Yes, I do have cats, and I know exactly how difficult is to get them into carriers. My cats are rescued feral cats - it took 6 months to be able even touch one of them. I know exactly how difficult it is to control a cat - so I wouldn't even dream of taking one on a plane without taking adequate measures to ensure its safety.

As for not knowing the rules for examing pet carriers, sorry, that excuse doesn't fly with me. :D Pets require advance reservations made by phone, and my experience with carriers these days is that if you have any kind of unusual situation with ticketing, the phone agent reads you the rules ad nauseum before accepting the res. And what kind of pet owner wouldn't bother to find out what his pet would be subjected to before traveling?

Sounds like my 12 pound Maine Coon, which will never set foot inside an airport. :D

Now you went and injected common sense into this discussion. :p

It probably would cause less stress on the Cat if he/she is carried through the X-ray by the owner and not handled by a stranger (like a TSA agent.) But the whole experience would be stressful for any animals (and many humans I guess.)

I always wonder if the X-ray could damage the Cat. In addition, the small space might freak out some Cats.

Most Cats see the carrier and freak out. There are a few exceptions like Eddie who goese in the carrier easily (sometimes I think because he wants to go test his teeth on strangers. :) )

Many good posts here. I see your poor Cats have gone through the sometimes nightmare of travel.

I have had landed several new Cat sitting clients because they were tired of dealing with the frustrations of getting the Cats medicated, then dealing with security, then the Cat getting sick on flights. One client said her two Cats saw the vastness of O'Hare United Terminals that the one Cat almost bolted (the other hid in the case.) Both had harnesses on.

Every Cat has its own personality. I should know. I babysit Cats for a living and each one is different. Same with my Eddie (who would have made shreds of a TSA's agent shirt and pants... Eddie would probably have to go through secondary screening because he would object to going through the X-Ray and get a male agent to do it. Eddie probably would be denied boarding.

Eddie says he would only fly if it's first class. Since I don't have top tier on United anymore Eddie says he'll stay home. ;)

FYI: Here's another great thread if F-T ever gets a Travel with Pets forum

Going OMNI (off topic) here for a few moments...

LOVE the Herding Cats commerical. It debuted at one of the SUper Bowls and while watching it in Vegas at a casino party I could nto stop laughing at that spot.

True purrfect brilliance. (Like the original Meow Mix commericial.)

Herding Cats is like herding humans onto the big transcon flights, sometimes..

Having had to listen to a cat loudly *yowl* in the C cabin on a flight from CDG to ATL one day, I'm with Bart on the behavior of said cats in the cabin.

In fact (and at the risk of offending pet lovers), please sedate your cat before packing the little furball on board. I don't ever care to hear 10 straight hours of howling again.

Don't get me wrong: I've been owned by pet cats for many years and I do like them. It's just that I'd appreciate your not imposing your cat on me. I do feel the same way about a neighbor's cat that took to using parts of my yard as its sandbox.

I'm a converted cat lover and I'm completely on board with the other experienced cat people who have weighed in. You can get a cat used to wearing a leash and travelling if you teach them when they are a kitten. For those of us who get adopted by a stray, that isn't possible. Most cats associate the carrier with going to the vet and with something bad about to happen to them when they get there. They don't do well in strange environments and around a lot of noise. We humans want to rip most screener carnival barkers to shreds. Imagine what a cat with its enhanced senses is thinking when it encounters a carnival barker? I fully recognize that some people must travel with cats for certain reasons. For me, I would have to be in dire straits to subject either of ours to all that stress.

Does this request extend to howling children and their parents?

:) :) :) :) :)

I have hauled cats across the country in a flight before. In fact, when my mom moved out to California, my husband and I got a free (for us) trip out there to visit, as the rule was one cat per passenger - and mom had three cats. We each got the drugged cats. Mom's cat couldn't be drugged (she was 18 years old!) and the vet said that the flight trauma would be less stressful on her system than the drugs would be.

Luckily the poor thing slept most of the trip anyhow. However, she did NOT like getting taken out of the carrier and she has all her claws. Mom lost some blood even though the cat (Blossom) was well harnessed. The TSA guy wanted to take the cat through himself, but mom insisted she needed to. After seeing she was probably going to need a transfusion, and it was HER cat, the TSA guy agreed.

The cats all survived the trip, though Blossom moaned a bit on ascent and descent. She lived for another year after that :) (old frickin cat)

Did they declare a breach? Cat took off didn't it?


ab53

OT: So justify to the rest of us why TSA considers it safe to have ME walk through a backscatter XRAY machine? Even if the dose is lower than that used on your normal dirty underwear sterilization machine.

And the famous New Yorker cartoon, published 2 months after 9/11:

http://www.cartoonbank.com/product_d...sortBy=popular

At some random airport, and memory suggests it was YVR or ORD, I saw a sign on the x-ray machine that said that babies were to be removed from carriers before putting the carriers through.

Clearly that had been put there for a reason which begged the question: Who had been putting their babies through the X-ray machine?

Which is what the carrier is for & from personal experience, having gone thru this w/4 furpeople moving cross-country less than a month ago (& still bearing the scars to show for it!) I can personally vouch for the fact that they were fine while IN the carriers (even @ 30,000 feet!); it's the uncontrolled chaos that IS a TSA checkpoint that was where the problem was. And where, btw, the only howls were ever heard throughout our entire trip.

I would also echo the sentiments of the other posters who said putting a harness on a cat is MUCH easier said than done, especially when the cat is stressed, & even once it's on, there's no guarantee it will stay on (mine had figure 8 harness' on, but all managed to get out of them in almost no time).

Regardless of what some TSA SOP might say, the potential for harm to both animal & human by taking a highly stressed animal out of its 'safe' environment in that kind of chaotic situation far out weighs the risks of taking a very brief ride down the belt.