Cats in the truck, how many of you bring yours along?

We had an older tuxedo with a tumor who finished his last few months on the truck with my husband and I. He adapted far better than I expected, though I did have to train him with car rides and walks in the park.

The two we have now were adopted as kittens and grew up in the truck so there's no issues.

Cats are completely trainable, they're just different from dogs. Food motivation rarely works - you have to use attention/ignoring with cats and absolute consistency (same as certain dog breeds). Even when they're playing these two don't go near the driver footwell or past the notebook on the dash. Smells aren't an issue if you clean regularly - we use litter crystals to make it even easier. Trained cats are no more likely to jump out of the truck than trained dogs and they're less likely to "forget" training due to over excitement.

 

They make excellent repairs... Okay, cute repairs.

 

Sounds like you know cats.

I have a policy for all animals, including hedgehogs and minks/ferrets - they all have to be chipped and they all have to be restrained when the doors are open. They also have to have carriers for the animal unless they are proven trained, a bunch of the cats are better trained than the dogs.

Why?

I had a driver who didn't put her pet in the carrier when she was going to get loaded, it was a mink and scurried out the door at a shipper - five hours of searching and the thing was on the catwalk watching everyone looking for it, blended right in with the paint.

Right now I have a driver I don't know what to do about.

She took her truck in for servicing last week and left for the day to the casino. We got a call from the dealer who said they are not entering the truck with cats - plural - in it. On the truck sheet, she had listed one cat, named Fluffy, Calico, and the chip number. the shop manager said she was to remove the cats thinking she had just the one but when he took a picture of it and sent it to my safety girl, she counted 10 kittens on the dash and side window.

No one could contact her, safety girl left a dozen texts and 3 voicemails before contacting me. She didn't bring the company phone so I could not ping the phone which is alright. However, fortunately for me, or unfortunately, the truck wasn't too far away and when my wife heard about it, she got all upset and frantic (she loves cats) so she talked my kid to take her there but that wasn't going to happen. But instead, I was pressed into service again to "rescue" cats, mainly because I told the dealer not to touch the truck until someone got there. My two youngest and I went in my neighbor's van with my neighbor's daughter to extract the cats.

When we arrived, the kids counted 12 kittens and three cats including Fluffy.

When the driver got back that evening, the shop manager told her that all he had done was open the door and it was like "Moses parting the Red Sea, they all ran out and into the woods", After a minute or two, he told her to call me which the first thing I said to her was "where in the ****** did you get all these cats?"

The story is she saw them being dumped on the side of the road, stopped, and collected them before they were hit by cars. She said she got them all including the mothers. She said they were all litter-trained and behaved well in the truck.

So where did they all end up for now?

Here at my house and at the neighbor's house being "fostered" until the driver finds homes for them.

I am glad they get along with the cats I have, the only one that is pissed off is my oldest tabby, she is not happy giving up her bed to four kittens.

Oh and if anyone wants to know, the truck other than the usual hair from Fluffy, it is clean - not perfect but clean and it doesn't really smell, everyone used the litter boxes and she keeps those really clean.