«MAINE COON CAT BATTLES COON» These headlines could have appeared in the local paper of Longboat, Key, Florida according to Joyce Koppel. We don’t know who won, but after recovering from his wounds, Socrates Koppel seems content to spend his nights at home with the boss.
This brings to mind something that has bugged me for sometime. I’m all for letting cats be cats and Heaven only knows our Maine Coons are all cat! Against natural enemies and hazards they can hold their own. Fortunately, I’ve always managed to have an escape proof (most of the time) run for ay gang, so they can be outdoors. If you can’t manage such a run and feel that your cat needs to be out, then at least make an unrelenting policy that when the sun goes down, he is inside to stay until morning. There will still be hazards, but you will have eliminated a big one–blinding headlights. Most cats killed by cars get their everlasting at night. If you doubt this, keep your eyes open for the fresh corpses as you drive to work. The same applies to some extent to dogs and other animals.
Speaking of hazards, I imagine many of you read the article on shipping animals which appeared in Consumer Reports. It was almost enough to make me refuse to ship at first. Then I remembered the fact that so far as I know, all my kids have arrived in fine shape and almost always on schedule. I don’t know if my methods of shipping contribute to this or not but for what they are worth here are some key points:
1. Use a roomy shipping crate–mine are the Sky Kennel (wooden) type, medium
size–about 19 x 18 x 24. Granted the kid looks a little lost in there, but it provides plenty of air space, room for food and water containers and is too big to be easily misplaced.
2. Mark your crats all over with destination and buyers name, address and phone number. I staple 5 x 8 cards on all sides and tip and print big! Include Air Line and flight numbers.
3. Attach an envelope with emergency instructions to the top of the crate and mark it to be opened if kitten is not delivered by a specified time. (I usually allow 12 hours after departure depending upon flight schedule. Inside include instructions for feeding, and a request for a collect call to you for further instructions. Be sure to caution against opening the crate unless it is in a secure area.
4. Hang on to your air freight way-bill. It is the best means of identification if puss gets lost.
5. Check the weather at both ends. I watch the forecast the night before shipping and if in doubt will call the buyer. Don’t ship if it is extremely hot or cold. If possible, plan your breeding program so that the kittens are ready for sale during the milder months.
I don’t know if these help but so far I’ve had no bad experiences and only two that were slightly hair raising, both due mainly to unexpected bad weather.
That brings me to the last item. Special thanks goes to Mr. William Garner of REA Air Express, Atlanta, Georgia. He came to my rescue one night in March. «Jane Cash» was coming down from Nashville for a romance with Henry. Jane was supposed to arrive at noon. At 6 pm Jane still hadn’t arrived. I had met every flight from Atlanta all afternoon. The weather was awful–one thunderstorm after another. The fellows here in Columbus suggested that I should call Air Express office in Atlanta.
(It was Saturday and Columbus Air Express Office was closed.) I did and Mr. Garner got busy. It took him nearly two hours but he found Jane and made a special run to get her on an 8:30 pm flight. He called me back twice, first to tell me he had her and again to tell me the flight would be an hour late so «don’t go out to the airport in the rain.» Jane had arrived in Atlanta too late for the aftern flights and had been set back in the warehouse to keep her out of the weather, and had been overlooked. Thanks to Mr. Garner (who is now an honorary MCBFA member) Jane arrived in fine fettle, mad at the world, and totally uninterested in romance for nearly a week!
It all boils down to this–air service for our cats is as good as the people involved: the breeder, the Air Freight and Air Express folks, and the buyer. The cats can’t complain if they miss a transfet but we can, and we can do a few things such as using proper crates, marking them well and checking at transfer points to be sure they hava a good trip.
Connie