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Old 17-12-2024, 05:27   #1
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Advice needed

Good day, fellow sailors.

We have two kitties as part of our sailing family.
They get terribly seasick and some of the medications we have tried are either way too expensive or does not work, any advice or tips from the experienced sailors who have fur babies onboard.

I tried moving the one's bed to the one quarter berth, but she still vomits and poo's everywhere, we are really desperate
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Old 17-12-2024, 08:39   #2
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Re: Advice needed

Unfortunately, some animals [inclusive of a spouse] are prone to motion sickness be that travel aboard a vehicle, airplane or worst situation of all on a rolling, pitching, yawing vessel. They are happiest not traveling and miserable when they are systemically disrupted by not being firmly on stable ground.

Some pets [and people] are hypersensitive becoming ill and unstable just walking on a floating dock, or by being driven to a veterinarian's office or to a marina. In such instances, a calm "three-hour cruise" become a curse and there is very little one can realistically do about it except avoid such.

IMHO, continuous medication stupor is induced metabolic punishment. Whereas, an occasional, transient, use of mild medication to obtain stabilization is reasonable.

Recommend not taking a highly motion sickness prone pet [or person] aboard as it is unintendedly cruel. Put yourself in their paws would you desire to travel aboard a boat if the only way you could keep your food down or not have diarrhea is if one was medicated.

When sailing one heaves-to in order to provide calming to your vessel, and on occasions one calm's a stomach by heaving to.

Time spent praying to the white porcelain God in the boat's head does not make for a joyful voyage and quickly makes one to become a land-lover with further boating curtailed.

An animal that is vomiting and / or has diarrhea is seriously and hazardously medically distressed and such condition needs to be promptly resolved.

I once had a horse that was awesome but could not be trailered as he became unsure footed and ill within just a few blocks. We just opted to not transport him places even short distances instead we would take long rides starting directly from his pasture towards the mountains and not transport him by vehicle to a wilderness trail head to lead a packing adventure. We had the veterinarian come to treat him in his paddock instead of transporting our horse to the veterinarian clinic. That is to say, the doctor would make a barn call to avoid distressing the horse. One has to provide accommodations to an animal just as one has to make accommodations for a human.
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Old 17-12-2024, 16:24   #3
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Re: Advice needed

Quote:
One has to provide accommodations to an animal just as one has to make accommodations for a human.


Bearing the above in mind, how do the cats react to being in the car on the way to the boat? If they're okay, there's more hope. Does that make them have diarrhea and vomit? If they're not okay, honestly, I don't think you'll be able to help them.

Last hope: you need to rule out an adverse reaction to the medication given them as the cause of their symptoms. (Talk to the vet again, but before you do, Google the meds and see if the adverse reactions are noted for those particular ones. There are different types of anti emetic drugs and also anti diarrhea, and some tranquilizers. All have "side effects". So there might be something else to offer to your kitties.)

Are the kitties okay at the dock? and only become terrified if under motion? [From your first post, it is not clear when you administer the medication. The timing is important. It should be at least an hour before you leave the house, so that it has already been metabolized.] You've heard the expression, "scared the s--t out" of someone, it happens with other mammals, also. It happens when their world becomes suddenly terrifying. That cruelty, that terror of your pet or other loved one, that is what I'm sure you want to avoid. The vomit and pooh are distasteful to you, but you just clean them up, like you would for a human baby. But you wouldn't want to be the one to make the baby suffer.

By the way, if you adopt new kittens, if they start out on the boat, they often adapt quite well, and in some ways fare better than dogs in a marine environment. If your cats are mature, you could talk to a cat trainer about how to help them adjust. The techniques involve operant conditioning, and rewards.

Good luck with it.

Ann
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Old 18-12-2024, 13:49   #4
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Re: Advice needed

Donate the animals to some friendly people ashore.


A sailing boat is hardly a place for an animal used to live in a house.


Except that if the boat is not sailing, there is no problem.


So perhaps ship the animal overland between the places you sail to and from.


b.
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Old 18-12-2024, 14:21   #5
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Re: Advice needed

Ooh, I feel your pain. My first divorce, one of our cats had bonded with me like no other, so even tho it was seriously inconvenient for me to keep him, there was no choice. Poor guy was our wild and energetic barn cat, didn’t do well on my boat, and HATED sailing. Yes, pets DO get sea sick, and I never found a way / cubbyhole / anything to help him tolerate my/our new life.

Some years later, a couple showed up at my dock, they had bought a boat to cruise, and I met them when they arrived at my marina in their suburban, with their two big dogs and a cat. Their (project) boat was uninhabitable, so they stayed at a local non-pet-friendly hotel with the three animals in the back of their suburban. I convinced them to let me keep their cat on my boat until they could move aboard.

A few months later I came home, noticed my cockpit wasn't quite right … and hey, what is this blood all over the place ?!?!?!

Well, they had gone sailing, their cat HATED it, so when they got back to the dock the cat ran back to my boat to hide. The blood in my cockpit was from the owner trying to get his cat, and his cat attacked him badly.

There are MANY successful cruising kitties, but AFAIK, a dirt kitty can’t usually/easily be converted to a sailing kitty. I LOVE cats, and am so old I will likely never go cruising, if I wasn’t so done with the shedding and litter box duty I would give them a home for you. Some other cat lover out there will give them a home tho, keep trying.
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