairs, brothers, littermates–came to us from the local animal shelter. SWMBO had predetermined that they would love to travel as much as she did (therefore their names!) Therefore a collapsible “dog training kennel” about 4′ by 3′ by 3′ went into the back of the Trailblazer. There was a litter box, food and water dishes, and some “toys” inside.
Truth is, they traveled pretty well. They’d typically be restless for the first hundred miles, then settle down and sleep or play. We learned to love “Pet-Friendly” motels like LaQuinta.
We loaded them in the car for short rides, and then longer rides. Our first major trip with them was from The Seasonally-Frozen Wastelands to either Phoenix AZ, or to Dear Old Dad’s place in the Armpit of the Central Valley, CA. Either way, getting towards 2K miles and three days in the car.
We stopped at a Pizza Hut along the way. The weather was totally pleasant, spring-like and towards evening. I opened the door to the cage, and opened the windows about an inch before locking the car. We went inside and had the beginnings of a nice meal. I, however was strangely uneasy.
I left the food, and went out to the car. The windows were now rolled-down five or six inches due to “somebody” standing on the window switches on the driver’s door panel. However, nobody had escaped yet. Back in the cage they went, the dinner–and trip–proceeded smoothly until a later gas-stop.
SWMBO went in to use the facilities, I’m outside pumping gas. We’d let L & C out of the cages again, they’d been peacefully roaming the inside of the car for miles previously. When I’m done at the gas pump, I lift the door handle to get my keys and wallet from inside…and “somebody” had stepped on the door lock switch on the driver’s door panel. I’m locked-out. I could coax them to stand on the door panel again, but never in the proper spot to unlock the door(s). Saved by SWMBO who carried a second set of keys.
This taught us two things: Hide keys to the car somewhere in a magnetic box accessible from outside the car; and put the cats into the kennel at stops even if they’re “loose” in the car (window lockout engaged) while highway cruising.
Best to let them take the wheel like Toonces The Cat Who Could Drive
I have thankfully been able to avoid being a pet owner for my adult life, though my daughters constantly beg me for a dog, and they’re trying to wear down my resistance. So far I’ve stood firm.
So I’ll have to go pretty far back for a traveling-with-animals story — back to 1986 when I was 13.
My mom and I were driving in her 1980 Subaru wagon with my folks’ 6-mo. old Akita puppy named Kobe in the back seat. At some point we heard a disturbing sound coming from the back – it was the sound of retching. Over and over, Kobe was retching, and was obviously going to vomit soon. Mom had nowhere to pull off the road, and both of us frantically tried to tell Kobe “it’s OK!”, like somehow that would make him feel better.
Eventually we heard The Sound. Kobe put his head on the rear door panel and let it all come out. Mom pulled into a drugstore parking lot, and I got out and opened up the rear door… a waterfall of vomit spilled out. I never knew a puppy’s stomach could hold that much stuff.
Mom got a roll of towels at the drug store, and we began cleaning up, which seemed as futile as it was disgusting. Mom and I both threw up in the process. We needed several more rolls.
Fortunately Kobe eventually overcame his car-sick phase. And about a year later, mom sold the Subaru, and when she did, there was still lots of fuzzy light-brown stuff under the rear seat. I pointed it out to mom, and we both laughed.
Eric, I can now smell that vomit. Thanks. 🙂
You are wise to refrain from pets. Marie does not like how I’ve adopted a version of my grandfather’s philosophy of “I don’t want anything that eats, sleeps, or poops – except your grandma”.
Lil’ Man is very happy being on the road with us, and is an excellent traveling companion. He has only one quirk: if I accidentally hit a rumble strip in the median or on the shoulder, either accidentally or out of necessity, like in passing, he gets triggered and jumps off the bed where he normally rides and tries to get in the front with us, squeezing in between the seats as far as he can.
Cats? Never.
Long ago I made a trip from where I grew up to northern Alabama with a friend, his parents, and their rat-terrier, Spike, in a 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix.
Spike and Lil’ Man sound quite similar – Spike was good until any unusual noise.
I’ve always had leash-free self-disciplined cats and dogs, so there’s lots of stories.
Never met a cat that liked to ride, never met a dog that didn’t.
Funny how Li’l Man became “Pavloved” to the rumble strip.
I had an industrialized dog that somehow learned to recognize the sound of a hydraulic system hitting high pressure relief. Often that sound precedes things flying or breaking, so it makes sense.
She’d usually hang around at a safe distance, but at the high-pressure “ehhhrrr” sound, it was tail in and make distance. LoL
I started to mimic the sound to use as the “alert,danger” command.
