Traveling with cats....

[DMickey28]

I have to drive from MA to IN the first weekend in January! WE are moving!!!!

Anyway I have two year and a half old cats. Anyone have any expirence in traveling that far with them?

We are driving, hopefully in two days. We want to push hard on Saturday so we can try to be there before five on Sunday night.

 

[amid chaos]

Are they high strung or realxed cats? if high strung, get meds from your vet..you will need a litter box and a traveling cage or 2, food and water. they will need to be in cages before you get out of the car...sneaky things may escape. Also...get a collar with a name and cell phone number just in case. Also...leashes and halter type collars are the best..no escaping them..good luck.

 

[HappyMommy2]

We have moved many, many times with our now-10-year-old cat (we're military) and he has always done well. He usually meows and acts nervous for the first few miles and then goes to sleep. When he was young it was a bit difficult because he'd sleep most of the time in the car and when we got to our motel we'd be exhausted and he'd be ready to play---all night! For one trip the vet prescribed tranquilizers for him but these only made him groggy and very meowy; they never really seemed to relax him or make him sleep, so we didn't use them any more. Now that he's older he's not as crazy in the night anymore.

We have a pretty large pet carrier for our cat and he rides in that in the car. Occasionally we'll let him out to stretch for a while as we drive, but whenever we stop we make sure he's securely shut in his cage before we open the car door. We keep a very small litterbox in the back of the cage but he doesn't usually use it during the drive. We offer food and water and sometimes he'll take a sip of water, but he rarely eats till we get to wherever we're stopping for the day.

Stopping along the way to eat lunch or whatever is a bit of a problem with an animal because if the weather is cold or warm you don't want to leave them in the car, yet you can't take them into a restaurant. In such weather DH and I have traded off sitting in the car with the cat with the heater/AC running while one of us goes inside with the kids for a while.

I do know that some cats really freak out on long car trips; I guess you won't know if yours do that till you try! Have you taken shorter trips? Maybe you can sort of do a trial run driving around town or something just to see if they really panic; in that case maybe you might want to ask the vet about tranquilizers to take the edge off.

Have a good move!

 

[Harley Chick]

I traveled from Boston to Albuquerque the first week of January with 4 cats, 2 dogs and a rabbit, all stuffed in the back of my pickup truck (it had a cap on it). 3 of the cats did fine. They each had their own kennel with a litter box, water and food. The fourth cat got really sick the first day. I finally put the kitten in his kennel with him and he did much better. Unfortunately, it was so cold in the back of the truck that I couldn't stop, we drove 2 1/2 day straight through. Once we got to our new home, they all did great. My vet told me not to tranquilize them before we left.

Enjoy your new home.