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Written by Jimmy Frost
Having a cat along with me as I haul freight up and down the nation's highways does present some challenges, but I am convinced that the rewards are well worth the difficulties. Our first trip was that short jaunt, the twenty minutes across town. What we truckers call an "out-n-back", sometimes hardly worth the effort. The real test lay ahead when Zoey and I were all packed up and headed for our first six week adventure!
As Zoey and I left Virginia Beach bound for Ohio, I was lamenting the fact that I'd gotten a late start again. This has become somewhat of a tradition as I really hate leaving home for weeks on end and after thirteen years of pounding my living out on the asphalt roads, leaving home doesn’t hold the same sense of adventure as it once did.
We departed Virginia Beach around 5:00 p.m. then loaded a shipment in Chesapeake, Virginia that was bound for Saint Louis, Missouri. This heavy load (over 43,000 pounds) would have to be pulled over the mountains of Western Virginia, and Kentucky. Zoey stayed in her carrier. I knew she was curious about her new home, but until she could get used to me being so mobile, she was a carrier kitty.
Once we arrived at our destination, I let her out so she could do her spelunking throughout the cabin. She crawled into every cabinet, cubbyhole and opening she could find just to see what was where and what her favorite "perch" would be. Looking for that purrfect "cat cave," I suppose.
We were sitting idle for about thirty minutes, when I finally received a dock assignment. I placed Zoey back in her carrier because backing a tractor/trailer required a great deal of concentration and I didn't need another distraction while maneuvering a trailer fifty-three feet long into a dock that was built when the standard trailer measured only forty five feet.
Once we were docked, she was released in the cabin to explore, but she stopped in fright the first time the dock plate hit the trailer for the noise that resulted was a loud metallic bang. When the forklift began loading the product onto the trailer (which shook the truck on its suspension) Zoey looked at me with such terror in her eyes. I had to reassure her, "get used to it, kiddo, this is normal." About the time the twentieth pallet was aboard, Zoey was used to the noise, and she gobbled up some of her food to show me how unconcerned she was.
My wife Kimberely put a lot of thought into what I would need for Zoey during our trips. For example, Zoey’s water and food dishes are actually fluted glass candle bowls. They are heavy, low and wide so they stay put while we’re in transit. Kimberly also bought a rubber feeding mat to prevent the bowls from sliding around on the carpet. I placed this mat with the food and water dish behind the driver’s seat, as close to the midpoint of the vehicle as possible. This is the safest place for these objects if I have to stop the truck quickly, they wouldn’t be turned into missiles with deadly intent.
On our way to St. Louis, I noticed Zoey, began to shovel her cat litter. For those of you, who have never had a shoveling cat, let me explain: prior to using the litter box, a cat that shovels litter will stand outside the litter box and using its front paws will shove litter over the edge of the box onto the floor. As my wife will testify, I can be something of a “neat freak” and cat litter all over the floor in my truck is not acceptable.
At home, I try to convince my wife that cleaning house can be fun and rewarding, but I have yet to convince her. Aboard my truck is another matter entirely. I pride myself in keeping a clean, well-stocked, organized cab. It stays that way for two reasons. One, I keep on top of cleaning chores and two; my wife is never in the truck. In all fairness, my wife is a Nanny who cares for three children and does much of the housekeeping for her employer, so cleaning house is the last thing she wants to do when she comes home. Since cleaning house is something I enjoy doing, my wife will never deny me that pleasure.
I couldn’t punish Zoey for doing what came naturally, so therefore, I needed to find a solution. My first attempt to solve this problem, was to change to a newer, larger litter box with a raised edge that fastens on. I thought for sure that would do the trick…nope. A larger litter box was available at PetSmart but measuring it showed that it wouldn’t fit in the passenger side foot well. My wife had suggested an automated litter box, but that would require either constantly buying batteries or running a power cord to the inverter behind the driver’s seat. Tripping on power cords is something of a Frost-family tradition and could possibly be a genetic defect passed from my father to his son. "Thanks, Dad!"
The answer came during a trip to Wal-Mart when I spied a door mat with long bristles (for wiping dirt and mud off shoes prior to walking on the floor). I had to make a few custom cuts so that the mat would fit in the foot well, but that did the trick! For the mat captured the litter Zoey tracked out and I could easily dump it back into the litter box.
The next challenge came as we drove by Williamsburg. As a professional driver, I’m accustomed to dealing with "in-flight" emergencies and usually the first sign that something is wrong comes from your instrument panel. The temperature gauge climbs, or a warning light goes on. Other problems noticed are a drop in the engine’s performance, a strange sound, or the smell of antifreeze and/or burnt motor oil. As we were motoring along I-64, an awful smell started filling the cab. (Never in all my years of driving various vehicles have I smelled this from a machine!) A frantic glance at the running lights to see if everything was in working order told me, the smell wasn’t coming from the truck but inside the truck!
I flipped on the interior light and saw that Zoey was the culprit. Being a sharing sort of fella, I cracked a window to share the noxious cabin air with the rest of the Hampton Roads area. The air inside the cab soon returned to normal and I learned a valuable lesson about keeping the litter box scooped!!
As time went on, the clumping litter I was using helped, but I found it really didn’t deodorize well. I bought some litter box deodorizer, but that was also ineffective after the first 5 minutes. In the end, Scoop Away Multi-cat formula cat litter came to the rescue. One needs to remember that the cab of a truck is a confined area, not much larger than a medium-sized bathroom, so things that present small problems in the home can translate into big problems in such a living environment. Scoop Away delivered the solution for us and Zoey and I had wonderful trip together. She proved she could cut the mustard, and people sure got a kick out of seeing her at the window or lying on the dash of my truck especially when we were stopped in traffic. I am sure other challenges lay ahead of us. I am also sure I will be telling you about them quite soon!
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