People thought it was crazy, but the dog new exactly what it meant. Lol
A stray took up with Granny and I when I was in college, but was unwelcome. I offered to take it to the pound and managed to get it into a cardboard box, which I put in the back of my Suzuki Samurai. About 15 minutes from arriving, the cat managed to escape the box, and was pretty distressed. I got a few mild scratches and the truck needed a cleanout after I dropped the cat off (getting it back in the box was when I got scratched).
I’ve transported larger animals, but used a stock trailer!
Perhaps your use of a stock trailer could be the best way to transport cats? It would certainly lower the human’s blood pressure.
It would have to be a fully-enclosed one, for sure!
Your comment reminded me of another cat transport story. I took a load of hay to the sale barn, and halfway through unloading found one of our kittens huddled in a cavity between bales, where it obviously had spent the night. We had already gentled them, so it was simple to pick it up and put it in the cab of the truck while I finished. IIRC, it rode home in the cab without any drama.
And that reminded me of one more story… I bought a 25′ enclosed HD trailer to use for our move South last year, and one of the Toms snuck in the trailer overnight. I left the tail down and the side door open all the next day, thinking he would find his way out and that would be that.
I left out the following day, hauling my 1950 8N and numerous implements. I stopped frequently to check the tie-downs through the side door, but about halfway there, I decided it might be good to also check the tie-downs holding the implements at the back of the trailer. I dropped the tailgate ramp and was greeted by a grey ball huddled up in the corner. Tommy was CATatonic! He slowly looked up at me, then looked past me at the field beyond. Quick as a wink, he was gone! Being one of the last litters before we moved, we had not gentled him and he didn’t like being petted, so I didn’t bother trying to catch him. Hope he found a good home!
Our twenty pound orange tabby, Charlie, had been a traveling companion with my parents for years. They drove an good size RV and Charlie would lounge upon the giant dashboard sunning himself as they drove. However, he need a bit of relaxing before each trip and so for about 30 minutes into each voyage, Charlie would trot into the RV bathroom, lay down beside the toilet and hold on for dear life until his queasiness would pass. It seemed that after 30 minutes he would walk out of the bathroom and be himself within the moving vehicle.
They would take him across the US, and often had him with them when they camped in Breckenridge Colorado for a month. It was very convenient to have him with them as this kept him from needing a sitter for the weeks they were gone. Many people were surprised to see Charlie on the road but he was fine with traveling.
Among the many pet cats I have had in my life, Charlie was the exception. My newest 20 pound orange male tabby, Nicky, is not a traveler. He does not like moving in a vehicle and is greatly distressed by it, as were the other cats in my life. Instead of enjoying the ride, they would poop, pee, cry and go unhinged until the next day.
In ’69, my parents loaded 3 kids, 9, 11, 13, and a howling Siamese in the Electra and drove from SoCal to NoVa, with a stop at Grandma’s in NC. Until he’d get worn out, which took hours, the only place the cat wanted to sit quietly was behind the brake pedal. We would split grapes for him to lick so he’d shut up and not get dehydrated. If anyone said “cat”, he’d start howling again, so we referred to him as “Fort Knox” for some reason. That cat had lungs, and he knew how to use them.
He pooped in the car only once, outside Atlanta, and in the litter pan my mother had made ready, but the smell was still memorable.
I have a lot of experience traveling with show cats, although my trips max out at maybe six hours.
Key points to remember:
Use a hard plastic carrier, one cat to a carrier with a small litter box ( a Van Ness small usually fits), Put an old towel in the bottom of each carrier and bring plenty of spares because you will be swapping them out or throwing soiled ones away in case the cats puke or miss the box.
Bring plenty of kitchen garbage bags, paper towels, and quart freezer bags. If a cat poops or pees you can put the freezer bag inside out, wear it like a glove and grab the poop and pee.
Also bring a tube or tub of sanitary wipes for cleaning your hand after this or cleaning the cage if they missed the box,
Put the scooped litter and soiled towel in the kitchen bag and dispose of at the next convenient stop.
Withhold food and water for a couple of hours before you leave if you can.
Leave the cages out and open at home for a few days before leaving so they get used to it. They may use it as a sleeping place. All the better.
Long distance travel with cats? Never tried that. When I have had cats, they generally did not like to ride in the car for very long. Our Ragdoll could tolerate it pretty well, but then he acted more like a dog anyway. Our Himalayans? Not so much.
