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Old October 17th, 2020, 05:47 PM
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Reg Reg is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Thunder Bay, ON
Posts: 462
Hi welcome to the forum.

Some things that we have learned over the past years from travelling with our cats might be of interest to you.
We started with our cats at a very young age travelling, and found by doing it frequently they became quite accustomised to it. The best thing was short trips to start. Trips around the block, or just down the street maybe to pick something up for the house, and take the cats at the same time. This helped to get them accustomed to the sound of the vehicle and the feeling of motion. This is something you should do a few days before and after a trip to the vet, because cats have a tendency to relate the vehicle ride with the experience they receive from the vet which sometimes isn't good.

Something else we've found is that cats have an extremely good memory, I think at times it would put an elephant to shame. Case in point our Yogi when we first picked him up and about half an hour out of town had a bowel movement in the carrier, and it was soft and he got it all over himself which meant I had to clean it up before continuing on home. This meant a dunking in the creek and washing the carrier. Ever since then he is not comfortable travelling even using Rescue Remedy or pheromones, and that was 12 years ago now.

The more you work with your cats on travelling the more at easy they will find it. Our late Missy and Shadow became very relaxed in travelling to the point that we let them have the run of the vehicle, and when we stopped and turned off the ignition they would go back to their carriers so we could close them in then take them into the house or motel, and we would travel for days like this around northern Ontario.

So if you think you might want to travel with the cats. You will have to take your time and patience to gently introduce them to travel, and if for some reason they have a bad experience it isn't easily forgotten for some cats.

I am with Hazelrunpack when you pick up your new Furbabies we would like to see some photos
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