Travelling with pets

[Kathy]

These cats are more demanding than small children.No wonder I've heard it said that cat's don't have owners:they have staff

Hmm. Assuming Tim and I recover sufficiently from the flu, we will be travelling to visit his parents with our menagerie in tow. Now, to adequately care for two cats and two ferrets, we will require:

Three travel cages
One litter tray for the cats
One large wire cage (containing litter tray and bedding) for the ferrets
2kg ferret food
4kg cat food
One sack of kitty litter
One fleecy cat bed
Mr Spoffly-onna-stick
Feather-onna-stick
Two hard jingly balls (for cats)
Four squishy jingly balls (for ferrets)
Jingly mousie
Laser-pointer toy
Harness for restraining Emmie-cat for when she gets bored of her travel cage and breaks our and tries to spend the rest of the journey on the driver's lap
Harnesses for ferrets because they're bound to be needed
Fur ball treatment
Etc
Etc

So... are pets more demanding than kids?

[Kim]

Harness for restraining Emmie-cat for when she gets bored of her travel cage and breaks our and tries to spend the rest of the journey on the driver's lap

You're winning.  Our abortive attempts at transporting un-caged cats by car always ended in them trying to do the actual driving.  And that's after extensive letting-the-cats-explore-the-car-on-the-driveway-first.

Keeping them in a basket on the back seat was the best approach, with a designated human to talk to them continuously, to keep the guttural siamese howling down to merely intolerable levels.  

A couple of miles to the vet or the cattery was the sane limit.

[Mrs Pingu]

Sounds like our journeys down to my mum's. Minus the ferrets of course. And possibly with the addition of earplugs and feliway to moderate Mojo's amateur dramatics. (an hour + of caterwauling, shudder).

[Regulator]

Our old cat, Fat Cat, used to love the car.  She and Trixie (the dog) used to fight over who would have the passenger seat.

Trixie used to end up with the passenger footwell.... 

[a lower gear]

These cats are more demanding than small children.No wonder I've heard it said that cat's don't have owners:they have staff

Hmm. Assuming Tim and I recover sufficiently from the flu, we will be travelling to visit his parents with our menagerie in tow. Now, to adequately care for two cats and two ferrets, we will require:

Three travel cages
One litter tray for the cats
One large wire cage (containing litter tray and bedding) for the ferrets
2kg ferret food
4kg cat food
One sack of kitty litter
One fleecy cat bed
Mr Spoffly-onna-stick
Feather-onna-stick
Two hard jingly balls (for cats)
Four squishy jingly balls (for ferrets)
Jingly mousie
Laser-pointer toy
Harness for restraining Emmie-cat for when she gets bored of her travel cage and breaks our and tries to spend the rest of the journey on the driver's lap
Harnesses for ferrets because they're bound to be needed
Fur ball treatment
Etc
Etc

So... are pets more demanding than kids?

No.

Considerably less than we used to load up to take two toddlers on a long journey. And pets don't squeal 'I need to go ... NOW!' just after you pass a services. Nor do pets chorus 'Are we nearly there yet?' every five minutes from the 20-minute mark. Babies are fine - they sleep; age 7 or so onwards is fine - they read and listen to walkmen. But inbetween ... well - you've probably been there yourself ...

And as for transatlantic flights ... don't get me started!

[Notsototalnewbie]

We're taking Cam (dog) to my mum's on the train. She's not too bad, really:

Enough dried food for two days
Food & water bowls
Poop scoop bags
Her Kong toy
Lead & harness (she'll be wearing those)
Dog treats
DAP diffuser
Travel water bottle in case she gets thirsty on the train

We don't take her bed because it is too cumbersome if you don't have her car - she'll make herself comfy on a rug or something. She has an alarmingly realistic squeaky rabbit being wrapped up for her as an Xmas present, too.

If we get a seat on the train, she'll realise we're there for the long haul and settle. If not, she thinks we're about to get off and spends the whole journey in whiny excitement, which is nice.