The Vine: May 19, 2010
Dear Sars,
It looks like I am going to be driving a moving van across the country this summer…with my cat. I have a vague recollection that you’ve done this before, maybe when you drove to Canada in the fall of 2001. Do you have any advice on how to do this without dying? Should I let her roam about the cabin, or confine her to her carrying case all day? Install a litterbox somewhere in the car (how??)? Are there motels that let you take cats in with you? Help!
Thank you,
B
Dear B,
I did drive both cats to Toronto. Any long car trip with an animal or animals boils down to the same things: keeping them safe; keeping them calm; not spending a fortune on same if you can avoid it. A lot of how you decide to undertake it depends on your cat’s individual behavior.
My vet gave me a mild sedative for my cats. It lasted about eight hours, and helped ensure that there wouldn’t be an escape attempt at the border. It also allowed me to let them out of their carriers, which made them happier, but they didn’t really roam — they skulked around a bit, looked out the window a couple of times, and then curled up in the footwells of the back seat and passed out for six hours. If your cat is good in the car, and if you have a traveling companion who can help you wrangle her at rest stops, maybe you want to skip the downers — but if your cat hates the car, or has never traveled in one for any real length of time, it may make her and you less anxious to numb her out for the trip.
I had a litterbox set up in the trunk (my car at that time allowed me to fold down the back seat for through access to the trunk). A nervous poo in the confines of a Honda two-door is not the most fun you’ve ever had in your life, but if you’ll have an entire van, you’ll have room for a small box set-up, and presumably more breezes.
Take some time before you leave to plan out your trip, and make reservations at hotels that accept pets. Figure out how long you’ll drive each day, then look for pet-friendly accommodations within your stop radius. They do exist. You can also smuggle the cat into your room after check-in; it’s marginally easier to hide a feline than a dog, as long as she doesn’t express her displeasure by peeing on a bedspread.
But again, it really depends on your cat’s personality and experience with traveling. With those things in mind, give your vet a call and ask his advice.
Hi Sars,
I have two kind-of-related questions that I would love your help with. The first involves my stepmom.
My parents divorced when I was nine and my dad remarried (we’ll call her S) when I was 13 (ten years ago). S brought two kids — a daughter who was six at the time and a son who was three (I also have a younger brother).
I had no objections to the marriage at the time — they’d been dating for a while, she seemed nice, etc. And for the most part it did turn out okay. My dad definitely seems happy, and there wasn’t too much open drama in the house.
But S and I never really clicked. We’ve never been a very demonstrative family, so when I’m presented with a stressful situation my first response is to withdraw. S saw this as a rejection, which I feel led her to categorize me as a Difficult Teenager, regardless of all evidence to the contrary (I mean, I wasn’t perfect, but I had good grades, a good attitude toward chores, a job…). I feel like this perception of me colored all of our interactions — if I didn’t call, it was because I was blowing them off, and not because maybe sometimes I’m a bit of a flake. My dad seemed to assume that she knew what she was talking about and mostly followed her lead.
Compounding this issue is the fact that S is extremely passive-aggressive. When you do something she doesn’t like, she’ll never say so in the moment — she’ll just wait and hope you come to your senses until she just can’t stand it anymore and then she’ll condescend to let you know what you’re doing wrong.
The situation changed when I went to college, but only in that I was a thousand miles away so we didn’t have to see her much. She would still periodically call me to lecture me about something I was doing wrong — most often interceding on my dad’s behalf because I had apparently hurt his feelings somehow, usually by not calling enough (I never heard this from my dad, only from her). She (and, apparently, he) is the kind of person who keeps score with things like that — if you don’t call her often enough, rather than just picking up the phone and calling you and trying to establish a pattern of communicating regularly, she just decides that you must not like her and are therefore a bad person (I’m serious about her not calling me — if she ever called or e-mailed me just to chat, I don’t remember. My dad’s a little better, but still the main responsibility of keeping in touch would fall on me).
For a long time, I really did believe that my deteriorating relationship with my dad was my fault, and I was really stressed about how to fix it, especially given that I never found out he/they were mad until long after the fact when I couldn’t do anything about it. Finally, though, I realized that while I was not perfect and I certainly could have called more and made more of an effort to connect, the main issue with our relationship was her refusal to understand that just because she and I have very different personalities doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.
I had pretty much come to terms with that, but when I went home to visit about two months ago, everything kind of blew up. Once again, S waited until the last possible minute (the end of an hour-long car ride that was the last time I would see her or my dad on that trip) to lecture me about everything that I had done wrong during the trip. I didn’t respond much then, because verbal confrontation is REALLY not my thing, but after I thought about it a bit I sent her a really angry e-mail addressing what she’d brought up and telling her not to act that way toward me anymore. It was by far the angriest thing I’ve ever said or written to anyone, although to some people it would probably still seem pretty mild.
In her reply, she refused to engage with any of my arguments, told her no one can make us feel how we feel, that I should get therapy (which I am, which is why I was able to write the e-mail in the first place), and that she was “sorry for [her] part in any miscommunication between us.” After a few more e-mails and a completely unsatisfactory phone call during which she called me self-centered and essentially said she’s going to continue keeping score on phone calls and such, I’ve come to the conclusion that for her, it will always be my fault when something is wrong with our relationship.
So my question is, how do I deal with her? I’d be totally fine never speaking to her again, but she’s married to my dad and I still mostly like him. I don’t want things to be awkward all the time, I don’t want her to poison him against me, and I really don’t want him to feel like he has to choose. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure if he did have to choose, he’d choose her, so I’m not sure I’m all that worried about his feelings.
I’m going to visit for my brother’s high school graduation in about six weeks, and I won’t be staying with them (I’ll be staying with my mom, who has been totally awesome about all this. Hi Mom!), but I’ll still have to see them a lot, and I’ll eventually have to decide if I ever want to stay with them again. I feel like it would be pretty easy to just ignore all this and pretend it never happened, but I’m still pretty angry and I don’t want to be the person who gives up on getting what they need in order to keep the peace. So what would be your advice going forward?
