As I walk out to the mailbox each day to get the mail it can sometimes be a mixture of anticipation and dread as I lower that mailbox door. Will this be a good day and I’ll get a card from Nana and my weekly packet of sales flyers, or will it be a bad day and I get a 2nd notice on a bill I forgot to pay and a postcard from my vet telling me my cat is due for vaccines? Why is it the idea of taking my cat to the vet brings me so much anxiety? I take my dogs for car rides all the time. I take them for walks on the canal, to the store with me, and even sometimes to get ice cream. (Yes I know that’s bad.) But the idea of trying to get my cat into a carrier, hearing the cries and meows of distress the entire car ride, then the stress of the visit and the inevitable repercussion of the whole ordeal when you get home. Because let’s be honest cats are vindictive little felines and there will be payback for interrupting their napping schedule.
So is it just me and my oh-so temperamental feline or do other people feel the same way I do? The answer is yes! A recent study showed that the majority of pet cats in this country do NOT receive the preventative care they need. And what is the number one reason you ask? It’s the horror of an experience that is getting our cats to the vet! It’s not that we don’t know that vaccines and preventative care are important and it’s not that we don’t love our cats. It’s that both cats and cat owner have been conditioned to respond negatively to the carrier. Yes I said the cats and pet owners.
For cats, the carrier is a prime example of classical condition or Pavlovian conditioning where an animal associates one stimulus or event (getting the carrier out of the closet for example) with another stimulus or event (a car ride that ends with getting poked with a needle). Since most cats only get in the carrier once or twice a year to go to the Veterinarian, when the carrier is brought out it is immediately associated with a stressful situation.
It’s the same for us cat owners. We wake up the morning of the vet visit stressed because we know how our cats are going to react when we get the carrier out. So why do we wait? We know they will get stressed, but we still wait until the morning of the appointment. We tell ourselves it’s because they will just hide if we get it out earlier and we at least have a chance if we wait. But what if we’re wrong? Why not get the carrier out days before the visit giving them time to acclimate to it being out? Why don’t we leave the carrier out all the time? Most hard cat carriers are easily dismantled and the top and door can be removed. Why not make the carrier into a cat bed placed somewhere they routinely sleep?
If we can incorporate the carrier into our cat’s day to day life then its very presence will no longer be a stress. In fact in becomes a haven. The stress of a car ride and a visit to the Vet becomes reduced because the whole time they are in a place they have come to feel safe. Now the carrier isn’t something to run from, but something to run to. Once the carrier becomes more familiar let’s takes our cats for car rides. We don’t have to go anywhere. A quick trip around the neighborhood that ends with treats at home can make the car far less scary too.
Just remember, this will not happen overnight. It can be tedious and a long road for both of you, but it can be done.