Saturday, January 26, 2013

Calming down cats during a car ride

By Hobo Hudson

I love to take rides in the car. It’s one of my favorite pastimes, and Dad never has to worry about calming me down when I’m his passenger. Even if I end up at the vet’s office for my annual checkup, I’m not upset about the car ride because it’s only a once-a-year inconvenience.

For my kitty siblings, the situation is quite different. They only ride in the car when they have to see the vet who will poke them and stick them with a needle, and they never experience the luxury of riding in the car for fun. It’s no wonder that they get all shook-up and frightful sitting in their carrier inside the moving car.

I know how Blondie, one of my kitty sisters, hates those car rides to the vet because we both always go for our regular checkups at the same time. She meows and meows and even cries from the time we leave the house until we reach the vet’s office, and she repeats her calls of despair on the way back home. Dad said all her cat siblings act exactly in the same fashion while riding in the car.

The last time Dad took Blondie and me to the vet, he had a music disc running in his car, and I noticed that Blondie calmed down a tad listening to it. Wow, I thought, that’s great, but in my opinion, Dad’s choice of music didn’t really seem to appeal to cats. Then, it hits me. Why not play the sounds of birds singing while my cat siblings ride in the car. It would surely catch their attention and distract them from their worries and misery. I had Mom check on the Internet for music discs with nature sounds, and I selected the perfect one for my kitty siblings, and we received it in the mail several weeks ago.

Yesterday, Dad had the opportunity to test my idea on Pogo, another one of my cat sisters, who was due for her annual vet visit. It was a winner, and it turned out just as I thought it would. Dad told me that Pogo instantly calmed down inside the car hearing the birds singing, and listening to them during the ride, she didn’t say a word on the way to and from the vet’s office. 


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About Hobo


This was Hobo Hudson, my doggy brother, a little terrier mix with black fur. He became famous after his first attempt at writing stories, which was an article published in the newsletter of our local animal shelter, the same shelter in which I ended up years later before Hobo and his parents adopted me. Hobo’s fame quickly spread as he made a name for himself as a business dog and an adventurer. To keep his memory alive, my doggy sister, my three kitty siblings and I, Wylie Hudson, are continuing his blog. Our mom is the blog’s editor.

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