The second question is much shorter. Basically, my stepsister and I are completely different people — different tastes, different personalities, different hobbies. We also didn’t spend much time together — what with overlapping schedules and me going to college, I think we lived in the same house at the same time for maybe a little more than a year in the whole ten years since our parents got married. I’ve never consciously been cruel to her, but I wasn’t very friendly (…at all). I just kind of assumed that she didn’t care what I thought of her, which in retrospect is obviously stupid, but…too late now.
So apparently I make her really anxious. On the one hand, I can’t be completely responsible for her feelings; on the other hand, sixteen is a tough age and I don’t want to make it worse. And frankly, I do feel pretty terrible. If I gave her even a fraction of the stress her mom gave me…that would just really suck. I wrote her a friendly-ish apology after my most recent trip when this was all brought to my attention, but never got a response. I meant it sincerely, but I’m not great at this stuff and I’m worried that it may have come off flippant.
Should I write her a longer and more detailed apology, or would that just be self-serving at this point? I do, of course, plan to try to change my behavior — I don’t think we’ll ever be bestest friends, but I could certainly be friendlier than I have been.
Aren’t life coaches supposed to be good at this kind of thing?
Dear Life,
Your stepmother sounds like she’s stuck back on the relationship you two had ten years ago: still taking adolescent behavior personally that isn’t personal; still lecturing you about your behavior. Parents and stepparents have trouble seeing us as adults sometimes, which is annoying, but you can’t do much about it besides refusing to engage it if it’s not relevant — remember, you play your part here by reacting. A simple “I’m sorry I upset you” is all you can really offer S, and it’s all you should attempt, because you can’t change her. You can only change your own behavior.
You can’t change your father’s behavior, either, and the only sense of him I get at all from your letter is that he’s content to let S speak for him. Not all dads do that, but many many dads do just kind of let the wife take the lead on emotional issues and intra-family angsting, especially with their daughters — perhaps because they feel uncomfortable talking about said issues, who knows, and again, it’s not every dad. All we can assume here is that he doesn’t have a problem with S haranguing you about your relationship with him, and your response to that is something like, “I’m sorry to hear that; Dad hasn’t mentioned that to me himself, though, and I know you’re trying to help, but I’d rather talk to him about this directly if it’s an issue for him.”
Just try to keep it calm and polite; like I said, you can’t change their behavior, only your own. Be as conscientious as you can about keeping in touch, without keeping score yourself, and if S still feels the need to catalog your shortcomings, listen, give her the super-unsatisfying “I’m sorry you feel that way” non-apology (heh), and let it go. I understand that this breed of handling conflict is maddening, but as you say, your father has made choices in his life, and if you want a relationship with him, electing not to get pissed off every time S is a pill is the price of that.
Your stepsister presents a different challenge, and I think your best bet is to make an effort to reach out when you’re around, without pushing the issue. Let her adjust or withdraw as she sees fit, keeping in mind that she still lives there and can’t really come and go like you can. She’s also only 16 still, and will have a lot going on in her mental life that has nothing to do with you. You apologized; she may feel some pressure to respond in just the right way, or she may feel paralyzed with anxiety, or some combination, but the ball is in her court, so leave it there. Either she’ll get there or she won’t, but she may have to get farther out of childhood before she can get right with things that happened during it.
I know it’s hard to leave things alone, let things calm down, accept that you can’t get a resolution Right Now (or sometimes At All), but it’s how things go sometimes. Work on it in therapy; that will help.
Okay, this has been bugging me for a while. Why are some items of clothing singular (a shirt) while others are plural (a pair of pants)? All the tops I can think of are singular (except maybe glasses) so considering it’s only bottoms that are pluralized (panties, shorts), I thought maybe it has to do with the fact that two legs go into the item. But we also have two arms and no one ever says they’re wearing a pair of sweaters!
And of course amongst all the tights, boxers, and jeans, there’s that one singular skirt. No matter how many legs go into them, a pair of jeans are still only one item of clothing, so why do we pluralize them?
Meansleeves
Dear Sleeves,
Why, to annoy you, of course.
Heh. I don’t have an answer offhand, but I assume it has to do with the etymologies of the various words — or, really, of “pants,” because I suspect that “shorts” and “tights” derive from “pants” in that shorts are short pants and tights are “tight pants.” Well, not really, but you get the idea. “Panties” and “briefs,” same thing.
Looking at the 10C definition of “pant,” I see that it’s “short for pantaloons,” and the coinage, “usu. used in pl.,” dates from 1840. The entry for “pantaloon,” meanwhile, has this as its first definition: “a character in the commedia dell’arte that is usu. a skinny old dotard who wears spectacles, slippers, and a tight-fitting combination of trousers and stockings.”
That this remains the primary definition struck me as dated, so I went to the 11C; the entries read exactly the same. It seems as though a pantaloon is a person, and I guess that somehow the word evolved through “pantaloon-style breeches” to “pantaloons” and then “pants.”
Readers of Lucky or various catalogs know that the pluralizing of certain “pair” clothing items is moving in the other direction, with the copy referring to “this season’s chic-est pant” or “the Sweetheart Jean.” Garner notes that “[c]lothing retailers lack standardization when referring to trousers,” an “inconsistency [that] has been around for a long time,” adding that both “pant” and “pants” “are actually abbreviations of pantaloons, and have been so used since the late 19th century[.]” Wordnik had little to add on that point (but I did enjoy the Star Wars game).
All of that explains without illuminating; “because it just is” isn’t a satisfying answer, but unless or until a commenter posts a link to a better clarification, it’s all we’ve got.
Tags: Bryan Garner cats grammar sites the fam
Pants is plural because garments for legs used to be separate things, laced together at the top. So you literally needed two pants to leave the house. Preferably, a pair (otherwise the neighbors would laugh at your lousy fashion sense). Your crotchal area was covered by other, unattached bits of clothing. Later incarnations of legged garments that do cover the crotch still retain this sense.
Shirt is not, because it originated as a single thing dropped over your head. Like an animal pelt with a hole for your head.
Re: pants – a very quick and dirty summary. As far as Western clothing goes, way back at the beginning of wearing leg coverings, they were not connected at the top. They were leggings, generally gartered over most of their surface, so you (men) had a pair of them. (Women wore gartered stockings under long skirts until the 20th century.) This extended itself to hosen, which tied on to your waist-length coat, and into the tops of which you tucked your big puffy shirt. You covered the middle area with a codpiece. You might then put on a long outer garment to cover the whole deal, unless you were poor or trying to show how off your finely-turned legs and such.
