Pet traveling experiences...good?bad?great?

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Sat 07, 2009 6:19 pm

...my cat hates going to the vet in a carrier - and it's less than 10 minutes from my house! I can't see how see would take a 2.5 hour trip to WDW in the car.

Yet not all cats are like that. I temporarily fostered one called Friskette (a very small cat who loved cans of Friskies - Frisk + ette = her name). Anyway, the cat had no problem travelling in a car - she would sit in her carrier extremely relaxed - either sleeping or cleaning herself! That cat was made to travel; but alas, she's with the cat adoption agency now (hopefully already adopted by now if lucky)...

The cat goes nuts when I go on a trip and leave her, and yet I know she would go nuts if I took her along - it's one of those no-win scenarios...

Mousekedude · Post by **Mousekedude** » Nov Sat 07, 2009 9:15 pm

mindflipper wrote: The cat goes nuts when I go on a trip and leave her, and yet I know she would go nuts if I took her along - it's one of those no-win scenarios...

Exactly. That's why we get a pet sitter. We use a friend who we invited over several times to specifically make friends with the cats before we ever went on our first long trip (the cats do just fine alone for short two-to-three day outings). So while we're gone, she comes over and spends time with them, and to them she is just another member of the family. So even though they miss us, it's not nearly as bad. We saw a huge difference the first time we did that. When we got back the cats were much more relaxed than previous longer trips where we used pet sitters who they didn't know, and who just popped in to feed them and stuff.

mindflipper · Post by **mindflipper** » Nov Sat 07, 2009 10:03 pm

Already tried that, but my cat made it perfectly clear she hated the sitter and hid from her the entire time (she's very good at it). The cat loves me, but seems to hate most people who are not family. She makes travelling tricky...

Mousekedude · Post by **Mousekedude** » Nov Mon 09, 2009 4:52 pm

Yeah, some cats are like that. One of our cats is very shy around strangers, but the other one is an attention hound.

I found that the only thing that really works is to get a friend to cat-sit; someone who the cats already know and are comfortable with.