A Complete Guide to Getting Your Cat Into Its Carrier
Getting cats into their carrier for any reason is possibly one of the hardest parts of being a cat owner. Whether it be to take them to the vet or to take them on a trip, cats hate their carriers for unknown reasons. Fortunately, you can use a few tricks to make the process easier for both of you.
The primary thing to do when getting your cat into its carrier is to be quick but calm. Trying to force the cat into their carrier will only make them resist harder. Being quick but calm will make the process fast for the cat and less painful for you.
Fortunately, there are a few methods that you can use to make the process of getting your cat into their carrier easier for you and your cat. From choosing the right carrier to making your cat comfortable in it, every step outlined in the following article can make getting your cat into their carrier easier.
Get Your Cat Comfortable With The Carrier
Making your cat comfortable and familiar with the carrier will help decrease their anxiety when they come near it. It will also make it easier for you to get them in their carrier without having to be too forceful.
A few ways to get your cat comfortable with the character include:
- Making it a part of your home
- Getting them to spend time in the carrier
- Making the carrier extra comfy for them
- Associating positive things with the carrier
Integrating Your Carrier into Your Home
Rather than keeping their carrier stored away in the garage or in a cupboard and only bringing it out for traveling or vet visits, leave the carrier out in the open. It’s recommended that you put it in an area where the cat often resides. Whether that’s near their favorite spot on the couch or next to a favorite play spot, the more they come into contact with the carrier, the less anxious they’ll feel about it.
When the carrier becomes an integral part of the cat’s environment, they won’t fear it when it comes time to use it. The cat will see it as a familiar thing they can feel safe around rather than something new and frightening that should be fought against.
Getting them familiar with being around the carrier is a good start, but they will be in it while traveling rather than just around it. The more time the cat spends in their carrier when they’re not traveling, the more comfortable they will be in it when traveling.
Getting Your Cat To Spend Time In Their Carrier
To get your cat to spend more time in their carrier, firsts remove the front door and the top of the carrier. Place something soft and warm in the bottom, like a towel, and some of their favorite treats or food in a little bowl. Encourage the cat to take naps or eat their food in there. Once they are going into their crate voluntarily, reattach the top of the carrier to the bottom.
Leave the door open whenever the carrier is out and keep it stocked with the cat’s favorite things. This will encourage them to visit the carrier often on their own accord. Once they’re settled, close the door for a little while, and reopen it again. Increase the amount of time the door stays closed with each carrier visit. After each visit, give your cat a treat and some pets to reinforce their positive feelings about the carrier.
Making Their Carrier a Comfy Place
There are a few ways you can make them enjoy being in the carrier. First, take a soft piece of clothing or a comfy towel and place it on their carrier. It’s recommended that the piece of cloth have the ascent of something familiar and comforting to the cat. This can include the scent of their favorite person or their favorite treat. Familiar scents help to calm the cat and make them feel at home and secure.
If familiar scents isn’t enough, then their favorite toys and food will make them happier in their cat carrier. For example, feeding them near their carrier can help them to get familiar with it. Likewise, playing with them around their carrier helps them get more comfortable with it. The positive association of the carrier and play/food time will make getting them in there much easier.
The last thing you can do to make the cat carrier more comfortable and less stressful for your cat is to get a visual shield. A visual shield is something that blocks the cat from seeing outside the carrier. It’s recommended that it be a thick towel or blanket over the carrier, to allow for ventilation and sunshine to be still let in.
Using a visual shield can help with easing motion induced anxiety in your cat. If your cat is constantly seeing new and strange things going past them, it can cause them to get anxious and go into fight or flight. But the visual shield blocks out anything that might disturb them, and they’re more likely to remain calm while on the journey.
Getting Your Cat into The Carrier
Now comes the hardest part. No matter how comfortable your cat is with their carrier, they’re bound to show some resistance being placed in there against their will. Fortunately, there are a few extra steps you can take to get your cat in their carrier more easily. These steps include:
- Getting the carrier ready
- Being gentle but quick
- Practicing a few times
- Training your cat to go in on their own
How to Get the Carrier Ready
Getting the carrier ready is a simple but necessary step to making the journey easier for you and your cat. Make sure it’s thoroughly washed and dried at least two weeks before you leave for a long trip and at least two days before a vet visit. Make sure it has a clean and soft blanket or towel in it, along with food and water.
