Cats on Planes

Me.  and two cats.  only 7 hours in... and already exhausted!

28 July 2010

The day of the trip. 

I love cats.  They're great.  They are fun to play with and they're really cute when they sleep on your lap.  Traveling with cats, however, is a whole different ball game.  20+ hours in airports and on planes isn't fun anyway, but it was much less fun with two cats that REALLY didn't want to be anywhere except under a couch someplace.

Stage 1:  Trip to airport.  One cat is so upset it tears off a claw and starts bleeding.  Both cats howl uncontrollably.

Stage 2:  Austin to Chicago.  Both cats continue to howl, have frantic attacks of trying to claw out of the carriers every 5 minutes.  I have nervous breakdown and think about getting on a plane BACK to Austin from Chicago. 

Stage 3:  3 hour layover in Chicago.  After a 30 minute walk through the ENTIRE airport, cats calm down a bit for the first hour or so.  UNTIL we have to give them more sedatives.  Of course, in order to take your pet out of a carrier, you must leave the airport and then stand in line to go through security again.  OR you can cheat and find one of those family bathrooms... I chose option 2.  And of course, because things weren't difficult enough already, the family bathroom was ALL THE WAY BACK WHERE WE JUST CAME FROM!!!

Stage 4:  Chicago to Frankfurt.  Cats are exhausted from trip so far.  Me too.  We all cram into the tiny seats on the overseas flight and shove the cats under the seat.  We're in the very back of the plane.  I guess they didn't want the cats to bother EVERYBODY.  I felt bad for the people around us though.  BUT, things got better.  The cats slept for a while, which meant I could sleep too.  Good thing... trucking cats through and airport is tiring.

Stages 5-8:  Frankfurt layover, Frankfurt to Dresden, the car ride home.  We were all so tired from traveling at this point (it had been about 17 hours) that we were all half asleep.  The cats finally realized they weren't going to get out and were good on the plane.  Of course, upon arriving in  Dresden, we had no rental car (even though they were supposed to make a reservation for us) but after begging for an hour or so, we finally got in the car and drove home to our empty apartment where we all slept until dinner time.

NOT looking forward to doing it again on the way home.