OK, How do you camp with a cat?

[SGT ROC]

Wow - lots of good stuff here for us. We have two cats going with us for the first time. One is diabetic - which is why they will go with us. He likes the outside and is good in his harness. He does not ride well at all though. By the time a short 1/2 hour ride is over he is sopping wet from slobbering. Worse than any dog we ever had. The other would have a heart attack if he were outside. Don't know how he travels cause he never goes anywhere. The only time he did was to get neutered.

[Steve & Sheryl]

First and foremost. If you travel with a cat, you need to upgrade to a rig with a fireplace.




We actually got into RVing because of the cats. Gordon developed diabetes and needs shots twice a day. We couldn't ask that of a pet sitter. We have three essentials:


a pet stroller from https://www.petgearinc.com/products.asp?cl=8. We do "walks" with the stroller in busier campgrounds. Less worry about dogs and we can walk at our own pace. The cats will also hang out in or on the stroller when we sit outside. At the big house, it, combined with the next essential, is their home inside our home.

The second is an electric heating pad. We use this one https://www.amazon.com/Pet-Products-...7&sr=8-15&th=1.

The third is a harness variant called a kitty holster. The web site is http://www.kittyholster.com/ Neither cat wanted anything to do with a harness, but they grudgingly accepted the holster. I wish I had a video of it, Gordon and I chased a rabbit around a KOA last summer.


On the road, the cats don't care much for being in carriers. They travel peacefully in Sheryl's lap. Originally we used this spray called Feliway to calm them down

[Duramax]

We ( I ) took our cat Peyton camping a couple of weeks ago. Mostly she did very well. Basically, she needed to know where her litter box was and her food bowls. First full day we went for a drive in the Palouse to Lower Granite Dam which is on the Snake River. Beautiful country with many older farms and barns with some nice old houses. She's great on a leash and travels fine in my truck.

[SGT ROC]

First and foremost. If you travel with a cat, you need to upgrade to a rig with a fireplace.




We actually got into RVing because of the cats. Gordon developed diabetes and needs shots twice a day. We couldn't ask that of a pet sitter. We have three essentials:


a pet stroller from https://www.petgearinc.com/products.asp?cl=8. We do "walks" with the stroller in busier campgrounds. Less worry about dogs and we can walk at our own pace. The cats will also hang out in or on the stroller when we sit outside. At the big house, it, combined with the next essential, is their home inside our home.

The second is an electric heating pad. We use this one https://www.amazon.com/Pet-Products-...7&sr=8-15&th=1.

The third is a harness variant called a kitty holster. The web site is http://www.kittyholster.com/ Neither cat wanted anything to do with a harness, but they grudgingly accepted the holster. I wish I had a video of it, Gordon and I chased a rabbit around a KOA last summer.


On the road, the cats don't care much for being in carriers. They travel peacefully in Sheryl's lap. Originally we used this spray called Feliway to calm them down

I like your thoughts on this. We have a fireplace, so that's taken care of. The only cat we would take outside is good in his harness, but the holster looks interesting. The stroller is out. The heating pad - might be an option. The best thing is the Feliway. Wish we had known about this before! The cat with diabetes, Zaizal, is a nervous wreck when traveling and drools constantly. Vinny we don't know yet, but he would probably want to stay in the carrier while in motion and meow the whole time. In both cases this stuff would at least help. Thanks! In the rig motionless they would both be good.

[Best Papa]

I would never normally respond to a forum about traveling with cats but just had to jump in. Although I don't travel with a cat now (he stays home), years ago I had to travel for work and my new bride would travel with me in the car. She had a new kitten that she would bring along so it became very used to the car and wouldn't need a kennel or box as it would just lay in the back seat. Even when it became older. We have since tried "training" other cats by taking them once or twice a week on a short trip in the car. Some adapt, some fight it all the way. I believe it's the temperament of each cat and how early they're trained.

[Overtaxed]

Well, I feel a bit qualified to comment on this, since one of the big reasons we got an RV was to travel with our animals. 3 cats, 2 dogs. First off, I'm going to say something that's probably going to be unpopular, but, I feel it's the best for all our animals.

The 2 dogs ride in the truck with us, the 3 cats ride in the RV. I have a 351M, bedroom in the front, and we lock the cats up there when we travel. We always run with our genny running (I have a long thread on this, it took some doing to make the genny run reliably going down the road). We have a MC4000 cellular temp sensor as our primary means to monitor the temp:

https://motorolanetwork.com/mc4000.html

We have a camera setup in the rig so we can see them:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This connects up to our Togo which gives us Internet both to the the rig to be able to have Internet while rolling. Also, because of the Togo, we can connect to the RV using OneControl and do things like adjust the temperature for the cats.