Eastern cultures caught on to connecting the legs at the top well before this, but the whole “pair of” construction is European, and European cultures – at least the parts of them shaping language use and fancy clothing vocabulary – went with the separate legs and codpiece thing well into the 16th century.
Ack, changed phrasing in mid-sentence – “show off,” not “show how off.” Sorry.
B,
I took my 2 cats and lab mix from western Illinois to eastern NY State.
Van, dog in passenger seat -check. 2 cats in huge dog crate with small litterbox inside -check.
Cat #1 had been travelling with me for years, and so I just gave him a vet prescribed sedative, he got loopy and clumsy (like the drunken frat boy he was) and then fell asleep. The dawg was a great traveller, so no problem there.
The Cat #2… I had never sedated before. And boy, did it not go well. Totally psychotic, throwing herself against the crate and viciously attacking Cat 1. So, I ended up taking Cat1 out of the crate and he and dawg snuggled in the bucket seat and all was ok except for the yowling which died down about 4 hours into the 18 hr trip.
My advice: try sedating your cats beforehand to see what their reaction is. If one is bonkers, have a crate or plan to be able to separate them. And bring good music that you can sing along (loudly) with.
heh, “crotchal area.” Thanks for the insight!
I agree with jbp, make sure you do a test run if you decide to try sedatives. I had a great experience with them when I took my old cat on a plane trip. She was usually a TERRIBLE traveler, but the sedatives made the trip very easy. You will want to try the sedatives beforehand not only to be sure that the cat reacts to them okay, but also to get the dose right (the vet will probably tell you to start with a certain amount, then add more if you don’t see a noticeable effect).
B: While it is probably possible to sneak a cat into a hotel that doesn’t allow pets, please please please don’t do it! The next person who stays in the room might be miserable if they’re allergic to dander. The travel guy Christopher Elliott had a column about pets last month: http://tiny.cc/bt4va. I know it stinks if you have to pay extra for the room, but you might get hit with an even larger cleaning bill if you get caught. He mentions that Best Western has started advertising that they’re pet-friendly. Good luck!
@Life
I have been there before with the stepmother or other family members telling me I don’t call/write/whatever my father enough. I would never hear this from my father, and would politely tell them so. On the other hand: I would never hear this from my father – because he’s just not that kind of guy. He could be totally shattered, but he would never say anything. Not knowing your father, I can’t tell you if it’s the same thing, and I don’t know if their fingers are broken such that they can’t dial the damn phones themselves. But if you suspect that your dad really does want to hear from you more often, you might make a point of calling every X weeks, or emailing every Y days or whatever.
Likewise with keeping in touch with your step-sister. And in both cases, don’t make it an apology or make it about your step-mother at all. There’s no need really even to mention her beyond maybe something like ‘my best to Susan’ or what have you.
As far as your step-mother goes… good luck!
Life, in dealing with your stepsister, you’ve pretty much done things right(an apology, but not pushing the issue) but watch out that you’re not projecting a blend of your own teenage years (taking things she does/doesn’t do personally when they aren’t personal) and your stepmom’s anxiety and passive-aggressiveness (worrying that she’s not “reacting” well when she didn’t comment on said apology.)
That’s not to say you should drop the whole thing or ignore her or anything like that. It’s good that you care about your relationships and want to work on your own reactions. But you did grow up in a household where delayed reactions and non-emotional sidestepping were models for how to deal, and so has she. So you and she are not doing anything “wrong” when things don’t turn out peachy at the end of the hour when the music swells. As Sars says, all you can do is all you can do.
Both times I’ve done a long move with a cat, I chickened out on driving them. The first time, I left the cat with my mother, moved my stuff and my car, and then flew back to get the cat and brought him via airplane. The next time I moved long distance, I did roughly the same thing, except that my husband moved first so I flew the cat (not the same cat) to him and then drove myself and the dog to our new home.
Both my cats, one huge and aggressive, the other a classic scaredy cat, did just fine as carry-on on the airplane. Way better than they did in the car. It was a little dicey around security when they had to come out of the carrier, but it was so much easier than I imagine driving with the cats would’ve been.
@B – I drove my cat from Atlanta to Buffalo NY and I second @jbp’s comments about trying the sedation out FIRST before you ever get in a car. Our cat did not do well with the sedation, trying to jump and move to “shake it off” and generally freaking out. We didn’t use it for the trip. W
e were in a big ass moving truck and I mean TRUCK, like a mini-18 wheeler, so the cab was huge. We had a crate for her but we let her roam while we were driving. She tucked herself under the front seats and was fine. We did the drive in 2 days and we didn’t have a litter box in the car. We coaxed her out at the end of the night with some canned food and had a litter box in our hotel room that she used. We ended up staying in a hotel for almost two weeks when we got to town due to our house not being ready and our hotel was fine with having her around as long as we crated her if we were not in the room with her.
Good luck!
A few years ago, I drove my two cats, in a Saturn filled with my worldly possessions, from NJ to TX. I stayed at animal-friendly hotels (mostly), which I found by using those booklets in the rest stops. Probably the newfangled phones with the internet in them would be even better than that. They give you a smoking room, and they are not always the nicest places, but what can you do? Beware of cats climbing into the box spring and refusing to come out in the morning, though–that is another adventure.
My timing was such that Hurricane Katrina & I passed through Arkansas at the same time, so finding a hotel with an open room that also took pets was impossible, and a clerk finally took pity on me and let me stay if I promised to keep them in the bathroom (they obliged by hunkering down behind the toilet). Unrelated to cats, but that hotel stay was one of the more surreal experiences in my life.
I had a litterbox in the footwell, but no one ever used it. I think they were too busy being terrified. They also didn’t eat or drink much, which is unfortunately not something I could force them to do, but it might have contributed to the lack of litterboxing.
I didn’t sedate, but the cats spent most of their time hiding amongst my stuff, occasionally making sad noises or attempting to climb behind the gas pedal (cats under pedals is something you should be concerned about), but apart from the box spring incidents, and getting everyone in the carrier in the morning, it wasn’t that awful.
