Spin-off: Camping with cats (dammit)

[mvp]

Why do dogs get all the fun?

Of all the vacations I think one could take with a cat (travel being not a vacation for the cat in the first place), I think camping could be a good one.

You know, a house is set up.
People spend a lot of time doing things in the “house”/campsite.
There is chilling.
There are usually trees around for claw-sharpening and the whole damn world is your litterbox.

So who has had a cat on any kind of camping trip? If that’s a “not yet” for you, who ahs the good sense to put Cat Camping on their bucket list?

[Bicoastal]

OMG let’s see it! You’d need leash-trained kitty, tent=no claws training, and a ladder to fetch your car when the dog/rv/pack of kids/campfire scares it up the nearest tree.

The best I’ve seen is my old roomie taking her cat -loose- for car rides for fun. She claimed he loved car rides. I thought most cats don’t like to be outside of their turf.

[Superminion]

My Uncle does civil war reenactments as a fun hobby and his cat, Puss, accompanies him most weekends. I need to dig up some pictures, but they camp at the sights over the weekends. He’s been bringing Puss since he was a wee fluffy, and the cat loves it…

But he also enjoys swimming, car rides, and the beach, so take it as you will.

[mvp]

So glad to see that a cat gets to come along to the Civil War Reenactment weekends.

Old Lady Cat once had to come with me to a horse show where we camped. The best part ever was that we parked way on the edge of an open field. I soon let her loose because she would have had to run a cat 10K to escape to any kind of hiding place. It wasn’t going to happen. She knew it, so I knew it and it was all good. She chilled in the grass.

Thinking along these same lines, I’d take a cat to the beach.

[AlmostDun]

Yup, I’ve gone camping with a cat. Here is a cut and paste from my previous post, describing some of the more memorable aspects.

Little kitty claws on the air mattress.
Little kitty claws on your tent, as your early riser climbs between the tent and the fly to look down on you from above and wonder why you haven’t gotten up yet. It’s almost dawn, after all.
Sitting around the campfire toasting marshmallows at night, while little kitty dismembers the mice attracted to food scraps left by the previous campers.
Discovering your campground has fisher cats, also attracted by the mice feasting on the food scraps left by the previous campers. Kitty, in the tent, NOW.

And something I forgot to mention, kitty was an indoor cat at the time. He’d been outside with us, but he’d never been outside unsupervised. We didn’t realize until we were well into the trip, that kitty had never, ever, eliminated outside his well provisioned cat pan. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept. We’d let him out of his travel case, he’d sniff around, conclude there were no appropriate facilities, and then curl back up into a miserable ball. The poor little guy kept holding it and holding it until finally he finally erupted all over the inside of his carrier. Blech. Nothing like having to give a screaming cat an emergency bath en route.

The same process started to repeat at the campsite when we finally got there. Finally I found a hollow stump and sprinkled a little cat litter in it. (I had some cat litter even though I didn’t have the feline approved cat pan.) He decided the stump was similar enough to a cat pan that he could use it. I hope the next group of campers didn’t have any curious little kids along. Again, blech. Not a nice surprise.

[Naina78]

Not camping, but my parents nearly always brought Tobey with them to the shore on weekends. It’s a 1.5-2 hour drive, which he wasn’t crazy about, but he was just as happy to be in their neighborhood in NJ as he was at home in PA.

[Feliz]

Carp – your poor indoor kitty and no toilet! Haha, guess he didn’t like roughing it.

We haven’t taken the kitties camping. Spike is very helpful when we’ve put the tent up on the lawn to dry it out and I would be very concerned about claws in everything delicate – tent, mattresses, sleeping bags . . . I can’t even imagine the destruction the kitten would cause. Plus the majority of campsites we go to are in national parks that are strictly no pets.

However, we do take the kitties with us when we go to my parent’s beach house. It’s only an hour’s drive, so not too far. The kitten hasn’t been yet, but Spike loves it (aside from the drive). We’re around all day, the house has a cat door in the ground floor and off the deck upstairs so he can do endless circuits, the garden is fully fenced and he loves the sandy ground to roll in. When we were away travelling and Spike lived with my parents he went up with them all the time – the beach neighbours all love him too.

If we’re going for longer than a weekend then I will usually take my horse too as there is good grazing within 5min drive and good riding. It’s quite the performance getting ready to go 

[MunchingonHay]

When I was a CDE groom there was a spring where we started in Fl and worked our way up the coast doing shows to end up at our summer farm in Mass.

We were on the road doing shows up the coast for 8 weeks.

I had my dog, my cat, my manager’s 6 dogs, myself, the manager, and our working student all living in a camper hauler. And while the cat did not go outside of the camper, he was loose in the camper beating up all the dogs and demanding the best sleeping spots.

( too many JTRs for him to be out of the camper, I would be afraid for the JTRs this cat is a terror!)

Tristan the Traveler!

[cowboymom]

My grandma used to take her cat with them in the motor home when they traveled across the country to spend the summers with us. She had a few cats that would come out and sit on the picnic table at whatever camp ground they were in and then just go back to bed in the motor home, no problem. For years she brought a cat with them camping all summer; she only ever lost one and it was b/c a dog chased it out of the camp ground.

