CARAVAN KITTIES
Katy Butler is so passionate about caravanning with cats that she started a Facebook page to share the adventures of her family travelling with their two moggies.
The Wobble Boxers captures the family’s jaunts with Mouflon, a dashing black shorthaired moggy with a little white milk moustache, and pretty tortoiseshell Pebbles, in their Bailey Pegasus Grande SE.
Katy said that both cats enjoyed travelling and settled down once they realised they weren’t on their way to the vet’s:
“I’d highly recommend taking your cats away; once they are used to it, they’ll be as settled as at home and, after all, they are part of the family and I could never put them in a cattery.”
When it’s not lockdown, the cats are caravanning twice a month at weekends with another five or six weeks holiday on top of that.
“Our cats go everywhere with us, from the French Alps to the Arctic Circle and everywhere in-between,” said Katy, from Northamptonshire. “So far, the longest we’ve been away for in one trip is four weeks when we travelled to the Arctic Circle. There were some long days driving so we’d always stop for an hour at lunchtime to give them a really good break and stretch, but to be fair, they usually just found a sunny spot in the caravan and fell asleep again!”
At one point, in Finnish Lapland, the cats could hear and see sledding huskies from the
caravan, but they barely raised an eyebrow and continued their naps.
The caravan is a home from home for the cats with a small scratching post, toy mice, a litter box, a well-stocked supply of their favourite cat food, and their food dishes.
“The caravan is lovely for the cats — they find the sunniest spot to sunbathe,” Katy said.
“When it’s really hot, we close all the blinds, open the roof vents to let air in, and we’re able to check the inside temperature of the caravan using an app on our phones.”
The cats explore their new locations while on harnesses, which they use at home too.
Katy, who travels with her husband James and four-year-old daughter Joules, said that there were more caravanning cats than you might at first think:
“I started the Facebook page to show our travels, but it’s become quite a community as there are an awful lot of a caravanning/ motorhoming/campervan cats around the world and it’s especially popular in Australia.
“We’re now also on Twitter and Instagram, sharing our love of caravanning with cats.”