I’d recommend giving them a test ride, maybe you could take an hour trip somewhere, just to see how they react, and let them experience a car ride for the first time?
I’ve driven with 2 or 3 cats back and forth across the country a few times. For the most recent trip I had lots of space, so the boy cats each got a big dog crate to hang out in (one with blankets over it so he couldn’t see out since that made him freak out) and the older little girl cat got a medium cat carrier to sleep in. Crates and car in general were sprayed with Feliway, as was each hotel room before letting the cats out (I think I also plugged in a Comfort Zone diffuser as soon as we arrived). The cats were given Rescue Remedy throughout the day. It went surprisingly well. I would recommend Feliway and Comfort Zone over sedatives, which might knock them out, but can really backfire if the cat reacts poorly to them.
B: We’ve traveled a lot with two of our three cats. (The third has only been on one trip longer than 15 minutes.) Most of it was in a Saturn with fold-down back seats for the kitty box setup Sars mentioned. We let them out of the carrier once everyone’s in the vehicle; Rocket, the alpha cat, cruises around for a while getting in laps and looking out windows, then eventually finds a place to nap. Chyna, who has issues in general, usually finds the smallest place she can fit into and stays there for the duration. We keep food and water available.
I’d recommend trying your cat on short non-vet trips for a little to accustom her to the car and to see how she travels. Rocket’s a great traveler, but the minute we get off highways his carsickness comes into play (might as well add half-digested kibble to the catbox funk). We’ve never tried sedation, but we never really had the need. And–sneaking cats into hotel rooms can be hard if they insist in sitting in the window silhouetted nicely against the curtains.
re: cats in cars. Desensitization is also a good idea; spend some time building up to it, rather than just saying “okay time to go!” and the cat is all “wait what no do not want DO NOT WANT HATE HAAAAAATE!!!
First, just sit in the car. Then sit in the car with the engine running. Then try a quick trip around the block, and so on. Cats are the ultimate Republicans; “change” equals “BAD”, so you want the triip to not be so much of a change.
Goddamn iPhone. SARS, can you please fix the italics? They should end after HAAAAAAATE!!!!
[“This is fixed now, but this comment made me laugh, so I’m leaving it, because a lot of things should end after HAAAAAAATE!!!!.” — SDB]
My sister used to drive her cat back and forth between her home in Chicago and our parents in PA all the time. He was a champion traveler, although he hated the routine of “into the crate for the walk to the car”. My sister used to keep his crate (with the door open) on the back seat or the passenger seat, depending who was with her, and open the little chute into the trunk where his litter box sat. She would also scoop the box at all rest stops, if needed.
He spent the first few minutes of all the trips exploring the car, trunk, luggage, laps, etc., then curled up on the driver’s lap — didn’t matter who — and directed the trip from there. Occasionally he would help with the driving, by sitting up and placing one paw gently on the lower part of the steering wheel.
His first few trips she had to lift him off her lap to put him into the crate when she stopped the car, but after that he got the message. When the engine was turned off he got into the crate himself. Seriously a champion traveler. She did, however, have tags made for his collar with her name and cell phone number. She also carried a couple of posters with his picture and her cell phone number just in case he did escape at a rest stop. He loved to squeeze out the door of her apartment, but he never tried to jump when traveling. My sister was really worried about toll booths and other open windows, but he was curious enough to look around a bit, and not try to approach the open window.
I’ve driven my cat on some multi-day trips. Red Roof Inns allow pets with no extra charge. My experience has been that the cat wouldn’t use the litterbox when the car was moving, but I gave opportunities to use it when I’d stop.
We moved our two cats from Boston to California in a one-way rented minivan. We collapsed the seats and had the cats in a huge dog crate fitted with a big gerbil water bottle.
After asking our vet about sedatives and litter breaks, we learned (like others here) that the cats might freak out on sedatives if we didn’t do a dry run (we opted not to bother with the sedatives), and that as long as the cats used the litterbox at night in the hotel, all would be okay. (She also scared us to death with a pop can+grape analogy when talking about car accidents and not letting the cats roam the car freely, so we definitely decided against that idea.)
As befitting their general personalities, one cat was pretty nervous about the light and noise around her, so we draped the carrier with a blanket to keep her from having to look out the car window. She retreated to the back of the carrier for most of the trip. The other cat was totally fine and chatty the entire trip. Our vet told us that cats find comfort in small, dark places when they’re nervous, which is why when you’re moving into a new house/apt, it’s a good idea to keep them in such a place while all the upheaval is going on. Same goes for travel.
Here’s a great website to help with finding pet-friendly hotels/motels — also travel tips. I think you can actually plot your trip if you want. http://www.petswelcome.com/
I drove my female cat from Utah to Pennsylvania in 2007 and back 8 months later. I tried the kitty valium, and it worked for about an hour, then she just wailed in her crate the whole way. I tried to get a kitty harness and attach her to the oh my god handle in the back seat, to let her out of the crate and that didn’t help. I could hold her for a little while, but then she wanted to either be under my dad’s feet (he was driving with me), or want to sit on the dashboard (we were driving as Chevy Tahoe, so it was a big dashboard), and then walk over to play with the steering wheel. She spent most of the trip in her crate.
We had a little litter box, but she wouldn’t eat, drink or use it, not even the Whiskas Temptations which I swear are kitty crack. We had her on the back seat in a largish carrier with a towel draped over it, which allowed her to settle eventually, but she really found her voice on that trip. We found pet friendly hotels using the rest stop booklets, and they worked out ok. Not the nicest rooms, usually, but ok. She used her box just fine in the hotel, and I fed her wet food during the trip, to make sure she had enough moisture since she wouldn’t drink much.
On the way back, we put her way in the back of the Tahoe, since we were also moving a dog back with us (she had come separately with my husband after my move), and it was summer, so we blasted the A/C vent at her, and she settled down a little more, but was still pretty vocal. We let her out on her harness at every stop, and tried to get her to drink something. She was a pretty quiet cat before the move, but now she talks like crazy, usually when she wants more kitty crack. (I have an advanced degree and my biggest job is treat dispenser and door opener for 2 dogs and a cat! Love the snuggle times though.)
