Caturday: Road Trip!

I'm starting a new series! I'll try to reserve my future feline-related posts for Saturdays, as my series is appropriately titled "Caturday". I won't post every Saturday, and I will likely post other, non-feline-related things on Saturdays on occasion, but I liked the idea of starting a series of fun and perhaps somewhat informational cat posts! For those of you who don't know, my boyfriend and I have three cats: Rose, Melody, and Sybil. You can get a glimpse of each girl's personality from the Happy Caturday! post.

For the holidays, I went home to visit my family, and Chris did the same (though his family lives across the country). I drove home with all three girls (Chris came along due to flight problems). Each girl has her own carrier, and they were lined up and buckled in the back of the car for the long drive. While I buckled them in, I couldn't help but think that I was preparing for my future when I have real kids that I have to buckle in. It's a process for cats so I can't even imagine a squirming human!

L-R: Rosie, Melody, and Sybil not at all looking excited.

Melody gets car sick, and we didn't know how Sybil would do, so we started by holding their food the night before. (I let Rosie and Sybil have a tiny bit of food the night before just so we didn't have super hangry (hungry and angry) animals running around.) Poor Melody got nothing. She stood by her food bowl and looked at us so longingly.

In the morning, a couple hours before leaving, I took away their water. I didn't want them to have any sort of accident--pee, poo, or puke. By that point, they were pretty hangry, and Rosie realized what was happening as soon as I brought suitcases downstairs. She is a hider. Luckily, we got her into the pantry before she could wedge herself in some tiny corner. Melody and Sybil were locked in the bathroom. Chris managed to get Melody and Sybil into their carriers without much hassle, but Rosie hates going into her carrier, so he tipped it over as I grabbed Rosie's legs and lowered her inside.

The road trip was relatively uneventful. Rosie spent most of the time crying (as usual), which I'm pretty good at tuning out now. Sybil chimed in a bit but not too much, and Melody made no noise (as usual). They ended up having NO accidents! :D

Rosie's favorite part about being at grandma and grandpa's house is their vegetable sink. She easily spent over ten minutes a few times a day "bathing" herself in the sink (she has a unique method of drinking out of it). The top two photos are stills from a video I took of her drinking. She is such a dork!

My dad was less-than-pleased at the fact that I brought all three cats with me, mostly because they have two cats and one dog themselves. Not to mention, someone abandoned their cat so they're caring for him, too! Yes, there were six cats in the house. It felt overwhelming at times!

Melody and Sybil made themselves right at home. Rosie spent most of her time pouting in the guest room and hiding from Iggy and Stanley, my parents' cats. Stanley chases her, but only because she lets him! Melody got along wonderfully with all of the cats and only swiped her paw when she was swiped at. She spent a lot of time begging for food in the kitchen. Sybil was very vocal around the other cats but didn't really swipe at anyone. Oddly enough, the only major fights were between Iggy and the abandoned cat (I called him Orange because he's an orange tabby). Melody tried getting involved in their brawl in the living room (or tried breaking it up; it was hard to tell). We don't really know why they fought because they seemed to get along at other times.

Sybil wanted the brand new dynamite stick that Melody had.

L-R: Ignatius (Iggy), Melody, Orange, Stanley, Rosie, Sybil.

I took the girls to the vet for pedicures while we were there. They were all the naughtiest they have ever been for nail trims. Rosie howled and hissed more than usual. Sybil was the absolute worst. She screeched SO loud and broke out of the E-collar. The vet and tech wore gloves up to their elbows and wrapped her in a towel. The receptionist even had to come in and distract her by tapping on her head with a pen. She was terrible and ended up being a "level 2" nail trim!

When it was time to go, I held their food and water like I did before. I didn't have Chris to drive back with me, but luckily nothing went wrong. Rosie was really good about getting into her carrier, oddly enough. I think she knew it meant she was going home. Rosie cried and cried on the drive, though (as usual). Sybil cried more than she did on the first drive. No one had an accident! All in all, we had a good time with my family and I'm sure they were very happy to be back down to three cats!