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When we first decided to take Bird, whom I had been feeding as a feral cat for several years, with us when we moved from Texas to Maine, I had, of course, made friends with her by that time, but she was not your typical house cat. Having never taken cats that distance before, we were worried about their bathroom needs during the trip, so I hit on the idea of buying cat harnesses for them.
That was entertaining. The day we were going to leave, I put a harness on Bird, which didn't amuse her in the least bit. She flew into the air, spinning around like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes, for those of you who are old enough to remember that one. It took her all of about fifteen seconds to be out of that harness and, by then, she was steaming mad. She started for street, intending to go back to the wild rather than being tied up, I'm sure. My heart dropped, as we had already turned our keys in to the landlord, and were about to leave. I wasn't sure that we'd be seeing Bird again.
Thankfully, traffic was heavy and she was a cautious cat. She stopped at the street to wait for traffic, and I was able to pick her up again. Although she bit my hand hard enough to make it bleed, I was able to carry her over to the cage. Cutie, Lydia, and Baby Girl, their mom, weren't overly fond of the harness either, but at least they didn't make me bleed. Interestingly, Bird's daughter, Obadiah, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, was to become my only cat to adapt to a harness just fine.
We decided against the harnesses and, as it turned out, our fears were never realized. The veterinarian had given us some medication to deal with their stress during the move, but they never needed it. We were in two cars, with Bird and Baby Girl (since Bird got along better with Baby Girl than with her daughters) in one cage, and Cutie and Lydia in the other. They yelled for the first ten or fifteen minutes each morning, then calmed down and slept, holding their bathroom needs until we stopped for the night.
Prior to that time, Bird had never been a house cat. She would agree to come indoors sometimes when it was raining or cold, but would stay by the cat door. So the other cats hadn't really gotten to know her very well. Cutie and Lydia were to hate her for her entire life, but Baby Girl was more neutral. During the trip, both of them were nervous, so they were cleaning one another.
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