I would be way too scared and in fact have nightmares in which our cats are with us in the mountains and I can’t catch them…

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Feliz;7085298]
Carp – your poor indoor kitty and no toilet! Haha, guess he didn’t like roughing it.[/QUOTE]

Which is why one takes cats— like poor city kids— camping. Such a sad story about a maladjusted cat who had lost all touch with nature!

Maybe you guys should make this an every summer thing, Carp.

[CVPeg]

My kitty is a Maine Coon cat, from, well, er…Maine. Used to live up there with exSO, who took forever to get his move up there finalized, so for almost 2 years we commuted weekly up there and back, and Ricky Kitty got to take the trip as well, and hated it. He did best with his carrier on top of a seat - not so great in the way back on the floor, and with a towel or coat draped over the top. To this day, he hates traveling so much, if I start vacuuming (which was always the last thing before leaving for the week), he hides for the day.

He is an indoor cat, but would follow me outside for morning coffee in nice weather. But this year, as soon as the weather improved and he started coming outside, he began to get sick - vet said it was from the grass, and she was right. Yesterday doggie and I were out front, and Ricky was howling to come outside. I forgot all about this (although, ouch, more expensive now than I remember 3 years ago), http://www.amazon.com/Wildwhiskers-Outdoor-Feline-Funhouse/dp/B000AL5C1Q and hauled it out of the closet. Appeased his curiousity to be back out, then it sprinkled for just a couple of minutes so he howled even longer. Took him back in and he shut up. :rolleyes::lol:

[Chall]

I’d make sure cats have these skills before camping
1 leash training/stake training
2.car rides are fun training.
3. Outdoor potty skills
For various reasons, I had to leash train my cats. All took to it very well. No one took more than 3 run/hit end of line/stop episodes. Cat with leg cast learned to be tied to stake. However don’t use a collar, use a harness! She escaped with collar and outran me with a leg cast!
Car fun- able to ride loose in car. At stops crated before any doors or windows were opened. My cats learned to love the car when every trip did not end up at the vets. Air conditioning in the car turned out to be the thing that changed their minds about the car. Eventually I could drive with the windows down and the cats would totally ignore me and concentrate on the view. They loved seeing the neighborhood from the safety of the car. Yup, I OWN this yard, and THIS yard and THAT yard and THAT and… you get the picture.

[oliverreed]

I used to take my cats with me to my aunt’s beach house 3 hours away. Some were OK in the car, some definitely NOT Ok, but once we got there they loved it. I cannot wrap my mind around taking a cat camping, probably because mine are all indoor kittehs and it would blow their tiny little minds.

[witherbee]

I would freak out that one of my cats would wander off and we would not be able to find it. I think it’s great for people with “dog-like” cats though, and can see how that would be fun if your cat is not the spooky type. I would be afraid to even take them in a camper and keep them in the camper - if they got out, you have such a limited time to find them in a strange environment.

And yes, would love pictures of some of these intrepis campers.

[LovelyBay]

We went camping with my in-laws last summer and they brought their damned cats. It was nightmare. The cats were tied to trees all weekend and kept almost hanging themselves. They also brought there four dogs (also tied to trees) and we kep our two dogs crated or in our tent/truck if it wasn’t too hot. It was such a pain to have to deal with the cats, and they didn’t look happy either. They were scared of the other dogs in the campground. We had a huge thunder storm, during which they were tied to trees. I felt so bad for them. They should have just been left at home.

Now if you have a friendly social cat, that would be happy in a pen/crate and goes well on a leash I could see trying it. I’m happy just to leave our kittens at home though.

[Holly_Jeanne]

Why not? I took my flame Siamese to a horse show on a leash once. I stayed well away from dogs and the ring but I was on my way to visit family with the cat and wanted to watch a little of a show that happen to be on the way. Got some funny looks but nothing happened and the cat seemed to enjoy it. :lol:

[suz]

we just sold our place and moved to camp for the summer. the best thing is being able to let my kitties out as much as they like.
we are a couple of hundred feet from the dirt road, right on the lakeshore and the entire property is surrounded by woven wire fencing to keep out the riff raff.
works for me as i assume it turns away a whole lot of potential cat eaters too.
meanwhile mine LOVE being here–they help me walk the dog several times a day by following me around our little park, climb trees, stare at the fish from the dock and sleep all day in the rv as if they run marathons at night. they also leave me a mole by the steps every morning, so the campground owners are appreciative.
one cat has adopted another couple’s campsite as his own, they are slightly higher than we are and he likes to lie on their deck surveying his new home.
we hope to leave them here for the winter as we travel, but haven’t put that together yet.
if it doesn’t work out they will see the united states from the comfort of the fifth wheel, lol.

[AlmostDun]

[QUOTE=mvp;7087702]
Which is why one takes cats— like poor city kids— camping. Such a sad story about a maladjusted cat who had lost all touch with nature!

Maybe you guys should make this an every summer thing, Carp.[/QUOTE]

This particular cat has gone to join his ancestors in the great catnip patch in the sky. Current cat has too many health problems to be a good candidate for camping. I’ve also gotten to the stage of life where I prefer a comfortable bed and showers to sleeping in a tent. So, kitty is home sleeping in bed with the house sitter, I’m sleeping in a comfy bed in a rented beach house, and the dogs are sleeping on comfy couches in the rented beach house.