Moving.. with a 6 hour drive.

I'm making a move from Minneapolis to Chicago sometime in the next couple of months, and I have to plan for the cats.

I am SO scared to sedate them. I've read accounts on here of things going wrong and the animal getting sick or the drug having a reverse effect. But both cats hate the car. I recently took them on a half hour trip and Samuel complained loudly the whole way in his "I'm being tortured and just wait until I get my revenge" voice. Because I could not fit the carriers side by side so she could see Sam, Henri was agitated too. However she did calm down after a little while.

Who else has made a move with cats? Did you sedate them? What was it like?

I can't imagine them sleeping the whole 6 hours. I also can't imagine driving the whole way with them yowling in the backseat. It doesn't seem right.

I use travel to cat shows 12+hrs and have moved with my cats from wpb fl to atlanta,ga with my cats they loved to travel i never gave them anything they did sleep sometimes id stop and take a litter pan out and stick it in their carrier they'd go and then i'd give them some food/water then they'd go another 5 or 6 hrs.My cats never gave me a problem ever they seemed to not mind it.My one cat use to love to sleep in a cat bed on the dash board of van lol he'd stay there for hrs then he'd get up and id put him back in his carrier I have never had any problems with travel but every cats different gl
let me know how things turn out!!

About one year ago, I traveled with my Sphynx SNUGGLES from Chicago to Pennsylvania, a two day trip, then from Pennsylvania to Texas, a 4 day trip, then back to the Chicago area again, a 3 day trip.

I bought her a fairly good size cat carrier and covered three sides of it so she could only look out the front at me. I put lots of blankets inside with water and her stinky food.

This carrier was also large enough to hold a small litter pan.....a nice experience in a closed car during the winter.

Occassionally, she would MEOW for maybe twenty minutes at a time. I would talk to her during this but not too much...just to reassure her. I would not coddle her. Then she would lay down and fall asleep for the majority of the day. She would only MEOW for 30 minutes at the most then gave up.

I really had no problems with her this way. She handled it quite well. And, an added treat for her was at the end of the day when we got to a different hotel every night.....she throughly enjoyed exploring the room.

Greg

I would never sedate a cat for traveling. I've had talkers/complainers and those that would just fall right to sleep.

Cover the carriers so they can't see outside - that seems to help. Also, you can practice between now and then for riding in the car. Take them on short trips - a few miles and back home - that way they won't associate cars and vets (probably the only times they ride in the car, right?)

Our 15 yr old cat is a show cat so he's quite used to traveling in a car. No problem when we move. The other one is a talker and complains the entire time. But we'll just cover her and eventually she will sleep. It will be about 2 hrs of driving when we move in a few months too.

You can turn the radio on medium to drown out some of the complaining from your cats - and they might even like the music

I guess I have some sort of paranoid fear that being under so much stress for several hours could traumatize them. Also the fact that when they are done with that trip, they will be in a brand new place. (Chances are they will stay with my parents for a few days until my apartment is liveable. I'm not so worried about that part) I also think I would go nuts if they cried the whole time, but from what you guys have said that's probably not likely

They carriers are small, but I also have a large dog crate. Would it be better if I put them in there together? or would that be more stressful? They get along really well.

They might like the dog crate better that way you can have the litter pan in there.If they get along it should'nt be a problem unless you have one that likes to pick on everyone LOL.I have trouble making kittys like that lol.
Take Care and GL

Personally I don't like putting a pan in the crate with them - you'd be lucky if you didn't have an extra mess to clean up - the pan can tip very easy with litter all over the place.

I also do not feed them until we get to the destination or like stopping at a hotel - they get fed after we settle in.

Somthing that might help is a thing called a static strip that hands under your car and transfers the static from the car to the road, It helped with Duke, he used to Yeowl like a small child crying for help, if I had the windows down it was like a torture chamber on wheels. Now with the stip he's fine as long as he can see me he just sits there.

My cats hate the car too. When we moved (about a 4 hour drive) we had 3 vehicles, and Zebra came in the truck with me, Milo went in the car with my boyfriends mom and at the time we had a hedgehog as well who went in my boyfriends truck. We used to always bring the cats on that trip when we visited family and they would meow for a while and then stop and go to sleep. When the cats were together it was worse, but having them in seperate cars worked out better. The only problem I ever had was Milo went to the bathroom on the floor, but there just happened to be paper there so we just stopped and threw it out.