As to my dog Molly, she LOVES rides in the car, especially HER car. When she was younger, we’d take her to the beach with us (2.5 to 3 hours away) with no issues. Right after we got her, when she was like a year and a half old or so, we took her on a really long trip… from Maryland down to South Carolina and Georgia. She was fine. On the most recent long drive, I took her down to the Outer Banks. This was August of 2018. She was 10 years old then. While she tolerated the drive, I think she was glad it was over.
Now that she’s almost 13, she still likes her rides, but prefers them to be shorter. She’s picky about the car too. She’ll tolerate my wife’s Lancer; she’ll accept a ride in the Civic, but much prefers to take her Mustang. Put her in that car, and just can just see the joy on her face….
I’ll never forget the cat we had when I was a boy. When we went to my grandparents’ place for the school holidays (about an hour and a half drive), she always came along too, in a wicker picnic-basket sort of box, with a hinged lid, and a wire vent in one side so she could see out. She’d be on the back seat next to me, so she could see me and the inside of the car, but nothing else.
She’d usually do what cats do best, curl up and go to sleep. And every trip, without fail, she would wake up and meow just when we were rounding the last corner before turning into their driveway. It didn’t matter if we had to detour, or stopped off for some shopping en route. Always she could tell that last corner, although she couldn’t see it. Feline GPS, I guess.
Charley loves to travel with us, but only if he gets to drive.
In 1982, my mother and I moved from Vegas back to Toledo, we had a family business and my uncle was doing some very strange things as the “manager” that we needed to keep an eye on and she had just broken up with her long time boyfriend and I had just broken up with my GF, so we decided to move back. I was tired of tan ground and the heat anyway.
We bought a 1982 Chevy K5 Blazer a couple of weeks before the move, and my job was to get the bugs out of it, install running boards and a pushbar, and to get some better wheels and tires on it. It had a very bad knock that took several tries to fix, but once it was, it was a nearly perfect vehicle. Just really gutless with the mighty 305 it had in it. As moving day approached, I took my two 5 year old dogs, my yellow Lab Joe, and my Lab/Beagle Blackie for a few rides to get them used to it as they had been riding in my gone a few months Power Wagon, and nothing else for a long time. Joe was fine, Blackie seemed to be all stressed out. That wouldn’t change.
On the night before we left, we went to dinner at a great Chinese restaurant, and then gambled a while. I won $1500 on Keno, so we had extra traveling money. It would come in real handy later on, as nothing really ended up as we planned. Mom went as long as she could and we got to bed about 230am. At 7, I woke up and began to load up and we went to breakfast on the way out, and then hit the road. When we got to Hoover Dam, it was obvious Blackie was having a lot of stress. She just panted and went around in circles. She was kind of odd anyway. We just thought she would eventually calm down. Nope. Joe was getting pissed at her for not letting him sleep, with his glares making her even more nervous. We ended up stopping in Albuquerque for the night, and poor Blackie had not sat down for more than maybe 5 minutes, only on pee/poop breaks on the leash. She was a mess, and Joe was not happy with her at all. After we checked into the motel, I took the dogs for a walk without going up to the room first, which was on the second floor. When I tried to get either dog to go up the open stairs, they both panicked, so I wound up carrying both of them up the stairs. Blackie’s 55 pounds, stiff as a board in fright was no problem, but 96 pound Joe was another story. He flopped around like he was dead and it took me a while to get him up. When we came down in the morning, there was no problem as they couldn’t see through the stairs on the way down. The carrying up the stairs would continue all the way back, as most places we stopped at never seemed to have a ground floor room available.
Blackie continued to stand up rigid with fear. Of what, I have no clue, but Joe had lost all patience with her and every time she woke him up by bumping him, he would sneer at her and make eye contact, letting her know he didn’t have any sympathy for her problems. The sneering made her even more nervous, and we wanted the trip over ASAP. But a blizzard hit the Midwest, and we ended up going the Southern route to Dallas, and then would go North, after the storm had passed. Joe finally had reached his limit and pinned her to the floor after she bumped him while he was asleep. I intervened and Joe did a lot of gulping but continued to give Blackie dirty looks when he thought I wasn’t looking. As we headed North, the weather wasn’t bad, sunny, but cold. That would change, and not in a good way.
