6/15 Junior AMPS 91 PMPS 109 & Travel Tips for Your Kitty

Good morning LL!

Hard to believe we were away for 3 weeks. Junior was a great little globe trotter, charming the TSA agents and flirting with the flight attendants. There was not a peep on the plane to and from OC and not a mew on the 7-hour drive up to and from San Francisco. Now that we're settled again, it's time to get more data points in to see if we can lower his dose! And of course today was a fur shot day. Buggers!

The reason why Junior flew out with us was that it was actually cheaper for us to fly him than to get a pet sitter to administer insulin shots. And who knew if the pet sitter would actually stick around for BG testing? If you have to bring your kitty on your travels, I thought I'd share some travel tips that gave us a peace of mind:

- Bring your diabetes kit as a carry on with a print out of the TSA rules. Current TSA rules is that you can bring anything diabetic with you, that bottle of karo syrup and all. I didn't want to pack it with my suitcase in case they lost it so I brought it as my carry on and printed the TSA page in case they questioned it. No one raised an eyebrow.
- Be prepared to live in the dark ages. I wasn't sure if I could, ahem, "borrow" my neighbor's wifi again so I printed the stickies from FDMB before I left. So glad I did b/c the only internet access I had was through my iPhone and even still, I couldn't get a strong signal. I also learned that Google doesn't let you edit through your iPhone so communicating with folks on the message board would've been slow and difficult. Scary if something went awry.
- Pack a hypo kit. Junior's BG dipped down to 31 the second day we were there.
- Print out a map to the nearest ER vet (and phone #) and be familiar on how to get there. You could rely on your smartphone but you also don't want to find out your phone is in a bad cell phone spot if you happen to get lost.
- Bring more syringes and strips than you need. We wound up having to extend our trip and I'm so glad I did.
- Try to plan your arrival around insulin shots. Whenever we'd go to my mom's house in the burbs, Junior would be too excited to eat or sit still. It would take him a few hours to calm down for us to do our thing.

Other general travel tips:
- This carrier worked well for us. Carrying him as a backpack saved our shoulders and freed our hands to carry other things. Like our luggage. At 14 pounds, Junior would've been more comfy in a large but the medium is the biggest size that airlines will allow.
- Check with your airline but for United, it used to be that your pet counted as one of your 2 carry ons. Rules have changed and you can currently bring 2 carry ons plus your kitty.
- Get to the airport early. Instead of being able to do the self check in, we had to stand in the special services line to pay the fee. The family ahead of us had a complicated itinerary and was s-l-o-w. When it was our turn, the United guy was a cat lover and wanted to see our cat, tell us about his cats, asked about ours....which was all great but we were 1/2 hour behind and still had to go through security and catch our plane.
- Going through security actually isn't as tough as you might think. Just wait until the last minute to take the cat out of the carrier because inevitably you will be waiting behind the guy who doesn't know that he's supposed to take his shoes off. Or the lady who didn't know you're supposed to take your laptop out. You think I'm making this up? My vet says ECID but generally they go back into the carrier easily because they like the security and that's certainly true for Junior.

Happy travels!

 

Re: 6/15 Junior AMPS 91 & Travel Tips for Your Kitty

Hi guys .. those are great travel tips .. and a wonderful start to the day for junior as well! Hope you guys have a great day!

 

Re: 6/15 Junior AMPS 91 & Travel Tips for Your Kitty

Glad you had a great time and Junior was the king of the air! Not bad numbers for your day back either. Maybe travelling agrees with him.

Those are great tips!

 

Re: 6/15 Junior AMPS 91 & Travel Tips for Your Kitty

glad to hear you had a good trip. i wasn't sure how long you planned to be gone and started wondering a few days ago if something had gone wrong - so i'm really glad to hear all is well!

thanks for all the info. i'm interested in that pack - that sounds cool.

 

Re: 6/15 Junior AMPS 91 & Travel Tips for Your Kitty

Aww, thanks for stopping by guys! Junior and I certainly missed our LL family. @Julie -- Nothing bad happened while we were there. The trip was all work and no play. Someone broke into our rental so it was alot of cleaning up, finding contractors, and coordinating installers. Luckily no one was hurt and nothing was stolen and Junior was locked in a room for 5 days so he couldn't step on any glass. He tried to dart past the door though, oh yes he did!

But it's good to be back and it's good to know that it's possible to fly with a diabetic kitty.

 

Re: 6/15 Junior AMPS 91 & Travel Tips for Your Kitty

GREAT TIPS!!

and a gorgeous amps for the junior traveler!