We also had the cat in the boxsprings occur on our last day on the way back. I still don’t know how she got in there, the bedframe had wood all the way down to the floor. My husband had to basically dismantle the bed to get her out.
When I went to grad school, lo these many years ago, I took my beloved cat with me. I sedated him for the trip, which made him all drunk and loopy, as it was meant to do, then put him in a cardboard carrier that was all I had. I tucked in towels for him to sleep on, and it was only a five-hour drive, so I didn’t sweat the food/water/litterbox thing too much. (I figured he might pee on the towels, but then I’d… wash them. No biggie.)
He yowled a lot. No, really, a LOT. But I’d braced myself for that.
We stopped at the halfway point for gas, and while I was inside buying a soda, he clawed his way out of the cardboard carrier. Shredded it, completely. I had no idea he could do that; he’d scrabbled at it during trips to the vet and never managed to find any purchase.
Well, I had no other options, so I left him loose in the car for the rest of the drive. He yowled much less, though I was a little worried about his safety, staggering drunkenly around trying to examine things and falling over every time I hit a bump.
Finally, about half an hour from the end of the trip, he succumbed to the sedative and curled up to take a nap… right underneath the clutch. I nearly squashed him when it was time to get off the interstate, and almost had an accident trying to scoop him out of the way so I could navigate the streets to my apartment.
So my advice? Make sure your crate or carrier is just a little more sturdy than you think it needs to be, and if you’re going to be letting a cat roam the cabin, make sure the van is an automatic!
I’ve also done the driving-multiple-cats-cross-country thing a few times. It’s not fun and it depends on the cat. If you happen to have AAA, they have a book about where you can stay with pets, and they might be able to put that in your TripTyk (if you have AAA, get a TripTyk – SO VERY USEFUL).
Randomly, if your trip takes you anywhere near Salt Lake City, I would highly recommend the Hotel Ben Lomond in Ogden, which is pet-friendly. It’s crazy-nice for an old hotel.
Hubby and I moved from Ft. Lauderdale to Middle Tennessee with our cat in the car. We started out with her in her carrier and then once we reached the highway let her out. We provided a litterbox in one back floor board and food and water in the other. She got spooked by the windshield wipers and spent most of the trip under the passenger’s legs.
We stopped at a pet-friendly motel along the way, and she used her litter pan there and slept on the bed with us.
She was really good through the entire trip-even though she’d never been in a car for that long before-and no sedation necessary.
Good luck!
@B: I drove from NY to CA with my two cats a few years ago. They stayed in their (separate) carriers while we were driving, without food or litter, and were fine with that. At the hotels, we set up food, water, and litter box. Best to get up early and offer them food a while before you take off in the morning, so they have time to use the facilities.
Days Inn/Comfort Inn/other chains in that corporate family are generally cat friendly, but you should call each location to double check. We also stayed in a Holiday Inn, no problem.
It’s important to check the room before you let the cats out of their carriers. Make sure there are no openings in the bottom of the box spring or back of foldaway sofas, and no loose or missing wall panels in closets or bathrooms. Your cat will find these and disappear into them, I can attest.
I highly recommend a carrier for your cat. My cat loved to travel in the car, and I always allowed her to roam the cabin, snuggle in my lap, stand on her hind legs and look out the window – she loved it. We went back and forth across the country several times. But the last time we were in a horrible car accident (rear-ended by a semi) – the entire back end of the car was destroyed, I couldn’t walk for six months, and she was thrown from the vehicle. Not that she wouldn’t have been killed in the carrier, but I just feel like it might have made a difference. I feel so guilty, and every time I see a cat riding around in the back window of a car I want to stop the driver and tell them my story. :(
Just two comments.
One, please please don’t sneak in the cats. I am horribly allergic and trust me, not breathing is not fun.
Two, for those with mulitple pets be careful when checking the “pet friendly” hotels (often motels). We traveled with two dogs and one motel actually wanted us to get two rooms as they had a “one per room” policy. The motel right next door graciously allowed us to all share one room.
“Cats are the ultimate Republicans; “change” equals “BAD”, so you want the triip to not be so much of a change.”
Hee!
Cool beans, @attica and @Liz in Minneapolis! I love learning weird bits of trivia like that. Thanks for posting!
I have driven my three cats (two male orange tabbies and a female grey tabby) from Massachusetts to California and back, and from Massachusetts to Virginia. I have had no problems with any of these trips, and am planning to drive them from Virginia to Massachusetts and back this summer.
First, make sure that they have enough room to move around during the trip. I bought three separate carriers that were made of plastic mesh and had “portholes” in the sides so that I could reach in and pet them without the possibility of letting them out. The carriers are larger than the regular to-the-vet-and-back plastic carriers, and my 17-pounder had plenty of room to stand up and turn around. My biggest fear was stopping at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere and having one of them panic and run off, so I kept all three cats in the carriers at all times unless we were in the hotel. They did very well with no food, no water, and no litterbox for as long as about 12 hours (cats sleep most of the day anyways, so it wasn’t a huge stretch for them), but they were happy to see all three at the end of the day, and I made it a priority to take care of them immediately upon our arrival in the hotel. They had no accidents of any kind in the hotel or the car. I brought along a dustpan and brush to clean up spilled litter in the hotel – cleaning up after my cats insures that hotels will continue to be willing to take pets in.
Our vet recommended against sedatives, so I didn’t use them. I’m glad I didn’t.
I went through AAA to find hotels that were pet-friendly. AAA did all of the legwork, calling each hotel to find out what the pet policy was, and I generally didn’t mind paying a flat fee if I had to. The only thing I drew the line at was paying a fee per pet – with three of them, that got expensive very quickly. But most hotels were willing to negotiate when they were dealing with the AAA rep.
I am lucky to have one cat – the leader of the pack, if you will – who is very calm and relaxed in just about any situation (this is a cat that I can vaccuum with the brush attachment). Because the travel didn’t bother him, the other two, one of which is a true scaredy-cat, were actually quite calm throughout the trips. They would whine at me for about an hour in the mornings, but most of the time I’d have to look back there to make sure nothing had happened to them, they were so quiet. Most of the time, I’d find them asleep.