We had relatives in Pierre, SD, and as we got closer, the storm’s effects were a concern. There were dead cows all over the roads, laying on their backs with their legs up in the air, frozen solid. I ended up pushing one of them off the road, that pushbar I had put on came in handy after all. The Blazer made it to Pierre fine, and we had dinner that first night at our relatives house, and if they had heat that actually kept the house warm, we would have stayed there. We went to a former Holliday Inn, and checked in, saying it would only be for 3 days. I had to carry the dogs up the stairs. the second wave of the blizzard hit the next day, killing more cattle, we even saw a guy put a huge bull down that had been hit by a car just a few minutes earlier. My mother totally freaked out when he took out a lever action rifle and shot it. We ended up staying for almost 3 weeks. And I carried Joe and Blackie up those damn steps for 2 weeks, until we moved to a ground floor room.
Finally, it was time to get going, and after we ate breakfast, we left and nothing much happened, except for the continuing Backie standing up as long as we were moving, until Omaha. We were on the freeway passing through and some idiot cut us off, and I nearly crashed when I locked up the brakes hard. When I did that, all the boxes of stuff we had stacked up in the back of the Blazer came crashing down on the dogs. Joe did an amazing leap over almost all of it, but Blackie got slammed pretty hard, making her an even bigger mess than she was already. We stopped at a motel for the night in Wisconsin someplace, and I had to carry the dogs upstairs. Somehow, my mother had spilled her meds all over the stairs and also had lost $1000 worth of Traveler’s Cheques. Eventually we got them replaced, but the $1500 I had filled the gap in the meantime.
On the last night of the trip, we stayed in Morris, Ill at the nastiest Holiday Inn I’ve ever seen. Joe was in a totally foul mood from a lack of sleep and Blackie was so exhausted that she passed out as soon as we checked in. When we arrived in Toledo, we went to a friend’s house and had dinner, then checked into the “Budget Inn”, where we would end up spending nearly two months until the house closed. Originally, the seller wanted a 90 day closing, but after we told them that could keep the house if they did, they caved to 60 days and actually we closed in 55 days. The two dogs were back to their normal friendly ways soon into that stay, but it was prom week, and drunk teens were waking the dogs up constantly, and Joe wasn’t exactly a quiet dog. 55 days or so in a tiny motel room with two dogs and it being the “Budget Inn”, well when we moved into the house, it was like we had won the lottery.
Blackie got over her fear of riding after some pills the vet gave me, and the trip in 1985 to SD was only marred by the nightmare that Chicago is/was both to and from there.
I used to go to the NHRA Springnationals drag races every year in the Columbus, OH area. One year, we decided to take our 4 year old dog Gus with us, as he was pretty miserable in a kennel, even as nice as it was. My mother and her best friend went with me, the friend agreed to take care of Gus when I was at the race over the 3 days, and a friend of theirs from Toledo lived nearby and came over all three days. Gus was a half Pit Bull/half mystery mix, who was always injuring himself. On Friday after we arrived, I took Gus for a walk just to wear him out, as he slept almost the whole 3 hours or so it took to get there. When I got back from the track, we ended up going to the friend’s house for dinner. Her little Yorkie seemed to like Gus a lot, and they were playing nicely. I don’t know how he did it, but he somehow ended up tearing one of his huge claws most of the way off, and blood was everywhere. The friend called her vet and he was in the office with an emergency and told her to send us over. I ended up taking Gus alone, which was no problem, except to keep him on the seat with a towel and garbage bag under it to catch the blood. When we went into the office, they put us into a small exam room, and to keep Gus busy while we waited, I gave him the thing he loved best, a hunk of rawhide about 7/16″ thick. As he started to chew it up and eat it, the vet walked in and just stood there for a minute while Gus sawed off hunks of the rawhide, which was like armor plate. He takes his pen out and writes on top of the index card he had Gus’s info on, “F.A.T.”. I said, “He’s not fat!”, and the vet said, “No, it means Finger Amputatin’ Teeth!”. Oh, OK, that was totally accurate. After his claw was cut off and cauterized, the vet came in with this great smelling rawhide rolled up thing about 18″ long and about an inch in a half across, and said, “I want to see what he can do with this!”, and handed it to him. He started lopping hunks of it off and swallowing the hunks and the vet pulled his pen out and added three Plus signs to the F. A. T, making in F.A.T.+++. He said only one other dog got the three plus signs. “You have to give that mouth a lot of respect!”. Gus would return to Columbus many times in his life, and most of them, he would end up at that vet’s office, with broken ribs, more claws/dewclaws broken, a scratched cornea, and a sliced open thigh. Gus definitely wore out, not rusted out.
About 10 years ago I helped my daughter and family move from AFB in Gulfport to Barksdale in Shreveport. I got voluntold to drive the U -Hual. I got both their cats in a carrier in passenger seat as copilots. Coming down the bridge in Baton Rouge one of the cats had a deification issue and that cat was well hydrated.
