How to Move Five Cats

There comes a time in every person's life when he or she must change residences. This is always a simpler proposition when one has no pets. Probably simpler when one has no children (and no children on the way). But what fun would that be?

Brian and I have five, count them, five cats. This squeaks by at the St. Louis County limit of legal (though we had to shun one favored municipality, Kirkwood, when looking for a new home; it has a "nuisance law" stating a household can contain only three cats. Pbhllllt!).

At the end of Saturday when our belongings had been transported from house A to house B (about 20 miles apart), Brian and I set off across the prairie (er, Interstate) to retrieve the herd.

We've talked about them in bits and pieces. There's John Galt, the oldest (yes, do follow the link), Tristan, Dominique the Conqueror (Niqi for short - refused to be photographed), Ajax (Ajax Rex according to Brian), and Aurora (Aurora McNaughty).

If you followed the link on Galt, you noted that he has a penchant for losing lots of bodily fluids and solids when put in a car. My vet gave me some kitty drugs in conservative half-pill doses, so we pill gunned Galt and Ajax (who is also fairly high strung) and set off on trip #1 with Dominique, Aurora, and Tristan in my car.

This was uneventful except for the part of herding the cats. Cats aren't stupid. They see carriers; they run. Earlier in the day we had penned them in one room - also not an easy task. But, once corralled and defeated, they were left with only their pathetic "mournful meow chorus," which they performed all the way to the new house. In key. Yes, that's the derivation of the word "caterwauling."

When we returned for trip 2, the medicine had sedated the tabbies indeed. Galt, who weighs more seemed a bit tired. Ajax was totally zonked - "aced" as the vet called it, after the drug. Trip 2 was completely uneventful due to the meds. Not even a chorus, really, for those two; maybe a Bob Dylan song.

All in all, not so bad. Niqi hid under the bed for a couple of days, but everyone else was curious and exploring their new space.

So, the answer of how to move five cats? I must say that it's drugs.

hln

Posted by hln at April 6, 2006 11:17 AM | Anecdote | TrackBack