Cat info for newbies

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WineLuvrs

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May 6, 2013
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Location
Treasure Coast FL
Our sincere apologies if this subject has been previously covered.

We own a 10-year indoor/outdoor cat. We will be taking a 6-month visit to the West Coast soon and are in a quandary regarding our beloved cat. Note: This cat is clearly not one of the inbreed weirded-out cats we all know and love. We have been trying to acclimate Spot with short car drives and a leashed walk about. So far he hates the harness, so we ordered a stress reduction type. In the mean time?

Our research shows cats that travel seem to love doing what they do best: sleeping in the sunlight, being cute and waiting for us to lavish them with attention, the same as at home. Our biggest concern is our buddy running out the door, as he is accustomed to. Our worst-case scenario is he bolts out for his usual walk about, gets freaked out at the new surroundings and holes up somewhere, while we anxiously wait to leave for the next platz.

Our other option is to find house sitters for our 6 month West Coast jaunt. In years past, when we had more pets, we used house-sitters with few issues. As our FOB is in a desirable part of Florida, finding house-sitters has never been an issue.

All responses appreciatively read.
 
Our biggest concern is our buddy running out the door, as he is accustomed to. Our worst-case scenario is he bolts out for his usual walk about, gets freaked out at the new surroundings and holes up somewhere, while we anxiously wait to leave for the next platz.
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Yeap, that's the risk and the thing that strikes terror into pet owners hearts. We had a cat wander off in Great Falls, MT, once when the door wasn't latched quite tight. Found him 1/4 mile away at the far end of the park, just wandering around, but he was very skittish about coming back and led me a merry chase.

That said, you will have to judge how likely he is to dart out the door. It is difficult to keep a cat in if he is determined to go exploring. They can get down the step well and out even a small opening in a shot. Not so much problem when coming in, but it is awkward for a person to reach down and corral the cat while descending the steps toward the open door.

Our present cat is interested in outdoors but not intent on getting out to wander. She always goes to the door and peeks out, but we don't have much problem discouraging an actual escape. But if your cat is accustomed to going out on his own, i.e. is an "outdoor cat", I think it will be difficult to convince him that it is no longer ok to do so.
 
I live full time with three cats, all of which were rescued cats. Two of them would never go out of an open door. They both say they have been there, done that, and got the tee shirt. The third one, Tarzan, heads for the door every time he sees that it is open. So far he has managed to sneak out about ten times in the three years he has been living in my RV. Each time I was able to recapture him within seconds. He just didn't run out the door and keep on running. He had to stop and get his bearing and figure out what his next move was.

So basically I make eyeball contact with all three cats before I leave the RV. I make sure Tarzan is no where near the door before I open the door. They really aren't a problem at all.
 
I?m not a cat trainer but if I had this problem.  I would make the cat think it is a very scary  world outside the RV.  While still at  home you could place the cat in the RV leave the door open while waiting in ambush with something that would scare the cat into retreating to the safety of the RV. Perhaps something that makes a loud noise or whatever you think will scare the cat. Your cat really likes to go outside and will think of the RV door as he does the house door.  You job is to change his mind.  This training may take a while but will save you a lot of worry.
Another thing, if you have slides be very careful.  Slides are dangerous, make sure you know where your cats are before retracting/extending slide.
 
We have traveled with two cats, full time, for three years, and have had only one jailbreak. And she just stood there at the bottom of the steps with a "now what?" look.

Teaching them to stay away from the door is pretty much the key. We have had service people leave the door open in the shop and they would not even think of heading out. As mentioned, it is hard to marshal cats going down the steps.

Spend a little time with Spot in the rig and see how he acts. He may be a lot better behaved than you think. You'd be a lot better off having him bolt at home, if that was his pleasure.

Bottom line is that traveling with cats is typically a non-event. I think we worry more about it than they do.
 
We just got back from our first trip ever with our cat Lucy. That's us if you ever see a motorhome with "Lucy Too" on the back.  Lucy is also an indoor/outdoor kitty and we had many worries about her reaction.  We took a 3 week trip from Western Pa., to Kansas City, down to Houston Texas and back.  The first night she was VERY antsy, and sat at the bottom of the steps and cried and scratched to get out,,, almost made my wife let her, but we all survived. From then on, she calmed down and as the days progressed, didn't even try to get out any more. We still made sure where she was every time we opened the door though, and all in all I think she is ready to do it again.  I hope so cause we are heading west on the 1st of July for who knows how long.
 
We have two cats. One loves the harness, and begs to have it put on so she can go for a walk. The other is afraid of the outdoors and hates having the harness put on.


One thing that might help is to give the cat a safe way to go out, sort of. I built a screen room for ours that hangs from a window. The adjustable support poles are pain roller poles. The two brown brackets are to secure it to a platform mounted on the rear bumper where it stows while we are driving.

The both love sitting out ther, even tho one who is afraid of going out.
 

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