We have a ShorePower Monitor installed, this device watches the inbound power and if there's a loss of electric from the park, it autostarts the generator. There are already some controls for this in OneControl, but, it's way too complicated and too much to fail IMHO. This thing is dead simple; is there power? No. Start gen. Power back, stop gen. I'm very happy with it and it's pretty easy to install:

https://rvautomations.com/automatic-...-start-system/

We have a ComfortRide system on the RV to keep down the bouncing/banging:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

We use a Goosebox for our pin setup which has an air suspension system:

https://www.amazon.com/Reese-94720-G...omotive&sr=1-1

To further reduce the banging/jarring in the rig.

The net result, because the bedroom is over the truck bed and there's so much suspension, it's usually less rough in the RV than in the truck (my wife has ridden back there to test it). I would not put animals in the back of the rig, we would not consider any for rear bedroom designs because of that. Litter box goes under the bed, food and water on the floor (it's stable enough in there that the food/water doesn't spill out).

Also, a big reason we bought a toy hauler, we needed an "airlock". We never use the main door, keep it locked at all times when camping. We exit and enter via the garage, and do not open that door if the door to the main living area is open and/or all the cats are not accounted for.

Net result? Our cats travel very happy now. They hated the car. When we check in on them on camera, all 3 of them are usually curled up on the bed asleep. They don't like rough roads (and generally all but one of them goes under the bed) but, other than that, they are happy little campers. They love looking out the windows when we are setup. No issues at all with power loss, it's happened once, we get a notification instantly from the MC4000 and then another 30 seconds later (Power restored, when the genny auto starts).

It's as good as I can do right now, I continue to look for other items that might help make them more comfortable/safer, but I'm pretty satisfied with the system. I worry about accidents, but, I'm honestly not sure, for depending on the accident, if the dogs (in the truck) or the cats (in the RV) are safer. A horrific accident is going to be horrific no matter where the little guys are. But I drive like I've got eggs in my trunk because, well, everything I care about most in the world is riding on those 10 wheels.

The only thing I'm not happy about right now is that I have no backup to the genny if it fails when driving (and I had a LOT of problems with this from the factory, the stock fuel pump doesn't have the umph to pull fuel up much of a hill, so, genny would stall out going uphill all the time). I'd know, because of the monitoring though, and be able to rectify it one way or another, even if it means bringing them in the truck if it's terribly hot. I worry a LOT more about hot than cold, animals can take a lot more cold before the situation gets serious than hot. So traveling in the summer I really make sure to check everything multiple times, test the autostart, and make sure all the shades/blinds are closed in case the worst happened while we were away. I've thought about leaving a fantastic fan running because that would continue to function even if 110V was lost, but it would also make it hotter in there for them if the AC is working.

Anyway, sorry for the book, I just wanted to pass along what we do, and seeing it written out, it appears to be "a lot of stuff". Most of it is really not very expensive, the biggest ticket items are the Togo (for Internet) and the Comfort Ride (which has advantages beyond making the cats more comfortable). Probably 2K or so if you wanted to have everything that I have. For me, money well spent.

[kangarooelaine]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in the thread or not yet but Thermacell is a very popular insect repellent used by many RVers. It's safe for people and dogs but it's utterly toxic to cats. Be careful if you see your RV neighbors using one.

[kangarooelaine]

Shifting focus a bit. When we travel with the cat we will likely leave him in the trailer while we go out and about exploring. Are there any concerns leaving him there with the AC on? Anything else we should consider?

So.. this weird thing happened to us once. My husband and I both went into a grocery store to stock up. We had rented a class C and it allowed pets so we had our dog and left him in the RV for the grocery shopping. The a/c was on and one window was cracked open. Someone broke in a took our dog out. Then they basically held him for ransom, just standing there by the RV. We had to pay them to get our dog back. It was a terrible experience and has made me very wary of leaving pets alone in any car or RV.

[SGT ROC]

So.. this weird thing happened to us once. My husband and I both went into a grocery store to stock up. We had rented a class C and it allowed pets so we had our dog and left him in the RV for the grocery shopping. The a/c was on and one window was cracked open. Someone broke in a took our dog out. Then they basically held him for ransom, just standing there by the RV. We had to pay them to get our dog back. It was a terrible experience and has made me very wary of leaving pets alone in any car or RV.

I would have called the police. Leaving an animal in an RV with the Air on is no different than them being in your home. Them breaking into your RV should have been considered breaking the law since you rented it and it's a mobile home.

[kangarooelaine]

I would have called the police. Leaving an animal in an RV with the Air on is no different than them being in your home. Them breaking into your RV should have been considered breaking the law since you rented it and it's a mobile home.

I agree what they did was illegal, but we prioritized our dog's safety and then just wanted to be on our way, not wait around for cops.