Gagged my way to the next truck stop, they sprayed the cats down with a hose while I spayed down the carrier and cleaned up the truck. A stick wasn’t helping that one. I drove the next 10 hours with the windows down is all I can say. (at least I didn’t get all the scratches). Yep, true story.
We moved from Texas to Washington State 4 years ago. Once again I drove the U-Haul (gladly by myself). Our 2 dogs where in their crate with my wife in our Rav4.
…..I guess that is why I prefer dogs…….
My dad always told me cats don’t like to travel because they have a very keen sense of balance and traveling can upset it. He could be right I don’t know.
I have had very little experience transporting cats in a car. But years ago a high school classmate of mine transported a cat in his folk’s Chevy Suburban. He did not use a carrier or any other ways to confine the cat and let it roam inside the Suburban. Since my classmate was driving he was not paying attention to the cat. The cat ran up behind him and jumped on his shoulders, digging it’s claws into his neck. Needless to say between being stunned by the cat and in excruciating pain he lost control of the Suburban, drove into a ditch and rolled the Suburban over. From what I was told he and the cat were quite shaken but fine. The Suburban was totaled.
Thank you for the shout-out. Compared to your story from the van my experience was like a walk in the park, with no need for any ad-hoc stick solution (there were probably some wet wipes in the car). As my friend was cleaning up the cage, I sat in the car with all the doors open holding the said cat on a blanket, calming him down in order not to run away (he is quite big and weighs at least 5 kg, so I was just a little scared).
But there is one thing I have to mention – our trip was from Czech Republic to Slovakia, Czechoslovakia does not exist since 1993 (and my story dates to autumn 2019) 😁
Drat! I re-read your comment but (obviously) had a period between then and when I wrote this.
Either way, you transported a cat in two countries!
In 2012 my wife and I drove to the west coast from Boulder in our 96 Dodge Avenger coupe with our greyhound Buckley. She actually drove by herself as far as northern CA and I met her in Sacramento. There were many adventures on that trip, too much to get into here, but the worst moment was when we stopped for a picnic in Forest Park in Portland. I was driving and as we parked I was closing my window when I heard a cry of death. Buckley was excitedly sticking his head out the window when we parked, and I failed to look behind me before closing my window on the poor dog’s neck. Ultimately he was fine, although he was shaking his head a lot for the rest of the trip…and I felt about 2 feet tall after that happened. On the same trip my wife managed to get a $250 speeding ticket in the Columbia Gorge, and Buckley was unsuccessful at charming the Wasco County sherriffs officer out of it.
Long, long ago, when we still had the dreaded VW splittie van, our rather variably-tempered cat, Chewy, decided one day that he would rather like to sun himself on board by climbing through the sliding front windows. (It always got parked on a steep slope at home, with the tail lower, and on slamming the doors, the moving pane got the power assistance of gravity, and morning often found a breeze – or rain – blowing on through).
What Chewy had not bothered to do was to inform anyone of his wind-breaked sunspot in the back compartment, self-regarding behavior not untypical of a cat.
And so it was that day that mother and I set off innocently on some dull errand.
Within a few minutes, he made his presence known, along with his displeasure. Like a cartoon, he appeared, suddenly, on the dash, in front of mum, huge, bug-eyed, and complaining. She shrieked and swept him out of her vision and changed sides of the road and back, mounting a gutter. He appeared next, in milliseconds, at my window, equally big and fractious. I yelled, and elbowed him into the back. Without any delay, he was on mum’s other shoulder, loudly dispensing advice and scratches to her in equal measure. She braked in pain, and then couldn’t change gear. Well, a glance quickly told her she COULD, but Chewy did NOT like being compressed by the clutch pedal, and on release, bit the foot that fed it, and, unwisely, moved under the accelerator.
Mum, not especially known for animal sympathies, pressed full throttle in revenge, and released. We all jerked forward, and he was next scrambling straight up my unprotected legs, over my shoulder and into the back again. I yelled. He roared back. He next was a demented silhoutte scratching at the back window, then upside down from the cloth headliner, then a figure trying his best to press his head through the back side window (though the flip catch closed on him in his madness).
We turned around in a traffic-startling and rule-defying hurry, causing himself to slide out of control into the solid wall on the non-opening side of the van, and we made haste to get back home. I thought the audible knock on his head had returned some decorum to his behaviour, as he stopped his wild gyrations, but he had more left to give by way of a command to be back in his yard, and it was not at all decorous, as within seconds, the van had no air at all, none. Well, ok, none that could safely be breathed, at any rate. The message he had sent, which wasn’t necessary anyway, was silent and clear and probably deadly. If bottled, I swear we could have run the stove for a month.
