Riding in Cars with Cats

When I left town in September and Le Chat had to stay at the cathouse for two whole weeks, he was not pleased. When I arrived to bail him out, I could hear him, yowling obnoxiously, long before I saw him. The Madam was all sweet googly kitty talk . He was so vocal, she enthused, the neighboring businesses suspected her of harboring a full grown tiger. Which means he made a royal pain of himself.

Next week I'm leaving town again. Guess who doesn't want to go to the cathouse? My friend invited him to stay at her house instead, and hang out with her girls. So today we had a trial run.

First I had to get him into the car. He's always interested in peeking outside when the door is open, so I maintained an air of nonchalance as I went back and forth, because he's only interested as long as it doesn't involve him. As soon as it starts to look like you might have plans to stuff him in a cage and take him to the vet, he hides under the bed. My acting was superb. I had him in the car , struggling, and very p.o'd before you could say Meow. I didn't even try to wrestle ten pounds of strong, unwilling cat into the cage.

Being loose in the car was new and different. He sniffed around, keeping up a yowl of complaint all the while. When he tried to climb over my head and left scratch marks on my forehead, I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. But I talked to him soothingly about how we were only going to visit B, and he was going to meet her girls, who, I assured him, were quite lovely. They were just like him, I explained, in my most hypnotically soothing voice, with four legs each, and whiskers, and tails....

To my surprise he settled down. Not on the towel I'd spread on the back seat of course, but on the passenger seat, where he carved out a nest between the purse and the project bag and my jacket... but at least he'd quit complaining. He turned enquiring blue eyes on me every few minutes,
and ventured a few questioning mews...but then we were there.

I got him in the door of B's house without getting my face ripped off and set him down. The girls came to see who the interloper was. He submitted, tensely, to a thorough sniffing from Nugget, whose message seemed to be--"OK boy, you can stay. But don't go losing the run of yourself; I'm the boss around here. " Rosie gave him a dismissive glance and stalked away.

We left them to their own devices. There was no hissing, no snarling, and no fur flying. Totally civilised behaviour. An altogether successful trial run. Of course, when it was time to leave, there were two grown women with bad knees, crawling around on the floor trying to coax Le chat out from under the bed.