I’m 200 miles into my 1100-mile move to Oregon. The dog is content to sit in the passenger seat (secured with a seatbelt through his harness. The cat I have in his cat carrier. When we get to our motel in about 300 miles, what’s the best way to make sure he doesn’t run off when I let him out for food, drink, and…needful activities?
Yes, winging it this way is probably kind of irresponsible. That stipulated, I could use some expert advice.
TIA
Close the door, make sure the windows are closed, let the cat out. Before you leave the room, cat goes back in the carrier.
This will keep the cat safe, and entertain the dog.
Yes, but, the “needful activités”?.
If you didn’t bring a litterbox, pet stores often sell a disposable litterbox + litter and scoop.
Litterbox, cat and cat carrier go into the bathroom when you need to go out to walk the dog or get dinner or pack for the next day. While you’re loading the car, cat stays in the bathroom. Load all stuff and dog into car then load cat carrier–dump out litterbox last thing. And if your cat doesn’t have a harness, get one and have a name tag made at a local pet store. Make sure he’s wearing the harness every single minute. Heck, get him a leash too, maybe he’ll be one of those go for a walk cats!
Don’t let the cat drive.
lol i havent seen a toonces meme in ages
wish I’d seen this earlier, I moved from Georgia to Kansas then to Idaho with 4 cats.
before leaving GA, bought harnesses and leashes for all cats and spent a few weeks leash and harness training them. They were already car broke from trips to the vet for various things so the carriers were in the back seat with the doors off to allow them to enter or leave at will.
stop every couple of hours and park as far away from people and big rigs as possible to allow the cats to drink water and pee/poop as needed. The girls were hilarious, they wouldn’t go anywhere that wasn’t cat litter and a box. I used one of those disposable aluminum roasting pans you can get at the grocery store. get in the room shut the door and let them off leash (leash training, Bitty Brat was a big damn cat, not fighting him into a carrier) set up the pan in the bathroom and the food and water out in the main room. Over all it probably added a day to the trip for both moves but hey yanno.
There could come a time that your cat freaks out while in the carrier, and you need to pull over and let it out. If that happens, make sure your windows are all rolled up. I came within a hair’s breadth of losing my cat that way – he’d had a bathroom accident, it turned out, and was basically screaming. I pulled over by the side of the highway and let him out of the carrier – in the dark of night, with my window all the way down. Heart attack, almost, when I realized how easily I could have lost him in that instant.
We have one “chill” cat and one neurotic one. When we moved across country 6 years ago, they each went into their own individual carriers. The neurotic one sat in the front seat facing me while I drove, and the chill one was in the back, facing my son.
At the motel in the evening we’d let them out. The neurotic one would immediately run and hide under a bed, while the chill one would curl up on a chair. Litter box was setup in the bathroom. At 3AM the neurotic one would yowl for a minute or two to register his complaint, then quiet down. This process repeated for the ~4 days we spent driving across the country, then the ~1 week we spent living in a motel before moving into our house.
We used a product “feliways” which comes in a spray bottle and helps the cats feel better about their surroundings. I think it helped a little.