Driving to Quebec for Mid-Life Crisis Kitten - Help Me Plan, Please!

[louse76]

Originally Posted by strange_wings

I suggest if you're seeing a therapist or psychiatrist/psychologist that you tell your current plan to them. That you think you can get to Canada on $100 from Florida, etc. Suddenly going off like this could be very harmful to you.

Wow, you guys are giving psychology advice, and you know all about hypermiling too, huh? I thought this was a site to talk about cats.

If you didn't read above (obviously), I already said that I'm getting (and as now have already gotten) a kitten locally.

Just because you think I can't get to Canada and back on $100 doesn't mean I'm crazy, it means you are ignorant. Let me do a little math for you.

For reference, this was my best tank:


Untitled by Artric, on Flickr

And this is a decent tank:


Tank Record! by Artric, on Flickr

And here's my MPG history since I've owned my Insight:

But I'm estimating even lower, to be conservative at 80MPG. This is extremely easily obtainable, as I got over 80MPG this week over 800+ miles with a passenger, using A/C, not hypermiling, etc.

So 1400 miles to Canada, 1400 miles to return, that's 2600 miles. At 80MPG, that's 35 gallons of gas. At $2.70, that's $95 in gas. Since I'm pretty good with simple math, I'm going to go ahead and tell you to shove it on this one. Please don't call me crazy, just because I'm currently having a hard time.

Since everyone is so concerned for my mental health (which I think is less of the case, and moreso just to feel good about themselves through a misguided protection of a kitten that was never harmed in any way), I'll give you some info. I was diagnosed with OCD/ADHD three months ago. I've been treated and doing very well. So well, in fact, that my co-workers voted me employee of the month, and I made almost half of my salary in revenue for the company in one month. However, unfortunately, some nasty ones took the low road and saw that I was let go, as I threatened their ability to keep on doing a poor job without being questioned. It's fun to park in your Employee of the Month spot as you collect your things and reminisce about the last four years of your career being flushed away. So anyway...

I've already said that I'm not doing this BEFORE you posted (try reading before you post), and I've adopted a local kitty, see above. At least one person thought to read before attacking, and Kudos to them.

It's great to see people protective of kittens' well-being, but to attack someone so personally, and for so many to "jump on the bandwagon" is just sick. I hope you all feel really good about this. Maybe we all should see a psychotherapist? I'm sure I could get you all scheduled.

To those who were concerned and gave great advice (which I followed), thanks. To those who can do nothing but judge:

.

 

[nekomania]

Traveling long distances does not spell a death sentence or forever having mental issues for a cat. I've taken my cat two times now across the country and in both cases I thought re-homing him would be more stressful than being able to travel with me.

When traveling 2000 miles with my cat I made sure to stop every hour to two hours to offer him his litter box and I never ever drove more than 6-8 hours a day. That makes for a really long trip but it's all about keeping the stress low-key for the animal.

It's easier to travel with a cat if you have more than one person in the car.

But I see that you decided to adopt locally.

Beautiful little girl!

Don't be too upset or hard on the community members here, we just care about these little furballs a LOT and for a lot of us our cat's well-being is what our world revolves around.

Everything said to you was meant to be helpful and not to make you feel bad or to take it rudely I'm sure. ^^

Congrats on your new kitty! And if you ever need to travel a long distance with either of them I'd be glad to give you some tips and pointers from my experience in doing it successfully twice.


Edit- BTW, what are you driving? Holy crap I thought my 30mpg was awesome

 

[zohdee]

Cute kitten!!! Reminds me quite a bit of my Aberdeen.

Grats on the new little furball!

 

[3catsn1dog]

I want to know what your driving too. My explorer only gets 14 mpg right now but it should get better when we replace the fuel filter.

But anyways congrats on your kitten and hopefully her check up goes well so you can introduce her and zero.

 

[snake_lady]

Originally Posted by Nekomania

Traveling long distances does not spell a death sentence or forever having mental issues for a cat. I've taken my cat two times now across the country and in both cases I thought re-homing him would be more stressful than being able to travel with me.

