Pet (mainly cat) question for those that have a pet in their truck

Yeah cats detest change. Even just moving your furniture a bit can freak them out. Now imagine moving a cat from a nice quiet farm house to a tiny, noisy bumpy truck. A change like that might kill it.

 

18 year old cat, Screams in the car. Likes the truck. First trip for her was the move North. Second was when I snapped this pic.... Seattle to TX, to NC and a zig zag back.

Litter box was in the cabinet with the door propped open. Wife kept her out from under foot and the box scooped every day.

 

It's just stupid how cute that is.

 

You asked for it! Here are some cat pictures.

 

Our cats (One at a time) demonstrated good truck behaviors with one cat being a exception. We had a T2000 with that button on the drivers door for the window. Once the cat in the lap for 200 miles found that button makes window come down at 70+ it became a real problem. We took the button out and pulled the fuse for that window.

Otherwise it will sun itself on the dash all day. It absolutely loved it. Not to mention covering itself on the heater when trying to get that winter ice off that glass. HA.... So we stuck a medical heating pad under it's blanket in the bunk off the intverter on low and once it learned how NICE that was there it went. whew.

Take it home? Forget it. Peace and quiet with nothing moving was so boring and mentally too much for it.

Now when we go into the mountains and get to work with horsies and jacobs braking and so on, it's going to be in the spouse's lap or mine in the bunk when the truck is working hard. Ears are up and it follows everything like radar. As long it's sitting pretty and not cowering under it's very special hidey hole below the bunk itself in the far dark corner everything is fine. It was literally my ears. Air leaks was a particular issue with me but not for that cat. It would be all over it ears forward staring at the dot in the sleeper wall towards the source of the air leak on trailer glad hands, airride on tractor or wherever. Otherwise its normal behavior for a cat. All mellowed out on that dash in the sun and particularly on top of the windshield fan heater if you let it.

Litter box was covered, required a charcoal filter against fumes. Food was standard meow mix and lots of fluids. It learned that there is a ocean of water to have and we will make it available when it sunk a claw into a leg and showed big eyes. Either water or feed me.

Things became a little different around the truck out west because the cat could be prey to any number of raptor birds, snakes etc. So we carefully kept it in the truck.

In the end, its better to have a house cat and not be trucking at all. Some cats became mentally unable to handle one or the other.

 

Every cat is different. They're not like dogs which have breed traits and trend toward certain behaviors.

If you have a cat the only way to find out is to try. If you want to get a cat then adopt a young cat or even a kitten from a shelter.

If the cat grew up with calm house, 8hours of alone time while you were at work, and is aloof like many you're gonna have a bad time converting kitty.

 

All of our cats without exception cried in our personal car. That means one thing VET.

One in particular marked to be put to sleep knew. But did not understand the situation that was in store in it's future. Because of that one it will be a while before we have another cat. It's been about 6 years now.

I don't always have the words to explain, but they KNOW when something is up that involves THEM.