I enjoy traveling. I love visiting friends, traveling for work, or going somewhere I’ve never been before. In fact, I find that an occasional change of scenery is vital for my mental health. The only hard part about traveling is, of course, having to leave Allegra and Ruby for a few days. A dear friend takes care of the girls while I’m gone, and they couldn’t be in better hands, so that helps a lot. She texts me updates and photos after each visit, and the girls are always super relaxed when I get home.
Last weekend, after three months of no travel, which is rather unusual for me, I was invited to spend the weekend at a friend’s beautiful weekend house. I was more than ready for a change of scenery, and I also needed to unplug. There is cell phone reception at the house, but no Wifi. And except for checking for texts from my friend, letting me know how the girls are doing, I (almost) completely unplugged (my apologies to anyone whose comments or emails were not answered until Monday morning.)
The hardest part about leaving is always seeing their sad faces at the top of the stairs when I get ready to leave!
But knowing that the girls in my friend’s care brings me such peace of mind, by the time I got in the car, my thoughts turned to the wonderful weekend I was about to have.
And apparently, the girls were not just being very good with my friend, they also tried to be extra helpful. On Saturday morning, she texted me the photo below.
Sure looks to me like the girls were trying to scoop their own litter box to help my friend out – and if it wasn’t for the lack of opposable thumbs, they just might have succeeded.
I’m not entirely sure how they managed to drag these waste bags out of the little basket under the sink. They’ve certainly never done it before. Allegra knows how to open the cabinets, so I suspect she was the ring leader. I can just picture Ruby sitting in the entrance way to the kitchen, cheering her on.
The girls are not talking.
i dont know if traveling when you have cats is different when you have dogs. i think cats are more independent. my dogs even get upset when i leave for a few hours. they welcome me with hugs, kisses and jumping in my lap. my youngest starts crying when i am holding her, as if to say i thought you were leaving me. i dont travel unless i can take my 2 gals. it would hurt me just as much as them. i have gotten sitters when i had to go out of town for a day and when i got back, they were waiting at the door, they know the sound of my car. they were good with the sitter. i know when i was in the hospital for almost a week, i had a sitter stay at the house, they were not very receptive to her, would not sleep with her, like they do with me. my youngest is my shadow, she follows me everywhere i go in the house.
Girls you are smarter than some humans! Allegra, you are the culprit caught in this trap, and Ruby you should have ran away and hid your eyes, instead of cheering your sister on. Even thought both of you are smart and investigative, both of you, adoring Purr Babies are also sweet and amusing. I love you both, but try to behave.
Love this, Ingrid! It describes that push-me-pull-you thing that hearts do whenever we go on vacation and have to leave our cats behind. And full marks for Allegra and Ruby for proving that Power to the Paw is more than just a catchphrase!
Cabinets – child safety locks can help!
In my previous house, one cat who used to hide as soon as she heard someone outside was missing for about 45 min (she generally would reappear within 5 min after the person left, and in this instance the person did not even come into the house!) Searching off and on while preparing for work, I finally found her in a kitchen drawer – she got into the cabinet, managed to move over all the plastic containers without disturbing anything, so I was not aware she managed to get in there until I decided to check the drawers!
I had my son install those child safety locks – during the first install, he looked up at me and said funny that I never needed them when they were little! I didn’t keep anything harmful in the cabinets, so it was not an issue with kids. Still nothing bad in there, but who needs to worry about a missing cat!!!
Having my brother stay here for a few weeks cured her of her hiding when others show up. She can still open cabinets here, but hasn’t for a while, so no locks yet.
While I still get some of those looks when I have to run errands that might take a while, I don’t travel and have no desire to or funds to do that, so no need for “sitters”. Would be difficult anyway, since everyone eats something different right now (discontinuation of canned food we were using and difficulty getting the raw, no longer sold in stores and was out of stock when ordered through my contact!) – I am working again on getting them to eat food I can make (catinfo.org recipe), eliminating those issues and ensuring they don’t get the crap too many commercial foods are adding, even those expensive “premium” brands!
That’s sweet they are little helpers. I haven’t traveled in so long, I don’t really remember how mine acted. None of the cats I have now were around when we used to take vacations. I think they would freak out.
LOL Love this story! It’s always wonderful if one has a true, great friend who will take the best care of your furbabies. At this time, I do not have that treasured luxury, and wouldn’t just leave my furbabies wit (cat or dog), with
When our family put our suitcases out to pack, our cats always crawled in. We always said they wanted to come along with us. 🙂
Now I do cat sitting for others. 🙂