transferred from my travel writing blog, 55 mph
5-31-2014, originally
Murphy exploring the alley in Washington
My cat Murphy comes and butts her face at me as I write at the computer. She is demanding I feed her once again. I feed her a lot now because under her long fur she is angular and bony . Sometimes she throws up what I gave her, or a thin clear liquid.
I get up and stir the food in her bowl. Stirring brings the gravy to the top, and often that is enough to get her to eat again. Sometimes I open a fresh can. Every few days she takes medicine, and then she eats a lot. She and I have this conversation about food five or six times a day. She has kidney disease, and if I don't get her to eat, she will waste away.
Her name is Murphy. I think she is fifteen. She came to me off the street, but one time I was told her age by the friends in whose house she was born (she left because kittens grew up aggressive and chased her away). She might be older.
When I go on my summer expeditions with my hound dog Rex, I have been leaving Murphy home with house sitters, but this year she is coming along. I can't ask a sitter to interact with her as intensively as I have this spring. And the water at our house has turned so salty that no house sitter would be happy staying here.
I'm glad I'm taking her. I've wanted to every year (and she has wanted to go, jumping up in the van and yowling), but I was afraid it wouldn't be workable. Last summer, however, I had my eyes opened. I camped with my daughter in Colorado, and she brought her cats along, Lelu to be fitted with a prosthesis by a vet there, and Mika so she wouldn't be left home alone. I camped in my Toyota van, and they stayed in the VW bus. I was surprised how good a home the VW turned out to be for them.
I had some questions to answer before I made the decision. Would Murphy handle the drive okay? Could we travel without losing her?
Murphy is an indoor-outdoor cat. At home when I walk Rex, Murphy often comes along, and she will follow us along the shore, even a mile. She hunts, and I'm almost certain she has interacted with the skunks, possums, raccoons, and armadillos that live here. I wasn't worried that she would be frightened and run away if she were suddenly out of doors. But how would she behave in unfamiliar territory? And would she put up with not getting to leave the bus some days?
I went forward cautiously. I drove Rex and Murphy to a different spot on the shore, outside Murphy's territory, and I let them loose. Rex did his usual running around, and Murphy began to explore the plants that have grown up on the exposed lakebed. She didn't streak off, but I did have to walk fast a couple of times to keep up with her. When it was time to go back I wondered if I would have to corral her and carry her, but, no, she followed, and when I opened the van, she hopped up into it. So, we could be out of doors, as long as there was good visibility.
Then I took Murphy along with us as we visited my daughter in Oklahoma. It's a seven-hour drive. The carrier was in, and a cat box. I let her roam free, and after about two minutes of complaint, she found a place to settle. She came to my knee a couple of times to ask about it all. Once she got up in my lap and purred. The return trip went well, and a second trip, too, so that answered one question. She could handle the drive . She didn't throw up, but she didn't eat while we were on the road, so I may have to spend a multiple days at campsites more often this year. On trip two, she ate in the evening after we arrived.
I boarded Murphy at a vet in Oklahoma the first trip, but on the second we stayed in my daughter's driveway in the VW bus (plugged into the garage for AC, and one night, heat). Rex and Murphy could co-exist in a small space, I found, though it was best to raise the poptop and feed her on the surface up there, particularly if I were going to leave the bus. More than once I stepped out only to come back to Rex gobbling Murphy's food.
My daughter and I spent spent a lot of time in the fenced backyard with the two of them. Once Murphy had thoroughly explored the yard, she wanted to get out of it. She could slip through the sagging gate or climb the mesh of the fence, or slip under. I had to give her my attention or off she'd go. I soon saw, however, that she didn't travel far, just into the shadow under the bus, or strolling toward the sidewalk. It was easy to get her back.
I looked up once from weeding, though, and she was nowhere in sight. I crouched to look under the bus, but she wasn't there I climbed the street, calling for her. “Murphy! Murphy!”
What was I doing thinking I could take a cat on the road? I reproached myself.
My daughter's house abuts a creek overgrown with bushes and trees. I followed the path along it, but no Murphy. I crossed the bridge and asked the workmen at the bed and breakfast. They hadn't seen her.
Finally, I put Rex on his lead. “Find Murphy,” I urged him as we hurried along. We looked in the bushes in the empty lot across the creek, then crossed to the bed and breakfast. “Find Murphy!” I said again. Out she strolled, from a bush at the edge of the bridge. She had gone a house away.
Murphy got a lot of practice being cooped up in the bus. She sometimes tried to get out, but all I had to do was put my hand in her way. Her desire to go and explore may build up on the trip, though, so I've looked into harnesses. That is the one part of our preparation that has not gone well. I bought a harness for her, but I can't get it over her head. I'm not sure she would tolerate it anyway, as she rears back when I try to slip it past her ears. I may get another type, shaped like an X that reaches up from under her belly and velcros closed. I need to get in gear if I am going to do that, though, because I haven't found any in the stores, just online, and it may have to be made on order. If we don't get a harness, however, I think we will be okay.
If I lose Murphy on this trip, I will regret it bitterly. I do have another choice, to stay home this summer (and probably the next, given the slow progress of her illness). But I am looking into it carefully and taking precautions. And there's this: last night as I was setting laundry in the bus to take in to the laundromat (the salty water here bleaches out my tee shirts), Murphy hurried out of the dark and jumped up in the bus. Are you packing to leave? her mowr seemed to ask. You had better take me too!
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