Adding some toys and treats will also make the cats more enticed by the carrier. If they need a little extra help, placing a small amount of catnip within the carrier is a great idea to get them in there.
Getting Your Cat into Their Carrier
To get the cat into their carrier, first, place the carrier on a table or the floor with the door facing towards the ceiling. Leave the door open and make sure the carrier won’t fall over.
Next, place a towel over your cat and wrap it around them gently. Pick them up with the towel wrapped around them tight enough so that their limbs, and more importantly claws, can’t get out. But don’t do it so tight that it suffocates them.
Gently but quickly lower your cat into the carrier with the towel still wrapped around them. Once they are safely inside, quickly shut the door and lock it tight. Give your cat a treat or two for doing a good job and to calm them down a bit.
Training Your Cat to Get into Their Carrier
If your cat just won’t comply and is resisting you especially hard, then training them to go into their carrier on their own is a good idea. It will get them into the carrier while also making it easier for you to get them in there without going through a wrestling match.
A few things you can try to get your cat into the carrier include leading them in there with some treats or their favorite toy.
To lead them in with treats, first, get them to learn that the carrier equals treats. Feed them a treat or two a few times a day while they are next to their carrier. Slowly but surely, they should come near the carrier on their own since they know it means they’ll get a treat.
Next, start slowly leading them into the carrier with either a trail of treats or leading them into the carrier with a treat in your hand. Short training sessions each day of giving them a treat each time they go into the carrier will make them want to get into the carrier by themselves since they get a treat.
When leading them in with toys, the pattern is fairly similar. Start playing with their favorite toy with them near their carrier multiple times a day. Then start placing the toy closer and closer to the carrier until they eventually crawl in.
Spiking the cat toy with a bit of catnip can make your cat want to follow the toy into the carrier more. Once they learn that going into the carrier means they’ll get a toy, they will start to meander in willingly.
These techniques will take some time and patience, but once you and your cat get into a routine, then it should be smooth sailing from there.
Keeping Your Cat Calm
Now that your cat is in its carrier, you might have to do some extra things to keep it calm—cats like their privacy and being familiar with their surroundings. When you take those two things away by placing them in an unfamiliar carrier that’s going to a place with many new things, they can get anxious.
A few things you can do to calm an anxious cat include:
- Using a cat pheromone spray
- Taking them on short car rides
- Keeping you within their line of sight
- Talking to a vet about sedatives
How to use a Pheromone Spray
Spritzing the towel or blanket in the carrier with a cat pheromone spray can have a calming effect on the cat. Pheromone sprays mimic the scent of natural cat pheromones and give the cat a sense of familiarity, which calms them down. Or, as mentioned previously, using a piece of cloth that has the scent of the cat’s favorite person or place can help calm them down as well.
Taking Your Cat in The Car
Taking your cat on short car rides for a few weeks before going on a big trip can help them get accustomed to the car. Have them sit in the shotgun seat while you go to get your mail or to pick up food. Short but consistent car rides will help them get familiar with the car and be less anxious when they’re in there for a long time.
While it’s advised to buckle the cat carrier into the back seat, try keeping you in your cat’s line of sight. When cats see their owners or someone they are familiar with, their anxiety and stress lessen. They know they are with someone who will keep them safe, and this will make the entire trip more comfortable for them.
If you’re unable to keep yourself within sight of your cat, then talking to them throughout the trip will help as well.
The last thing to make sure of is that you don’t leave your cat unattended, especially on days with extreme weather. Hot days will cause the cat to get overheated very easily, causing them to get sick with heat stroke. Cold days can do the same thing and get the cat sick with pneumonia.
Using A Sedative
Finally, if your cat experiences severe anxiety, talking to a vet about sedatives they can take is the best option. This, however, should be the last result after you’ve tried everything listed above.
