TGIF - Tail Goes In First

Periodically, the Hermosa Animal Hospital (our vets for 30 years) sends out a newsletter with pet tips, service discount coupons and seasonal warnings (Keep your cats away from the poinsettas - they're poisonous.)

This month's edition stresses Mastering The Cat Carrier.  Cats hate being put in the cat carrier.  It means only one thing:  a visit to the vet.  The routine cat exam includes a thermometer (but not in the ear) among other intrusive things.  

Dogs are easy -- "Wanna go out?" and the dog goes nuts!  "Oh, wow!  An adventure!  Maybe the dog park, huh? huh?"  But cats, delicate, sheltered, dozing in the sunlight, have set routines and if these routines are disturbed in any what whatsoever, you then have a angry, stressed-out cat.  So any cat carrier adice is a good thing.

1.  Put the carrier on end so the door is facing the ceiling.  Put paper towels or an old towel in the bottom so if the cat in its terror wets the cage, it will be absorbed.   

2.  Take the cat from your henchman, who has captured it, by supporting it uder the front legs and the rear end.  You may want to have covered the lower hand in the towel.

3.  Insert the cat so that when you let go, the carrier is the only place the cat can go.  TGIF - Tail Goes In First.

4.  Slam the door and lock it.

5.  Slowly, slowly lower the carrier to its proper position on the floor.  Coo at the cat which will do no good whatsoever at soothing the hissing, spitting ball of fur that is now Fifi, but it will make you feel better.  

The writer of this article also wrote that a pillowcase is a safe alternative to a cat carrier.  Insert the cat as if the pillowcase was a carrier, knot the top and carry the cat in your arms.  The cat can breathe just fine and it may calm it (a little) to be in your arms.  A pillowcase is also usually easier to find than the cat carrier so in an emergency go for it first. 

Hermosa Animal Hospital, 560 Pacific Coast Highway, Hermosa Beach 90254  310-376-8819