Cat Camping

 

Y'all meet Tali, our ~17 year old rescued tabby cat.  

Like any cat, she thinks she's the queen of the house, and as the sole survivor of our critters, she pretty much is.  She sleeps in our bed at home, (just walked across my keyboard to tell y'all: "23£££££" whatever that means), meows whenever she thinks we've taken too long to get her wet food out, and is addicted to Churus.  

We kennel her for any trip longer than two nights away (that's one of the great things about self-reliant cats) but after having kenneled her for our two week-long Thanksgiving trip we would have had to kennel her for nearly another two weeks over Christmas and New Years.  And we really didn't want her to spend that much time in a small Kitty Kondo.

So, after a bit of blog and internet research, and some shopping on Amazon, I'm sitting here on Christmas Day with Tali snuggled beside me and really glad she's here and not in the kennel.  However, I will say, it wasn't all roses getting here.... but we'll save that for the end.

Here's a list of the things we bought to make camping with a cat for Christmas do-able:

A portable, collapsible crate:

We wanted something to contain her at night, and anytime we would be in and out of the camper (so that she wouldn't have a chance to dart out of the camper door and explore the great outdoors). We sized out the crate we bought to make sure she'd have room for food and water, her litter box, and her bed, but not have the playpen take up too much space in the camper.

We bought it well before we planned to take her camping, set it up in the living room of the house, and would occasionally throw cat treats in it to entice her to get in and check it out.  After a few days of that, we'd zip up the door with her inside and give her treats, then eventually we took it (and her) out to the camper in the driveway so she could explore the camper and associate the kennel with the camper.  The top of the playpen zips off, which made it really easy to place items inside and clean out the litter box once we were camping. 

Which is the number one thing that everyone seems to ask about when camping with a cat: what do you do with the litter box?

Skoon Disposable Litter boxes  - We've used Skoon litter at home for several years now, and I wish I had known about when we first got the cats.  Its a non-clumping large granule litter so there's minimal tracking thru the house.  The disposal boxes were perfect for camping b/c we don't have to bring another pan or clean up one at the end of the trip. We did use dog poop bags to scoop out her poop and throw it away to keep the litter box clean after each use. (BTW - since this is a non-clumping litter, you stir it each use, and won't see 'piles' of stuck together liter from pee.) As we sit here 5 days into camping with a cat, I can attest there is _zero_ cat smell in our camper. 

A water fountain for her water bowl.  Similar with the kennel/playpen, we bought this in advance so she could get used to drinking from it at home before we took her camping.  Tali is a notorious water splasher, so we we hopeful that perhaps the already-splashy water fountain would deter some of that.  But, knowing that she is spitefully stubborn, we also bought puppy training pads to fit in the kennel to sop up any water spills.  Since the playpen has a zipoff top it was easy to thread the power cord thru the top of the kennel and over to an outlet in the wall. 

Soft Couch Cover: Knowing that Tali would be all over the camper (like she's all over the furniture at home) and our sleeper sofa is faux-leather, we decided to buy a couch cover to protect it from her claws.  I probably could have gone for a slightly smaller size, as there's a bit of excess material that I have to keep tucking in every time I sit on the couch, but I think I'd rather have the extra than have an area of the couch not covered.    

We can tell she's pretty comfortable here in the camper with us, and hasn't minded at all being in her kennel at night and the few times we've left the camper to run errands.  Overall, it's been a good experience for the three of us.  

But I told you it wasn't all roses, right? 

The trip up here - a 4 hour drive - was not so good. Tali cried. The. Entire. Way. You'd have thought that she'd settle in after an hour or so, but nope. She didn't. Also, like us, you've probably heard that a cat won't soil itself in a carrier while traveling. Well. I'm here to tell you that is not the case. So when we got to our campsite at nearly midnight we had to wait for our water to warm up so that we could bathe her, and then, stay up to help her dry completely (and stop shivering) because it was the first of three nights of below freezing weather.

She may look cute now, but we are not looking forward to the trip back home.  

And another potential bath. 

Know that you can research and be creative and prepared (we even have the name, number, and address of a local 24 hr vet b/c she's geriatric and you never know), but if your cat doesn't travel well and you don't know that, well, it will bookend the trip in ways you likely won't want to ever repeat again. 

_________xoxoxo__________

We were so grateful to have taken Tali with us on this trip, as it was her last great adventure: after taking a turn for the worst with her kidney disease just two weeks later, we made the impossibly difficult decision to let her sleep.  These last pictures and memories of her are something we'll remember fondly. 

Even with the baths.