One of the most common sedatives given to keep cats calm is Benadryl. In small doses, Benadryl can leave cats drowsy and help them fall asleep easier. If given before a long car ride, your cat will most likely sleep for the entire ride, and therefore not experience any anxiety.
But since Benadryl is typically an unprescribed medicine, always use minimal amounts and only for very long car rides. Each cat is different, so finding what works out best for yours might take a few rounds of trial and error. The most important thing is to talk to your vet before you use any sedative.
How to Properly Carry the Cat Carrier
Believe it or not, there is a proper way to carry your cat while it’s in its carrier. Carrying it correctly will help keep your cat from sliding around too much and reduce their stress and anxiety levels.
You should carry the carrier by supporting the carrier from the bottom with one hand and holding it against your chest with the other. Carrying the carrier this way will help your cat to feel more stable and secure. Carrying it from the bottom will not only be safer for the cat, but it will also prevent the carrier from coming apart, and the cat won’t be able to get loose.
Securing Your Carrier While in Car
When traveling with a carrier in the car, there are some steps you can take to make it more secure. The most common way is to place the carrier in the passenger’s seat and strap it in with the seatbelt.
But if you will be traveling longer than a day, this isn’t the safest option.
Instead, it’s recommended to place the carrier on the floor in front of or behind the passenger’s seat. This way, the carrier won’t fall off of the seat and potentially break and cause harm to the cat. This area is also the safest area of the car since it’s where the least motion is.
Even if you are just going down the street to the vet for a routine checkup, a cat carrier is a necessary part of traveling with your cat because of the physical and mental safety they provide. Keeping your cat in a carrier while traveling will allow you to focus on traveling safely and potentially prevent you from having a wreck.
With the cat staying in its carrier, it also doesn’t risk hurting itself by falling off a car seat or out of a window that is accidentally opened. A carrier also keeps the cat from getting too anxious from the huge intake of new surroundings.
Taking Your Cat Out of the Carrier
When you get home from the trip or the vet visit, your cat might be a little worked up and have the need to get balled up energy or stress out of their system. To take your cat out of their character, make sure they are calm enough that you can unlatch the doors or the top of the carrier with getting your fingers scratched.
If the cat looks calm, talk to them in a relaxing voice, and let them sniff your fingers before you open the door. Let them look around a bit while they’re still in their carrier so that they know they are in a familiar place.
To get your cat out of the carrier, open the door slowly and quietly, so your cat doesn’t get startled. Place one hand on the cat’s head to keep them facing away from you. Wrap your other arm around the cats supporting them with your hand and forearm like you would carry a football. If your cat is still anxious from the trip, it might be a good idea to gently grab the back of their neck and restrain their front and back paws with your free hand to keep them from scratching your arms.
It might be a good idea to wrap your cat in the towel again as you remove them from the carrier. This will prevent you from getting scratched and make it easier to set your cat down. Once your cat is out of the carrier, give them many treats to reward them for being in their carrier for however long. This will help reinforce positive feelings that your cat has for their carrier. It’s also a good idea to let them run around a bit after being stuck in the carrier for a while.
If your cat is being stubborn and won’t accept your attempts to help them come out, then just leave the carrier out with the door open. Your cat will wander out on its own eventually. But it might take some coaxing with a toy or some of their favorite treats.
Choosing the Right Carrier
Since your cat will be spending a fair amount of time in their carrier, it’s important to make sure that the carrier you choose is best suited to their needs. A few things to consider when choosing the right cat carrier include:
- The size of the carrier
- What style the carrier is
- The features the carrier includes
How Big The Carrier Should Be
The carrier should be big enough for your cat to have a free range of motion while inside it. This means that your cat should be able to:
- Stand up
- Sit down
- Turn around
- Lay down
Free range of motion will give the cat a way to release stress while traveling. This will make the cat less anxious until they can run around freely again. A good rule of thumb to go by is that your cat’s carrier should be about one and a half times the size of your cat. Also, make sure to pick a carrier that will fit your cat as an adult and as a kitten.
A carrier that’s too big can be difficult to balance when carrying, causing your cat to slide from one side to another constantly. Opposingly, a carrier that’s too small can make your cat feel uncomfortable and cramped.