When traveling 2000 miles with my cat I made sure to stop every hour to two hours to offer him his litter box and I never ever drove more than 6-8 hours a day. That makes for a really long trip but it's all about keeping the stress low-key for the animal.

It's easier to travel with a cat if you have more than one person in the car.

But I see that you decided to adopt locally.

Beautiful little girl!

Don't be too upset or hard on the community members here, we just care about these little furballs a LOT and for a lot of us our cat's well-being is what our world revolves around.

Everything said to you was meant to be helpful and not to make you feel bad or to take it rudely I'm sure. ^^

Congrats on your new kitty! And if you ever need to travel a long distance with either of them I'd be glad to give you some tips and pointers from my experience in doing it successfully twice.


Edit- BTW, what are you driving? Holy crap I thought my 30mpg was awesome

Well said.

I do agree with your point, a kitten saved is a kitten saved, and I was going to offer you a place in Ontario, if u should decide to come this way.

Please don't let the negative remarks get to you, take in what is relevant, and you need, ignore the rest. You know your vehicle and its mileage, noone else does. You and your doctors know your medical issues, noone else here is qualified to judge your competency. So please don't assume we're all like the experiences you've had so far.

Congrats on your new baby. Harvey Dent is adorable. How old is she?

 

[strange_wings]

Originally Posted by Louse76

Just because you think I can't get to Canada and back on $100 doesn't mean I'm crazy, it means you are ignorant. Let me do a little math for you.

Did you remember to factor in road construction, detours, traffic itself including accidents holding up traffic for a few hours where you could be sitting there ideling and inching along, weather, etc? It doesn't mean I'm ignorant, my saying $100 isn't enough is because I'm not an optimistic person and have traveled across several states by car before.

Suggesting you talk to your doctor was not presuming I knew more about your mental health than you. It was concern for your well being. Either you're not used to people not wishing you harm or just don't care that people actually are concerned.
Whether you accepted it or not, even with your tone in your post, I wouldn't wish you to be stuck somewhere without money.

 

[louse76]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm driving a 2001 Honda Insight. It's essentially the undisputed MPG king, and can be improved with additional battery upgrades. My extremely high numbers are from cruising in hot weather at around 50MPH.

Originally Posted by Nekomania

Traveling long distances does not spell a death sentence or forever having mental issues for a cat. I've taken my cat two times now across the country and in both cases I thought re-homing him would be more stressful than being able to travel with me.

When traveling 2000 miles with my cat I made sure to stop every hour to two hours to offer him his litter box and I never ever drove more than 6-8 hours a day. That makes for a really long trip but it's all about keeping the stress low-key for the animal.

It's easier to travel with a cat if you have more than one person in the car.

But I see that you decided to adopt locally.

Beautiful little girl!

Don't be too upset or hard on the community members here, we just care about these little furballs a LOT and for a lot of us our cat's well-being is what our world revolves around.

Everything said to you was meant to be helpful and not to make you feel bad or to take it rudely I'm sure. ^^

Congrats on your new kitty! And if you ever need to travel a long distance with either of them I'd be glad to give you some tips and pointers from my experience in doing it successfully twice.


Edit- BTW, what are you driving? Holy crap I thought my 30mpg was awesome

 

[louse76]

A big thanks to you as well. I'm glad we let this thread turn around - very much so!

I might have to take you up on that place in Ontario - I really want to visit up there before long! And now, I technically have all the time i the world.

Harvey is about 17-18 weeks to my knowledge. We calculated her birthday to be around Zero's in early to mid-may from the info we were given.

Once she's given a clean bill of health, I plan on seeing if she'll take well to the car like the cat show said would be possible if encouraged at a young age. We can drive her gently to the park and put her on a harness, or just walk around with her, etc.

I met someone at Home Depot who said that they would take their cats to blockbuster and they loved to go for the ride - so I guess every cat is different. But I won't force it on her by any means if she doesn't like it.