Luckily, we were within seconds of gasping up the driveway, and both exited almost before the handbrake went on. We sat on the grass, gagging, bleeding, and guess what he did?
He refused to come out, and eventually returned to his wind-breaked spot in the sun!
As a poscript, some years later he apparently picked a fight with a passing car, and lost. One sister came in tearily saying, “Chewy’s dead, he’s been run over”, to which my dear mother replied “Oh no! I just fed him!”
She was never allowed to forget that comment, but given his behavior on his big day out, I understood her.
My mom had a wonderful way with cats, she told me early on that the only way to get a cat comfortable with riding in a vehicle was to start them off as young kittens. They quickly get used to the motion of the vehicle.
In 1978 I had a cat give birth to 3 kittens, and 2 weeks later she was hit by a car and didn’t make it. So I had to play nursemaid to 3 little kittens. No way I could leave them at home as I went to work as a restoration mechanic, so for weeks I put them in a cardboard box and brought them to work, where all the other employees were delighted to help out in their care. At first the boss wasn’t to keen on it, but it wasn’t long before we found him sitting in his chair, fast asleep, with a kitten still nursing it’s bottle on his lap. Just as mom had suggested, I started taking the kittens on short rides, then longer ones, and they loved it.
I have always trained my cats to actually come when called, starting the process when they are kittens. I use a 2-tone whistle and where ever they are, they come running, because they know a treat will be forthcoming. I used to have a 26 acre farm, and when I would stand on the back porch and whistle, within minutes I would see a cat [or 2, depending on the date], heading towards me, knowing there would be a little treat waiting.
A few suggestions on having cats roaming around in your car while on the road:
1. Stuff old towels into the front & rear openings under the front seat. Cats love to go under the seats, and can be hard to extricate until they want to come out [treats sometimes get them to come out].
2. As stated elsewhere here, leave the cat carrier in your home, open and inviting. Eventually they will settle down in it. When they are in the carrier, I try not to get them out, so it becomes sort of a refuge. When the carrier is in the vehicle, I leave the door open so they can go in & out.
3. There is an evil company selling special cat harnesses, where your cat can be fastened to a seat belt, so your cat can ride safely in the car. Every cat I’ve had would only be in that harness if it was already dead, because a live cat simply will never allow such a harness to be put around their torso! If you see those cat harnesses for sale, I’m betting the cat shown in the photo is either photoshopped with a harness, It’s a fake Steiff plush, a stuffed [taxidermy] cat, or it’s dead.
In the early 1970s I was driving a 1966 Plymouth Fury III convertible, bright red with a black interior [and for you car guys, it had the very rare 440 V8!]. I was visiting another car collector [Studebakers & Packards] about 100 miles away, and his stable included several cats. When I had arrived at their place, I parked the Plymouth under some trees to keep it cool. But knowing what birds like to do to open top cars with the tops down, I raised & secured the top, but left the side windows down.
I finally left their home about 9pm, it was cool enough I raised the windows before heading home. On arriving home and taking out some personal stuff from the back seat, I heard a sound coming from the top well behind the rear seat. Out popped one of my friend’s cats! It had been sleeping in that nice comfy well, only stirring once I was home.
A quick call to my friend, and I was back on the road headed north again. At the same time he and his wife [the cat’s “official” owner] headed south, and we met at a specific location about half way in between, the cat snuggled next to me on the front seat all the way there. His wife said their cats had been trained since kittens to ride in cars, and this was not the first time that cat hitched a ride!
For many years, the only place we took our cat was to the vet once a year. About 4 years ago, we bought a weekend place about an hour north of us, and began taking him with us. Initially we would take him in his carrier, but we could tell he was sad and lonely riding that way. So, after a few times we decided to take him in the lap of the passenger for the trip. It still isn’t his favorite thing to do, but as being in a lap is his favorite place to be otherwise it works out pretty well.
First, I appreciate the acknowledgement of my previous story. I was raised with dogs, and only became a cat person in my twenties because my (then) wife and I both traveled and it did not seem fair nor at all practical to have dogs. Back when we were dating she had a rescue cat, a black male, who was fairly rambunctious but also pretty chill when he had to be. We did not live together but every now and then she would bring him to my place and while I had a litter box for him she would place a cardboard beer case tray in the back of her RX-7 for the short ride over and generally he would use it while she was driving.