I know not all cats are like mine, but this worked for me.
Re: Lifecoach.
Since you wrote “apparently” you make your step-sister anxious, I’m guessing that you received this information from S as opposed to from your step-sister personally. Given S’s predilictions, I’m wondering if it’s possible that this rift isn’t being overblown by S as part of her typical guilt-trip crap, which might be why there was no real response from sis, because she might not understand where all this was coming from or how to react. Maybe it’s best to talk to her when your home to find out what she’s actually thinking, though if she’s like most teenagers, a few semi-audible mumbles may be all you receive in either event.
@life — I hate that whole “you never call” schtick. It’s always completely one-sided, and tries to put all the responsibility for the relationship on the other person. I was visiting a cousin once when her aunt told her “You never call me”. My cousin, without a pause, said “Why, is your finger broken?” I always remembered that.
If she starts in with you again, here’s something you might consider saying to her. (Note: it won’t help much, but it might shift you from the regular conversation pattern)
“S, if dad wants to talk to me, he knows how to reach me. And if he’s upset with me, he knows I’ll always listen to him. I don’t know why you treat him like a child, but I prefer to assume he’s an adult and can speak for himself.”
My husband drove our two cats from South Carolina to Seattle and all three made it to their destination alive and unbloodied…mostly. We used mild sedatives and a large crate they could share together. The car was pretty jam packed with moving boxes so they wouldn’t have had run of the car even if we could have let them out.
Our female cat was not a challenge to get in a crate but cried constantly once inside. I, driving with her from NC to SC, tried letting her out in hopes she’d be chill and find the extra space calming. Instead she decided her favorite perch would be right in front of me on the wheel. Not so safe. The male cat is semi-feral and is incredibly difficult to get in a crate but once inside goes mildly catatonic and just lays there. My husband put a litter pan inside with the cats and covered the crate with a blanket to reduce stimulation. They did really well! He stayed in Motel 6s along the way. They all take pets – I followed in his treadmarks a month later with our dog.
Word of warning once you’re at the hotel: If your cat is skittish and prone to hiding in small places to feel safe, check the room carefully first! My husband let the cats out after seeing that the beds rested on solid wood sides instead of legs. He figured since they couldn’t get under the bed, they’d be easier to catch in the morning. Well, our Houdini-esque female found the one small space at the wall where she could wiggle behind the solid sides and hide underneat the beds. He had to tear everything apart to get her. Needless to say, the cats spent the rest of the trip in the bathrooms each night so they’d be easy to capture in the morning. It worked in the end and they weren’t scarred from the 3000+ mile trip. :) Good luck!
For driving long distances with cats – Motel 6. There’s at least one in every town you go through, and they allow pets to stay for free:
http://www.motel6.com/promotions/pets.aspx
This lets you drive until you need to stop without planning it out in advance.
@Life I read this and wondered if you had cloned my stepmother (eerily similar situations, right down to her tendency to pick fights right at the end of a visit). I agree with Sars’s advice; I’d stop engaging her. My brother’s strategy when my stepmother starts picking at him is to shrug and go the “I’m sorry you feel that way” route, and it’s cut the drama level way down during visits (my stepmother is harder on my brother than she is on me). It may also improve with time; as I get older, she seems less inclined to dig up all the angst I visited on her as a teenager (I’m almost 30 now). But I feel you; I hate talking on the phone. I tell my parents that it’s nothing personal, I never call anybody.
follow up for B:
Re Carsickness…. for the dog and one of the cats, I gave each a jelly bean (not licorice) before the trip. Peppermint lifesavers also work, but are big for (most) cats.
I had read somewhere about sugar settling their stomachs (cue Mary Poppins music). Nothing fruit flavored (fruit enzymes supposedly not good for cats) and nothing chocolate (very toxic for dogs).
As for hotels, look up online; they will list if pets are welcome. You may have to pay a small additional fee. RedRoof Inn was by far the most accommodating (no pun intended).
My husband and I relocated to Seattle from Tampa 3 years ago, and we drove a 4 door Honda Civic cross country with a 100 pound dog and a cat (our furniture was professionally moved). Not the best of times, but surprisingly easy, considering.
Some advice:
Red Roof Inn allows pets, with very small (if any) charges, and they’re everywhere. At least, they were on our route. Not the fanciest of places, but considering our first night with the pets at some no name place in Tampa we were charged a 250 dollar non refundable, up front pet fee? Yeah… we weren’t complaining about the less than stellar accommodations. It was clean, it was cheap. We didn’t call ahead to any of them, and just played it by ear. Worked out well for us.
Second, because our dog had to share half the back seat, and because our car was also packed with things we couldn’t do without in the 5 weeks or so it took our furniture to arrive, we didn’t have the option of putting a litter box anywhere our cat could conceivably use it. So, we got something like this: http://www.allpetfurniture.com/Pet-Gear-PG5536BS-PGI1062.html.
It was soft, lightweight, airy and large enough that our cat could stretch out in any direction. We put some extra cushioning in there, and a toy or two, and she was set. She loved it, and had a fairly relaxing time, considering. She had her own space, and was as happy as a cat on the road can possibly be.
In addition, we could easily get her in and out through the zippered window, which we did every few hours to offer both pets food, water and a potty break (though our cat never used her litter box until we got to the hotel). It also had the added benefit of being somewhat restraining if we were to get into an accident along the way. (We had Scout in a car harness, as well.)
Third, get a collection of disposable litter pans. They come with litter already in the pan. Much easier and cleaner than trying to cart around loose litter, and they’re not horribly expensive. We let our cat out and offered a litter option along with food and water every few hours, and then put a pan out at night in the hotel. Not a single angry pee anywhere.
Good luck to you! Hopefully it works out!
@drsue – The oh my god handle! That is the perfect name for that thing. I have never heard that before but I’m totally using it now.
We drove with our cat from NYC to Arizona over the course of nine days in 2005, and it was really pretty drama-free. We kept him in a carrier (which he hates) until we’d gotten out of the city and into the less harrowing interstate portion of the trip, and then let him out. He spent 90% of the trip either in the passenger’s lap or curled up on the dashboard (adorable? yes.) We kept a bowl of water in his carrier but I don’t recall him using it much–he did most of his eating and drinking and litter and such at hotels at night (we put the litter in the cab with him at lunch stops, but he wasn’t usually interested). Every time we slowed down for an exit, he’d get super curious and start walking around peering out of windows. Cute!
