Getting your cat used to the carrying bag: the four-step method

A cat struggling when going to the veterinarian is not afraid of the journey: he is afraid of the object that we only come out at that time. The difference between a quiet start and ten minutes of wrestling is played out in the previous weeks, at home, when nothing special happens. The following method takes little time, but a bit of regularity.

Why your cat is suspicious of the bag

The cat learns by association. If the bag only comes out of the closet on days of vaccine or moving, it becomes the reliable signal of an unpleasant moment, and it is enough to hear the zipper for the cat to leave the room. Conversely, a container permanently present in the living room loses all exceptional character: it is no longer a trap, it is a piece of furniture more. All the stakes lie in this tipping, and he does not stop the morning of the appointment.

Step 1: Leave the bag open in a living room

Take out the bag and leave it open in the room where your cat spends his days, not in a hallway or in a storage room. Remove the door or fold the closure if the model allows it, slip a blanket inside that already bears its smell, and don’t talk about it anymore. Some cats come in the same day, others take a week to approach: the two are normal. Going to get him to drop it off, at this stage, cancels the profit from the step.

Step 2: Move the right things there

When it no longer bypasses the bag, place a treat at the entrance, then at the bottom a few days later. The bowl can follow the same path: first next to it, then on the threshold, then inside. The objective is not to attract it once, but to make this place a place where something is regularly happening. A cat who comes to sleep there on his own has crossed the longest part of the work.

Step 3: Close, then lift, a few seconds

Once he installs himself there, close two or three seconds and reopen before he asks to go out. The next day, a little longer. Then lift the bag a few centimeters, put it back, open it. This step is most often sloppy, whereas it is she who decides if the next journey will be experienced as a constraint or as a panic.

The model counts here more than we think: a stable, firm-bottomed bag, which does not deform when it is lifted, prevents the cat from the feeling of a ground that slips away. This is the first criterion to look at when Choosing the right cat carrier bag, before the format or aesthetic. Ventilation on several sides and an opening wide enough to deposit it without having to push it complete the essentials.

Step 4: A short first trip without destination

The first real trip should not be the appointment with the veterinarian. Go around the block, or ten minutes by car, then come in and open the bag in the living room. Nothing happened: this is precisely the message. Two or three repetitions of this type before the actual journey radically change the behavior on arrival.

Mistakes that make everything start over

• Store the bag between two outlets: the association starts from scratch each time.
• Install the chat by force on the day of the appointment, to save time.
• Lay the bag at the height of the dog from the house during the learning period.
• Wear it by swinging it: the cat constantly compensates and arrives tense.
• Open the bag in the waiting room, where smells and dogs do the rest.

There remains an often neglected point: in the car, the bag is strapped or wedged on the ground behind a seat, never placed freely on the bench. A little bit of braking is enough to erase several weeks of habituation, and the cat will remember the next journey.