Going to Seattle

[cos]

I'm transferring to a team at Google Seattle, much to my surprise (well, to the surprise of me a month ago or anytime in the past few decades, more accurately). Planning to move there, along with Alice, around early February, but keeping the house in Cambridge with intent to return in a few years...

Oh, we also have to figure out how to move a cat.

Comments

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

We flew with two cats PETC BOS-SEA. At least in 2013, you had to take the cat out of the carrier to go through security. (Carrier must go through x-ray without the cat in it.)

If your cat is freaked out by the travel experience, you can request a private screening room. I'm not sure exactly how it works since we were told about this option by a TSA agent on the *far* side of security, but I imagine this would look something like:

1. Take cat out of carrier in enclosed, relatively quiet room.
2. One of you takes carrier through x-ray.
3. **Maybe** the person from #2 can now take the carrier back to the room, put the cat back in inside the room, and take cat+carrier through the metal detector (now that the carrier has been x-rayed)??? Not sure.

Contrast with our experience:
0. Get in security line. Be told by TSA agent that you'll need to departure cats. Swear. Look around at your two cats and baby and shitton of crap that you're traveling with. Rub back that's sore from carrying previous plus being rear-ended on the way to the airport. Ask TSA agent if there's a way to make this easier. Sigh resignedly when he says no.
1. Open carrier in middle of noisy, crowded, hectic security line.
2. Grab onto super stressed ball of fur and hold on for dear life because if the cat escapes in the airport you're missing your flight trying to get it back and probably never seeing the cat again anyway.
3. Try not to scream in ways that will alarm the TSA as the cat scratches you and you bleed all over.
4. Try not to step in the poop the cat has shat on the floor from stress.
5. Go through magnetometer.
6. Try to get the ball of stress and claws back into the carrier in the middle of the hectic et al security line.
7. Bleed more.
8. Since your travel partner is managing INFT and thus is not capable of doing 1-7, go back to start of security line where she and the INFT and the other PETC are waiting and repeat with second cat.
9. Encounter a nice TSA agent who helps you with #6 and cleaning up various human and feline fluids. Be asked by her why on earth you didn't just request a private screening room.
10. Curse the TSA agent from #0 who assured you that there was no way to make this easier, along with his descendants unto the tenth generation.
11. Buy a new shirt for travel companion who has suffered the wrath of a leaky INFT diaper sometime during #0-10.

[cos]

Ugh. *wince*

Fortunately we'd only have one SSR, not three! :)

Did you have Pre-Check when you did this? Security lines have gotten significantly less hectic for me since I signed up for that a few years ago. With all the other people getting to keep their shoes and belts on and not having to take laptops and bags of liquids out, everyone is calmer and more relaxed around us, not just us.

Nonetheless, we are certainly looking for a carrier that is very easy to get a cat in and out of, having been warned about this exact issue. We've also talked to the vet about the options for calming a cat down with substances. Apparently there's a hormone you can spray on things that makes a cat feel more comfortable, among other things. Did you try any meds or substances on your cats? Which ones, and how did they work out?

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

I think this was pre-precheck. At least pre-us-having-it. (We enrolled in NEXUS after we moved here; highly recommended, by the way, it means we always get precheck plus expedited entry into Canada and the US.)

We did get the cats Thundershirts, which I think helped. We didn't try any hormones or medications.

[(Anonymous)]

I know that some airlines had a limit to the total number of cats that could be on a flight, maybe one, maybe two. So make your cat-reservations early, before your flight's cat-spaces fill up.