Linden almost rips her claws out trying to escape her cat cage just on the 10 min car journey from home to the vets. I also think she has Inspector Gadget arms - she seems capable of clawing the nearest person from an incredible distance away just by stretching an arm out through the gaps in the door of her cage (and she hooks in REALLY deep and then pulls)!

Any ideas on how to make things happier for her for the 20 min trip to airport, hour or so wait for plane ride, 2 hour plane ride, more wait at other end + 40 min or more car ride to the new place?

Not keen on sedating her, but am worried she will really injure herself.

for the car journeys & wait i would suggest trying her on a harness instead of in the carrier...keep her on your lap. sometimes they just don't want to be confined. obviously you'd need to try & get her used to the harness before the journey though.

will she be in the hold on the plane or in the cabin with you? if she's in the hold then obviously she has to stay in the carrier for that time...maybe a few drops of rescue remedy on the blanket in her carrier, & a strong catnip toy in there with her. maybe also a spray of feliway into the carrier too?

hope it all goes smoothly xx

unfortunately here you can't stay anywhere near the cats for the majority of the journey. It is also illegal to have them out of the cage in the car (as of about 3 months ago) =\

Even if I was driving them to the airport, I'd only be with them for the 15 min trip to get there. After that you need to drop them off quite some time before the flight (after which you are not allowed to be near them as they are taken into a secure area of the airport for loading into the hold). They do not allow you to take animals on board here.

I have feliway spray here - we got it for when she was peeing on the bed all the time during my pregnancy (something she still does if we're not careful!!), but it never helped with the pee. I might try it in her cage and take her for a drive later and see if it helps in that regard. Thanks for the suggestion =) Hope it works! =) I'll have to try to find some rescue remedy around here - never seen it!

oh poo! that's a pain about not letting them out in the car! ok it wouldn't have helped much for this journey, but may have done for any future long car rides or vet trips...silly law if they're being held tight on a harness! nevermind though...hopefully the feliway will help & if you can get some rescue remedy or valerian that could help too...& a strong catnip toy, yeowww or something similar.

i googled rescue remedy australia & found this
http://www.paylesschemists.com.au/produ ... medium=cpc

hi
have you tried your vet for a bit of advice?
sometimes some animals will not travel easily full stop!!
they might be able to prescribe you a relaxent drug that will take the edge off without knocking the cat out
something like Clomicalm could help with the correct prescibed dosage.
i bet they could hellp!

_________________
SALVAJE BENGALS
Wild looking but wildly loving

brilliant! purrs is very promising! i reckon a few more drives is a great idea too, get her more used to it & realise there's not a horrible vet visit at the end of every journey

Thanks for picking that up sue, I don't come on here that often at the moment while we're sorting internet access out or I'd have posted on this earlier!

Hugely recommend Zylkene (came highly recommended by our vets for the flight) although it sounds like Rescue Remedy does the trip for your girl! You don't have the "getting the pill down the neck issue" with it as you just sprinkle it on food, so if the Rescue Remedy doesn't carry on doing the job (although I really hope it does), I'd have that as a back up plan.

Very best of luck!

Can't comment about that particular drug, but I know they're ok for flying on Homeopet (went from Sydney to Brisbane on it) - I'm assuming they're ok on Zylkene to be honest as mine flew to Aus from the UK on Zylkene! I'm also assuming though that there's not too many issues with Endep as you've not had any posts about it.

The other thing we did which was recommended by the carrier was to let a pillow case/t-shirt get really smelly with your smell and put it in the carrier with them - gives them that familiar scent which helps keep them calm. Don't envy you on this one as I totally understand the stress of flying your baby, its horrid. Try not to stress too much as she'll pick up on your fears, but FWIW our boys were absolutely fine - we stressed more about it than they did by all accounts!