What I do want to do is give her plenty of love an attention so when she calms down she will be super lovey. I was a little worried as a friend said that female cats tended to be less affectionate - is that true?

She just barely beat a kitten that we referred to as "the snuggly one". He just could snuggle for hours, but wasn't as playful or as ridiculously cute (the lack of a tail really sold us).

Can't wait until we get her in on Friday! Zero caught her paws from under a door and doesn't know what to think, haha!

Cheers!

Originally Posted by Snake_Lady

Well said.

I do agree with your point, a kitten saved is a kitten saved, and I was going to offer you a place in Ontario, if u should decide to come this way.

Please don't let the negative remarks get to you, take in what is relevant, and you need, ignore the rest. You know your vehicle and its mileage, noone else does. You and your doctors know your medical issues, noone else here is qualified to judge your competency. So please don't assume we're all like the experiences you've had so far.

Congrats on your new baby. Harvey Dent is adorable. How old is she?

 

[louse76]

I'm sorry that I took things a little too harshly. I just felt attacked with so many negative posts AFTER I said I was getting my kitty locally. Please accept my apology. I've been a little edgy since losing my job.

But the funny part is that traffic generally actually only causes my MPG to go up, as I can pulse and glide through it. That's how I got my all time record of 139.1 - ridiculous traffic that allowed me to coast for long periods at low speeds.

I didn't mean to insinuate that I only had $100 to do it on, just that I had set an artificial goal for myself to see if I could do it. Things are more fun for me when I have a goal to work toward, although knowing that it's not by any means the end of the world if I do not succeed.

Thanks for your concern, and again, sorry for being a sourpuss!

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Did you remember to factor in road construction, detours, traffic itself including accidents holding up traffic for a few hours where you could be sitting there ideling and inching along, weather, etc? It doesn't mean I'm ignorant, my saying $100 isn't enough is because I'm not an optimistic person and have traveled across several states by car before.

Suggesting you talk to your doctor was not presuming I knew more about your mental health than you. It was concern for your well being. Either you're not used to people not wishing you harm or just don't care that people actually are concerned.
Whether you accepted it or not, even with your tone in your post, I wouldn't wish you to be stuck somewhere without money.

 

[carolina]

Originally Posted by Louse76

I hope you're only like this on the Internet.

Fortunately (very fortunately indeed, and not by chance but by choice) situations like yours do not cross my real life very often, so yes, you can say that

But I will take a stand for an animal's well being - you can bet on that.

 

[kai bengals]

There was quite a bit of mis-information in this thread, so I'm posting to correct some of it for anyone interested in traveling long distances with their cat.

While it's true that some cats may not travel well, a good majority of them do just fine and actually enjoy it. To make blanket statements that it's detrimental to the cats health, extremely stressful, etc, etc., is just leading people to believe that traveling with their cat can't be done.

Not so. How do you supppose the hundreds of cats get to the cat shows? Often exhibitors drive 1,000 mile round trips and more to get to shows. These cats are subjected to car rides, hotel stays, the show hall, unfamiliar smells, etc., and they are just fine and most enjoy it a great deal.

All my cats love riding in the car and the hotel room is their favorite thing. And that's not just the bengals. My Singapura and my Maine Coon have a blast on road trips.

Now before anyone says, but those are purebreds, keep in mind that nearly all the cat shows have a house hold pet division where the moggies are shown.

As an owner you will know if you cat will be receptive to travel. If your cat is skittish and nervous to begin with, riding in the car will probably not make him/her happy. However if you have a curious, friendly, outgoing cat, riding in the car will likely be interesting to him/her.

As for crossing the US/Canadian border with a cat. What is required is an international health certificate signed by a licensed vet. On the certificate it must state which vaccines the cat is current on. The health certificate can be dated as early as the day of the border crossing, but it can't be older than 30 days. If the cat was purchased, a bill of sale must be presented to customs and dutiies paid if any are required. That's it!
(unless it's a bengal, then more paperwork is required)