The “wrangling” part/dealing with stops was made easier by keeping him in a cat harness the entire time. He forgot about it pretty fast, and I felt a lot better being able to clip a leash on him before opening the door–it prevented the possibility of a quick escape. He wouldn’t really walk on leash, but it was more for peace of mind when getting in/out of the truck, and worked great.
Yes, most hotels like Super 8 and their ilk allow cats as long as you aren’t planning to leave them in the room alone. And sneaking is pretty easy too when necessary–we did both.
The only drama came when we arrived and realized he’d developed a bladder infection from being too out of sorts to use the litterbox regularly, but that cleared up pretty quickly.
Well, we did have some minor drama at a hotel one night when we COULD NOT FIND HIM. Like, seriously. And how many places are there to hide in a sterile hotel room, right? We were so confused and freaked out…and finally found him wedged into a space between the mattress and headboard of the bed that was glued to the wall that I swear to god could not have been more than an inch and a half wide. I think he’s part mouse.
Anyway–good luck! It totally depends on your cat, of course, but that’s my story and I hope it helps.
I’ve driven with cat multiple times on trips ranging from 2 hours to 13 hours. I used sedatives for the 13 hour trip, but it just made her meowing sound like a record on the wrong speed…
Know your cat and be prepared – mine is very vocal anyway, and the first hour is usually non-stop crying, every 30 seconds. But after that she usually settles down and sleeps for most of the way.
If you want to let the cats roam free, but keep them from bolting, I put the harness and leash on mine and aways make sure I have a handle on it before I open the door of the car. If I am leaving her in the car, like to go to a rest stop or something, I hook the leash on the emergency break so she can’t bolt when I open the door.
@edith: I’m so sorry about your accident. That just broke my heart.
oh, oh, pick me, pick me! I just drove across country in January with 2 cats, a 100lb dog and…my mom :)
Here’s what I did:
– I traveled with 2 cats and a dog, each in their own crate and drove for 8 hours a day.
– Instead of traditional sedative, my vet recommended childrens Benadry which is milder than a traditional sedative. Dosage is really easy = 1 mg per pound of cat. Doesn’t work for all cats but did well with mine.
– The first day was a little rough. Yowling from 1 cat for about 3 hours but then everyone settled down to sleep for the day.
– Situate cat crates where they are dark, cool and not jostled around too much. I was driving an Element, so there was a cat crate wedged behind each front seat, facing the suicide doors. They got air flow from the vents but it was dark and properly wedged so they could just nap.
– There was no need for kitty potty stops during the day. Again, my vet told me (from her own experience of moving a kitty from TX to OH) that cats can hold it for 8 hours or so. Just be sure to take away food and water about 2 hours before getting on the road. We followed this and didn’t have any issues.
– This was our morning routine: humans wake up, put away all animal food and water, potty walk for dog, humans shower/dress/brush teeth, put dog in crate in car [would have barked in crate in room and woken up all of civilization but doesn’t bark in crate in car. weird.], eat motel continental breakfast, come back to room, lock cats in bathroom, load car, walk dog last time, let cats out of bathroom and load into crates, recover from blood loss after putting cats in crates, put humans and cats into car, drive west. rinse, lather repeat…for 5 days…
– In terms of finding pet-friendly lodging, I did three things: 1) checked out tripadvisor.com. You can sort by pet-friendly hotels and those with wi-fi. I required both and found rooms all over the country for less than $60/night – that includes pets and NOT getting hepatitis. 2) when we stopped for the night, I called ahead to the motel at the next planned stop to double check their pet policy. Be sure to ask the difference btw dog and cat prices! 3) once we got to the motel, paid for the dog at the front desk and snuck the cat crates(another benefit of smaller, individual crates!) in through the back door.
– Once we got everyone in the motel room, cats were immediately fed and watered and litter box was filled up. Once they had a chance to eat, drink and poo, they chased each other around the motel room, then bedded down with the rest of us for the night.
I truly thought it was going to be horrible, but it was actually pretty awesome. We only drugged the Yowler for the first day. After that (we took 5 days to drive from OH – CA), he was cool as a cucumber for the rest of the trip. His daily whining steadily decreased each day as he got used to the routine.
SARS – i don’t know how you were able to deal with an open litter box in a 2dr civic. I was driving an Element and the idea of a freshly used litter box in there makes me gag….
One more person chiming in on the cat-move-across-the-country. Last summer we moved from Chicago to California in a huge moving truck. The cab only had space for me, my husband, and the cat in a carrier. I guess she could have been allowed to wander free, but there were just too many logistical issues. We had a carrier big enough that she could stand, stretch, readjust, and lay back down. I asked our vet how many times we needed to stop for litter breaks and whatnot, and he said, well, you don’t need to do that if you don’t feed her the whole time. Which was good and true advice. He basically suggested that she be allowed to eat/drink/use litter at night in the hotel, and other than that she doesn’t really need it. He was completely right. It was nice not having to wrangle a cat, or coax her to use the bathroom at each stop. We did not sedate her, but did use calming herbal drops. She did get carsick on the first day before she realized she couldn’t stand up the whole time. Once she lay down it was fine. She did cry for about the first hour of the trip each day (3 days, 12 hours a day). So, she didn’t enjoy riding in the truck, but she got over it. Finally, I second the recommendation for http://www.petswelcome.com. We used the “along-a-route” function, put in our start and end positions, and just printed out the options. Then, when we decided to stop for the night, we pulled out the list, figured out what was our best option, and stopped. It was better than making reservations in case you make better/worse time than you expect (or get a flat tire, break down, etc.). Good luck on your move!
I’ve driven my cats back and forth all over the country several times, usually 10 to 15 hours at a stretch, and whenever I attempt letting them out, they try to sit on my head or on the dashboard. So they stay locked up in their carriers with breaks whenever I stop.
