OT Pets aboard? Cats, in particular...

[skipgundlach]

As those reading our logs already know (links below for the lists where this note is going but to which I've not been putting up my logs), we've acquired a guest.

Lydia's original thought (well, excuse, anyway, which allowed her aboard) had been that the kitten, now named Portia, would go to my brother. However, he's sworn off cats for now, having had them for the last 40 or so years but wishing to be petless for a while.

Of course, she's worming her way into our lives, and all the resolve that Lydia had previously about why pets aboard wouldn't make sense for us is turning to mush.

Practical concerns have to do with our leaving the boat, as well as entry/departure from various foreign countries, assuming we ever do something different than cruise the US (we had expected to start in the Bahamas and work our way south, spending, essentially, the rest of our lives in the Eastern Caribbean).

These are the concerns we see:

Leaving the boat, whether for a day trip, or for an extended period, even with cats being pretty self-reliant, would be a problem in that we'd have to close up the boat, which, in hot climates, could be deadly over time, inside heat building as it would.

Additionally, if we were to try to do side trips, we'd have to provide, somehow, for her care, if no more than someone to come check on her and replenish the water and food.

She's young enough that she might become acclimated to the motion of the boat, but our seeing various pets on other boats, in their misery, convinced Lydia that having a pet aboard would be selfish at best.

We assume she can be toilet trained, as many cats are, very successfully, but there's the accumulated stuff which must be aboard for her care to consider, and, if we can deal with the being-gone bits such that we can, indeed, leave the boat, we'll have to figure out a litter arrangement.

So, please, responses from those who have successfully dealt with the above, and, as well, if there are other issues which we've overlooked or about which we are ignorant.

Thanks...

L8R

Skip and Lydia

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at Web-Folio -- Your Portfolio on the Web !
Follow us at Flying Pig Log | Google Groups and/or
TheFlyingPigLog : Morgan 461 Hull #2, Flying Pig

"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

[Sandero]

Skip,

I picked up a pair of kittens in St Marten. They grew up on the hook and eyed the dock with envy but didn't dare jump. I think they were a bit scared too.

They learned to do their biz on a grid of monofilment over a plastic tub to get away from kitty litter and so forth. Great

The learned about flying fish when we went off shore but freaked me out when they would go forward for fish.

When we got a slip in CT they decided they were old enough to explore the neighborhood and entered a few yachts through small ports and such and I had to wait for them to decide to return home.

Their wanderlust never ended and I had to get them a home ashore where they lived happily ever after and were taken from tall trees by the local fire department I am told on several occassions.

Recommendations:

Get them as kitties and never let the boat spend and time on a dock. Otherwise... forget it.

jef
sv shiva