The only really bad cat travel story I had is when we sold our house, but had to move into an apartment until our new house was finished, and was no fault of the cats. The two cats we adopted were in one carrier (we only had two at the time) and the third was in another. About halfway to our apartment we had a flat tire in our Volvo 240 wagon, and I had to removed a lot of stuff, along with the cats and carriers, in order to access the spare.
Chip, who was featured in the story you mentioned, is now having some health issues and has taken several trips to the vet. Yet he remains a good sport. He does meow and want to be petted through his carrier on the way there, but always is chill on the ride back.
The best to all of you – and your pets!
I once drove a friend and his dog to a vet. Along the way, the dog developed diarrhea, then got car-sick and vomited. Twice. Enormous amounts of stuff was coming out of both ends of the dog, all over my back seat, accompanied by the most pitiful canine sounds I have ever been subjected to. Not to mention the smell. My friend spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning out the interior of my car. Miraculously, he is still alive and still my friend. The dog, somewhat less so. The car… let’s just say that this little incident had hastened its already contemplated sale.
Well, I cannot top Justy Baum….
This string of words here …. deserves an award …. I can see the whole thing in my head like a movie!::
“Within a few minutes, he made his presence known, along with his displeasure. Like a cartoon, he appeared, suddenly, on the dash, in front of mum, huge, bug-eyed, and complaining. She shrieked and swept him out of her vision and changed sides of the road and back, mounting a gutter. He appeared next, in milliseconds, at my window, equally big and fractious. I yelled, and elbowed him into the back. Without any delay, he was on mum’s other shoulder, loudly dispensing advice and scratches to her in equal measure. She braked in pain, and then couldn’t change gear. Well, a glance quickly told her she COULD, but Chewy did NOT like being compressed by the clutch pedal, and on release, bit the foot that fed it, and, unwisely, moved under the accelerator.
Mum, not especially known for animal sympathies, pressed full throttle in revenge, and released. We all jerked forward, and he was next scrambling straight up my unprotected legs, over my shoulder and into the back again. I yelled. He roared back. He next was a demented silhouette scratching at the back window, then upside down from the cloth headliner, then a figure trying his best to press his head through the back side window (though the flip catch closed on him in his madness)….”
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BRAVO!!
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My own cat-vs.-car education began and ended very swiftly!:
When a young’un first gets licensed, one of the early mental processes is, “what stupid experiment can I try with the car?”
Egged on by a brother, “let’s take Fluffy for a ride!”
’66 Ford wagon, tons of space. “OK, bro, I’ll get in, you throw him in the back & then jump in front real quick so you don’t let him out!”
The neighborhood gang are well into middle age but still say Fluffy was the coolest cat ever. He was an outdoor cat. By the time he got *snipped*, he was already large and orange and had pieces missing from both ears had an attitude but still was casual and unruffled. Got hit by a car when he was a kitten while I was at soccer practice… my buds were playing street football & said a big chrome bumper whacked him right in the head. Dad wouldn’t pay for a vet (he grew up on a farm & that just wasn’t done) – he bled a little from his nose & ear. Stayed in my room that night & I prayed to the Lord all night he’d survive. My prayers were answered …survive he did … just a bit quicker about crossing the street, and would scat if he heard a motor turn over.
Always had a dark, glossy stripe of oil down his back from getting under Dad’s leaky ’61 Bird. Gave him sort of a pomaded mohawk look. One day we heard a racket on the roof and Fluffy was nose-to-nose with another cat, and he had the high ground, looking downhill, while the other cat was at the edge of the roof pointing uphill. Some prelimimary yowling, and then it was a one-punch-Mike-Tyson knockout – knocked his opponent clean off the roof with one swing. We all saw it, and Fluffy became the neighborhood badass cat.
Dad used to tell us he’d break the cat’s neck if he found him on his prized Benz, but his attitude came around when he saw Fluff lazing in the sun on the brick patio, a mockingbird making repeated diving swoops at his head …. then, on about the eleventh swoop, casually just lifting one paw and picking it out of the air without moving another muscle
Fluffy was cool but yeah if you messed with him you always got the claws. My dumb friend always tried to pet him stomach & over and over he would get shredded but never learned….
Anyway, the money shot is:
I get behind the wheel of the old Ford wagon, Bro throws Fluffy in the back of the luggage compartment, slams the rear door and heads for the front door. Meanwhile, I turn the key to start the rough-running 390.