The carrier should also be big enough to accommodate food and water bowls for long journeys. If your cat is particularly restless, then also making sure the carrier can hold a few small toys is a good idea since the toys will keep the cat occupied during travel.
For very long travel excursions, such as across the country or if you’re moving, choosing a pet carrier that’s meant for dogs is recommended. A bigger carrier is capable of holding a bed and some food and water bowls. It also gives your cat more room to walk around to prevent them from getting restless on the long drives.
The Style of the Carrier
By style, we mean the material the carrier is made out of. The styles of cat carriers include:
- Hard Plastic Carriers
- Cardboard Carriers
- Soft Carriers
- Rolling Suitcase Style Carriers
Hard plastic carriers are the typical style of pet carriers that you see at pet stores and the vet. The material is very durable and won’t break if your cat scratches at the door a bit. The durable material also allows for easy clean up in case your cat has an accident.
Cardboard carriers are only designed for temporary transport and are only to be used for a short period of time until a much more durable carrier arrives. These are the cheapest of the group and are usually very small and very fragile. Your cat can easily chew through the cardboard, and the material isn’t easy to clean. So, these are recommended to be used just until you have a more suitable carrier.
Soft carriers are made with a flexible but firm material. This is more comfortable for cats, but the material isn’t as supportive or durable as the plastic containers. The material also makes it very hard to clean if the carrier gets messy. And the soft material is much easier for cats to claw through and make their entrance or exit.
Finally, rolling suitcase style carriers are exactly as it sounds. They have a suitcase shaped carrier attached to rolling wheels and an extendable handle you can pull. These are usually much roomier for the cat, and it allows them to see their surroundings.
Features of a Cat Carrier
Not all cat carriers will have the features listed, but some carriers can include:
- Single doors or multiple doors
- Different Lock Mechanisms
- Removable top
Types of Carrier Doors
Most cat carriers only have one door that the cat enters and exits the carrier. But other carriers have multiple doors to allow multiple points for entry and exit. The most common way is to have doors on each opposite end of the carrier. This can help make it easier for a cat that doesn’t like their carrier to be placed in rather than forced through one point of entry.
Different Lock Mechanisms
Cat carriers come with a variety of different lock mechanisms, and some are easier to figure out than others. The different types of lock mechanisms that can be on a cat carrier include:
- Plastic pegs
- Side snaps
- Plastic knobs
Plastic pegs work by having a small, cylindrical piece of plastic be slid into a small plastic hole to lock the front door in place. They are a quick and simple way to secure your cat in its carrier. But the pegs often come loose very easily and, as a result, get lost. Since the pegs were specifically designed for that carrier, they can be hard to replace.
Side snaps are typically used for taking the top off of the carrier. They are usually rectangle shaped and can be secured or undone by pressing on them until they make that snapping sound. This is an easy way to detach the roof from the rest of the carrier, but the sound can be loud and scare the cat.
Plastic knobs work by twisting and untwisting a small knob to unlatch or connect the carrier together. They are usually used to keep the entire carrier together, but there are some carriers that use this mechanism for their door lock system. You just must make sure that the carrier is aligned correctly when you’re snapping the knobs back in place. If it’s not done correctly, then the carrier can come undone and get damaged or hurt the cat.
Carriers with A Removable Top
Some carriers come with a feature where you can detach the top of the carrier from the rest of the carrier. This can be very beneficial for getting your cat into the carrier and keeping them in there. Rather than forcing them through a small door, placing the cat into the carrier like you would their bed, or litter box makes it easier for them and for you. Then all you have to do is latch the roof in place.
A detachable roof is also ideal for taking your cat to the vet. They can stay in a comfy position in their carrier while the vet examines them. If your cat experiences anxiety or gets very stressed when going to the vet, this can be a good idea to help them cope with it.
Final Thoughts
Getting your cat into their carrier will never be an easy experience. Cats never like being forced to do something against their will, especially when it means getting themselves into a new environment. But following the tips detailed above can help to make the process of getting your cat into its carrier much easier for your cat and for you.
