When we first started to discuss life on the road, we we quite uncertain about what to do with Sienaar; tossing around various options such as leaving her with one of our kids, etc. At some point the idea of actually planning to take her with us was raised, so we started digging into what that might mean. Fairly quickly we came to appreciate that it wasn’t such an outlandish idea and that there’s plenty of examples all over the web of people who travel with their cat(s).
[And of course, it wasn’t too long before Sienaar was joined by Xena also!!]
Thus the concept of the Travel Cat came to be…
Van design changes
We arrived at this decision early enough that the team at Travelhome had absolutely no issues whatsoever with a couple of small changes we suggested to make a kitty’s life—and by extension ours’ also—more pleasant.
- Litter tray location: one of our fears about having Sienaar in the van was that in such a (relatively) confined space there would be a noticeable odour from her litter tray. Reen had already sourced online a roomy, robust and easy to clean enclosed tray1 and using that with a good clumping litter2 in the granny flat we stayed in pending the van’s completion allayed that fear significantly. We then had the Travelhome team configure the space under the TV to have only two drawers instead of the normal four, leaving a spot pretty much the perfect size for the tray. We added an inexpensive litter-trap mat in front of it and it all works perfectly. Best of all, essentially no smell whatsoever (as verified by son-in-law’s very sensitive nose 🙂 ).
- Fresh air/outside access: even though Sienaar had always been an inside cat, and a rather timid one at that, we really wanted her to be able to see outside, especially if we were out there under the awnings; and to have safe, protected access to lots of fresh air, etc. Yes, there are the windows, but van flyscreens are not particularly claw-proof nor chunky kitty-proof and we didn’t want to encourage her to spend time looking/investigating/playing near them. The Travelhome guys—especially super-builder Bryn—installed a large drawer into the rear kerb-side storage bin, fitted with a security mesh cage, including safety stopper and opening lid. They then provided an opening from this cage through into the bottom of the cupboard beside the TV slide-room. All we had to do was fit a hook latch and there is ready access for kitties out to their cage any time that the cupboard is open (most of the time 🙂 ).
Actual travel (in the truck)
Legally (and sensibly), animals in a moving vehicle must be properly restrained in the back seat. Lots of advice recommends cages/carry boxes for cats, but this seemed like quite a restrictive and uncomfortable option that would lead to Sienaar (and Xena) fearing or avoiding travel. (Conversely and somewhat weirdly, carry cages seem to be seldom recommended as a long-term travel option for dogs. While I understand the sheer practicality of that for medium/large dogs, lots of small dogs are no bigger than our cats. Very discriminatory…)
Anyhow, we settled on a combination of:
- a pet car seat3, really just a mesh-lined box with straps to connect around the seat headrest and to the seatbelt, etc; and
- a comfortable padded bed sitting in that seat4; and
- a snug, hard-to-escape-from safety vest5 that clips onto a strap on their car seat.
As you can se from the following photos, they both cope with this arrangement quite well; Sienaar just settles in and mostly sleeps while Xena is a little more “wriggly” (I guess ‘cos she’s a bit younger) but really doesn’t complain much or seem at all uncomfortable.
Life with the Travel Cats
So, having come this far and as we approach 12 months in our van, how is life with our TCs?
We reckon it’s a resounding success and I’m betting that if you could get the TCs to answer when you asked, they would too—they both seem very happy and content with life in general.
Sienaar has taken a long while to get her head around the idea of using the cage very much (did we mention that she’s always been extremely timid) but it seems as if she’s learning from watching Xena and will now sit out there inside her “tunnel” for fairly extended periods if it seems quiet. Xena has a much more outgoing nature and will race out there if she hears someone coming so they can chat with her!
Final caveat
Someway into all this we did come across one issue we had not really thought of and didn’t have a quick, easy solution for: what do we do with the TCs in the unlikely situation that our van is unliveable?
(This came to the fore when we needed to have one of the van slideouts repaired; it had to be removed and there were delays sourcing parts from the distributor, etc.)
As it turned out, we were able to impose on our daughter to assist, and I guess we would do something similar for any future occurrence; but it did highlight something we hadn’t previously considered.
We should leave you, for now at least as their story isn’t finished, with a slideshow of lots (and lots) of TC photos…
Footnotes:
- We use this one, but there’s a plethora of styles and options around
- If you’re interested, we’re using World’s Best Cat Litter ***UPDATE:*** we’ve recently switched to Tofu Cat Litter Australia as the other seemed to be breaking down to powder quicker than we liked
- Something like this one
- A lot like this (but not tartan).
- These, or very similar.