Bro hasn’t yet grasped the front door handle when certain things unscroll in a frenzied-but-somehow-slow-motion-blur:
1. In the rear-view, Fluffy hears and feels the big V-8 and instantly becomes a bottle rocket with the stick broken off, within about a second ramming all the rear windows with his head and tearing down a loose section of headliner. Then he bounces off all surfaces of the rear-seat area and I swear I see him pulling a skateboarder-looking kickturn move off the rear of the back seat.
2. My mind moves forward a few slow ticks and realizes something is going badly wrong.
3. I take my eyes off the mayhem in the rearview mirror, turn my head, only to see an airborne deranged matted-orange furball headed my way like Superman in full flight, his eyes like black holes.
4. Suddenly I have a new hat, just my size, with customized front retention clips now driven firmly into my scalp. This hat apparently has some sort of tail, and its self-adjusting mechanism is digging permanent grooves in the back of my neck, I assume to accommodate the locking clamps which will then secure the rear portion of my new fuzzy hat.
5. My bro responds to my hollering by running around and yanking open the driver’s door, at which point my new hat catapults off my well ventilated head, trampolines off my brother’s shoulder and shoots at a 45-degree angle upward into space, shortly accompanied by crashing, breaking sounds in the nearby bushes, and then a glimpse of a blurred, orange smart-missile disappearing up and over the neighbor’s fence.
And you know, I loved him for it, as blood ran down everywhere. I learned that if you get stupid with a self-respecting cat, he WILL tear you up.
He lived to 18, an “outdoor” cat ’til the end, and even my tough old Dad cried when I took him away to a beautiful wild area for burial. I chuckled a bit then teared up at how much time had passed, when I realized Fluffy was finally having his car ride.
Still remembered as “King Cat” of our ‘hood, with a name like Fluffy 🙂
I return your kind compliment sir, by saying truthfully that Fluffy’s is a very funny tale very well told.
Also, sounds like my sort of cat: perfectly friendly, but quite without need for any dependence.
Years ago I worked in Doha Qatar. Had two very vocal Arab cats + three NYC cats. Moving from Doha to Dallas with five cats. I also had an accident weeks previously so I was in a wheelchair. My employer sent me and five cats First Class. Best route back to States, Amsterdam, airport has a pet hotel during layover.
Best plan off the book, airline had to land in Nashville at 2 AM., but it was suppose a non stop flight into Dallas. Getting five screaming cats through customs in the early AM, Nashville, not so difficult as the screaming cats could be heard throughout the terminal. Customs just wanted to get the cats away.
I called a friend in Dallas, in-flight, when informed we where diverting to Nashville. My friend in Dallas took flight from Dallas to Nashville and met me at Nashville 3 PM.
If you transport cats internationally or regionally, suggest the following:
Line cat carrier’s with baby diapers to absorb moisture. If you are simply traveling with cats and cat litter in your car, add one layer of baby diapers underneath cat litter.
Nice story. Cats are definitely characters when it comes to travelling.
Before I was born my parents lived in Okinawa and had three Seal Point Siamese cats. The cats were used to travelling with my parents on walks, either on leashes or riding on parents’ shoulders as they walked about. They were also unafraid of dogs.
In 1958 my parents embarked on a trip…with the three cats…..via ship from Japan to Brazil by way of Okinawa, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, through the Indian Ocean, around the Horn and finally Brazil. While my parents stayed in second class cabins, the cats enjoyed staying in the Captain’s cabin.
From Brazil, they took a train to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and traveled around South America and ending their trip in Panama where my father secured a job in the Canal Zone. We lived in the Canal Zone for 10 years.
My father retired in 1968 and we flew to the U.S. and lived in Seattle, WA for a short time and heard some old friends we knew in the Canal Zone were living in Alpine, Texas. My father bought a pickup truck and camper and we drove to Texas…….bringing along the Siamese cats. Along the way we stayed at various parks and motels. Cats seemed to enjoy the trip. After a two week visit in Alpine, we drove back to Seattle. One of the cats died in Oregon and we completed the trip back to Seattle with the two remaining cats.
Then my father wanted to go to Okinawa and we booked a flight on a Northwest Orient Boeing 707-320 to Japan and then to Okinawa…….with the two cats. We lived in Okinawa for three months and decided to return to the U.S. By then the cats were 14 years old. Deciding the cats were too old to make another trip, we left the cats with my mother’s older sister in Okinawa, returned to the U.S. and settled in Los Angeles, CA. A year later we learned the two cats passed away.
Although my parents had many cats over the decades, none were like those three Siamese cats. Even after 50 years, my mother fondly remembers those cats and misses them. They were our most unforgettable characters.