I don’t sedate them (I fear spectacular bowel evacuations mid-trip, happened to a friend of mine), and they are mostly fine within the first 45 minutes or so. I make sure they cannot see out of the car, since all the vehicles going by stresses them, and whenever possible, I position their carriers so they can see one another.
I buy cheap aluminum trays to use as litterboxes. They almost never use them in the car, but it makes it easy to set up and dispose of at the motel. They also wear their harnesses, as someone else suggested, because it makes it much easier to wrangle them back into their carriers after breaks or at the motel. And I second Motel 6; I’ve never run across one that doesn’t allow pets.
Wow, cats sound like so much trouble. My dog loves riding in the car, and other than the occasional motion-sickness puke she’s a very cool and pleasant riding companion. Oh, except for when I try to play an audio book. She is driven mad, presumably looking for that person who is talking.
I do keep her restricted to the backseat, because she won’t let me buckle her in and I don’t want her flying through the windshield.
Couldn’t resist sticking my foot in on the pants issue– Meansleeves also brought up “skirt.” The reason “skirt” isn’t plural (although sometimes it is– e. g., “hiding behind a woman’s skirts,” from the days when women wore layers of them) is that it didn’t start as clothing for legs, but for the torso. “Skirt” and “shirt” were originally the same word, derived from the Old Norse “skyrta.” Like church/kirk, it developed into two separate words by passing through another language (Old English), and the two words eventually developed different emphases.
B –
I’ve worked in the hotel industry for years, and most places are idiosyncratic about pets. Very few chains have distinct policies followed at all branches, so you’ll need to call ahead to check.
Also, most will require a non-refundable deposit (usually between $10-$25), and if they have smoking rooms, they’ll probably require you to stay in one.
My husband and I have moved five cats from Ohio to Arizona and most recently to Texas. On the first trip, he took the two “easy” cats (the girls) and left me with the three “challenging” cats (the boys). He pilled one of the girls (the other absolutely refused) and let them roam. Huge, huge mistake–the undrugged cat wanted to sit in his lap and on his head and under his feet and in his armpit and wherever else was most inconvenient for the whole drive.
I pilled the boys with no problem. I had an SUV, so I put up a dog gate in the back area, put harnesses and leashes on the cats, and hooked the leashes to the gate with carabiner clips. That way, they weren’t in carriers, but they also weren’t able to shoot out of the car when I opened the back to get to them. I put a small litter box back there, along with food and water (which nobody touched).
We did the AAA TripTick and called ahead for pet-friendly hotels when we stopped for supper at night. Also, I second (third, whatever) the idea of pilling the cats beforehand. You don’t want the cat to have a bad reaction on moving day. Plus, if you’re as lucky as I am, you might get a nice photo of a cat hiding in the dishwasher because the drugs made him loopy.
On the move from AZ to TX, I took the kids and stayed with my folks and Hubby got to take all five cats in the SUV. He did the gate/leash thing, and it mostly worked out. He called me almost in tears because he didn’t try the harnesses on before moving day and he couldn’t figure them out, so he had to buy new ones, and the 15-pounder wouldn’t fit in the cat harness and he had to return it to get a dog harness, and he ended up leaving about three hours later than he planned because he was trying to stuff freaked out, pissed off cats into harnesses and carry them out to the car with minimal bloodshed. But once he got them in, it went smoothly, and the leashes kept them from escaping. (As an added complication, the three boys have screaming, bloody, trio-to-the-vet fights with one of the girls. She has to live locked in a bedroom, and they freak out if they even see her. He put the girls on one side of the gate and the boys on the other to keep them separated. The heifer knocked the gate to the side at one point, but they were so put out by the whole situation that they just agreed to line up and stare daggars at Hubby the whole time.)
(BTW, I know that the leashes could present a strangulation hazard, but we both kept a very close eye on them during each trip to make sure they were okay. I wouldn’t tie them up on leashes if they were not in view at all times.)
Good luck!
I’ve driven cats on long moves, and also shipped them by air. If you have any choice about it at all, go with the airplane.
If not, then I cannot recommend highly enough that you take your cats on some rides that do NOT end up at the vet before you do this thing. A lot of cats identify “car” with “vet”, and if they are reacting badly to the “vet” part of that equation, it can really help to break the connection in their minds.
Whether you let the cats roam the vehicle or keep them in carriers, make sure that the carriers are available — some cats will wander the car a little then retreat into the carrier to hide out. Honestly, the more comfortable they are with a moving car, the easier the trip will be. It will also let you find out if the cats get motion sick. If so, get kitty motion sick pills or sedatives, and USE them. Motion sick cats are very unhappy cats.
As to motels that will take cats, you may want to keep the felines in the bathroom at night. I’ve spent more time trying to coax unhappy cats out from inside box springs that the crawled up into during the night than I ever intended to. You can prevent it by putting them, a soft place to sleep, litter box, etc. in the bathroom. If you do this, try to get handicap accessible rooms, as they have larger bathrooms with less junk on the floors.
Motel 6 is great about allowing pets, but many of their sites have only one ADA-compliant bathroom, so be sure to look for that specifically. Other chains that allow pets tend to have more ADA-compliant rooms, so make a list and carry it with you. As soon as you know where you are likely to end up for the night, pull over and make a reservation for a pet-friendly, handicapped-accessible room. You and the cats will be glad you did.
Oh, moving cat stories….my family has many. Perhaps the best and most memorable is when my mom and new BIL drove from Pittsburgh to Gallup, NM alone together in his Geo with the last of the three cats to be moved (cat the first and second got to fly with my sister). They broke down someplace in Oklahoma and had to tow the car behind a U-Haul truck. Fuzzy was at that time the most skittish of my sister’s cats and survived all the drama just fine with the help of a carrier and the feeding at night strategy. Keep offering them water, though, because of the danger of them overheating. She was a Persian and for the hours trying to get moving again was in the desert with all of her fur. Now that she’s a full-time desert cat, they shave her in the summer. Yep, cat family with lots of cat stories!
Wow! This is so much great advice about cats — thank you! The information about roaming vs. crates, pet-friendly sites, portable litterboxes and the dangers of box springs is especially appreciated. Also the idea of a harness (although I’ve never been able to keep mine in a harness for more than five seconds — she’s, um, large, but surprisingly agile)is cool.
Thank you again!