Quote:
Originally Posted by CDollarsign
I drove two cats from St. Louis to Cincinnati for a move. The vet gave us something to 'calm' them. One was knocked out and the other had an adverse reaction and went nuts the whole time. Never again.
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Accepted wisdom these days seems to be 'don't sedate cats'--they will tend to go "catatonic" on their own when the stress levels get to high.
We've moved ours more times than I can count--the easiest of course was one time when they got to fly on the corporate jet, and were roaming around the cabin and sitting in the swivel chairs--you could see the thought balloons above their head--'I'm not sure I'm liking this...' but they did OK. One of ours developed a real antipathy to loud noises that sounded anything like an airplane after the flight to London from Seattle though--anything from leaf blowers to Brooklyn traffic noises upset him from then on.
Two stories--first, flying through Heathrow--post-911, but before they had efficient scanners, I had to go down into the bowels of the baggage facility with three cats in cages, and take each one out and hold them (in the midst of industrial-level din) while the cages were put through the scanners empty. It took all of my cat-foo to get them out, cuddle/clamp them, thinking the whole time that if they got away, that would be it.
The second was less stressful--but pretty funny. We had to get the three cats back on a flight to Chicago from North West Arkansas (NWA) and was flatly told by multiple people that there were no planes on that route that could hold three cages--this despite having flown there with--you guessed it--three cats in cages.
Finally someone said--'Oh you have to talk to Frank' (head of the luggage loading/ground crew) and I coordinated my flight with him, based on his hands-on experience of what could be stuffed into which small plane. And yes, three cats in cages did fit--if you got the right guy and the right plane. (Of course then I had to pick them up in Chicago and make a connection for Germany which was another nightmare...)