If you talked with us recently, uou know how anxious we are about transporting the cats to Denmark, and that goes double for our boys.
Now, the boys (Zorro and Sabre) are, though I love them dearly, idiots. Rudy and I were both concerned that they would panic at the airport and run away, or chew at the carriers, meow the whole way, or some other wholly stupid way to make our and/or their lives miserable.
They were practically angelic. With one minor exception, they were fantastic.
Our flight out of SFO was around 1 pm, so we started early. Around 6:30 am we dosed them both with anti-anxiety medication and got them into carriers without a fuss, which was our first big win. We knew from previous vet visits that they remain calm if they’re hidden so we drapped small blankets over the carriers so they can’t see out.
The whole two-hour drive to SFO? Not one peep. Checking our baggage and taking (no joke) 40 minutes for the counter person to figure out how to properly charge our overweight bags? Still not a sound.
Finally we were ready for the part of the trip we were most worried: going through the security checkpoint. We knew we’d have to remove them from the carriers so that the carriers themselves could go through the baggage scanner. The TSA folks at SFO are prepared: before we could even ask for a private screening they were taking us to a private room, where we could take the cats out and wait while they screened the carrier. This was also the only minor problem: Zorro panicked and tried to run (the room was closed regardless), but Rudy was able to wrap him up again and get him back into the carrier without any further issue.
Waiting to board and the flight itself were blissfully uneventful. We took the early boarding option to get them settled under the seats in front of us, but they were still quiet. We had to re-up their anti-anxiety meds mid-flight (the meds only last 12 hours) and Zorro was actually asleep. I’d also like to mention that the flight attendant in our section was fantastic–she made sure we were settled in with the cats and kept checking with us the whole flight.
Landing and going through customs at Amsterdam was smooth. We had completed our import paperwork so that we could bring the cats with us into Denmark, and it never even got checked! We even asked the customs guys and they just waved us through, so we went. The remainder of the trip was uneventfull–they remained quiet and docile all the way through the connecting flight to Aalborg and the drive to our new place.
They’ve been adapting slowly (I’ll have a home tour up soon-ish) to our new place. We’ve been keeping them in a small room so they can stake it as their territory before letting them exploire the rest of the place. So far it’s been working and they’ve been fairly confident, happy kitties.
Rudy returned on Monday to collect our third cat Choco. She’ll be making the trip one more time, and I can only hope that her trip with Choco goes as smoothly.
