Making a carrier somewhere the cat will walk into

The cat does not hate the carrier. It hates what the carrier predicts.

In most households the carrier lives in a cupboard or the garage and appears on exactly two occasions: a vet visit and a house move. From the cat’s point of view the box is a reliable signal that something unpleasant is about to happen, and hiding under the bed is a sensible response to a reliable signal. Every chase, every attempt to push the cat through the door, confirms the lesson.

The fix is not a better loading technique. It is changing what the carrier predicts, and that takes a few weeks of very small steps.

Start with the carrier itself

Some carriers make this harder than it needs to be. A hard-sided carrier that splits in half, with a removable top and a front door, gives you two ways to start: the cat can walk into the base with no roof on it, and a vet can examine the cat sitting in the base without lifting it out at all. International Cat Care, the UK charity whose guidance Australian feline vets commonly follow, recommends this style for exactly that reason.

If you are choosing a carrier now, what to check before buying a pet travel crate or carrier covers size, latches and ventilation, and pet carriers for the car, the plane and the vet explains which style suits which trip. For the plan below, the main things that matter are a top that comes off, a door that stays open on its own, and a base big enough for the cat to turn around in.

Change where the carrier lives

Bring it out of the cupboard and leave it out. This is the whole first stage, and it is the one people skip. Put the carrier in a room the cat already spends time in, away from the litter tray and away from a busy doorway, and leave it there permanently. Take the door off if it can be removed, or wedge it fully open so it cannot swing shut behind the cat.

Put familiar bedding inside, ideally something that already smells like the cat or the household. A towel the cat has slept on is better than a new fleece. If the carrier smells of the last vet visit, wash it first with unscented detergent and let it air. Cats read scent before anything else, and a carrier that smells of a strange clinic is starting behind.

Then ignore it. Do not put the cat in, do not point it out. A cat that is left alone with a box will usually investigate it within days, because a covered space at floor level is exactly the kind of place cats like to sit. RSPCA Australia’s guidance on carrier training rests on the same idea: the carrier becomes furniture, and furniture is not frightening.

Make good things happen near it, then in it

Once the cat walks past the carrier without a wide berth, start pairing it with food. Feed the daily meal a metre from the carrier. Over a week or so, move the bowl closer until it sits at the door, then just inside the entrance, then at the back. If the cat stops eating, you have moved too fast; go back a step for a few days.

Treats and play work the same way. Toss a treat into the carrier and walk away rather than watching. Drag a wand toy past the entrance so the cat follows it in and out. The point is that the cat chooses to enter, many times, with nothing happening afterwards. Every uneventful entry weakens the old association a little.

Feline facial pheromone sprays, sold through vets and pet retailers, are often suggested for this stage. The evidence for them is mixed rather than strong, and they are an optional extra, not the plan. If you use one, spray the bedding and let it dry before the cat goes near it.

Rehearse the door and the lift

Only after the cat is walking in on its own, and settling there, does the door come back. Close it for a few seconds while the cat is eating inside, then open it before the cat reacts. Build this up to a minute, then several minutes, across separate days.

Next comes lifting. Pick the carrier up with the cat inside, hold it level, put it down, open the door. Then carry it to another room. Then to the car with the engine off. Then a short drive around the block with the cat coming home to a meal afterwards. Each step is one session, and any step that produces struggling or yowling means the previous step needs more repetitions.

Carry the carrier from underneath with both arms rather than by the handle. A carrier swinging from one hand tilts the cat with every step, and that motion is a large part of why cats associate the carrier with feeling unsafe.

Keep it working between vet visits

The training does not end when the cat walks in. It ends when the carrier goes back in the cupboard, because the cupboard restarts the whole cycle. Leave the carrier out permanently as a bed, keep feeding the occasional treat inside it, and take the cat on a short drive that ends at home a few times a year. If the carrier is only ever followed by the vet, the cat will work that out again.

For an indoor cat this also gives the household a rehearsed evacuation routine. A cat that walks into its carrier on cue can be out of the house in a minute during a fire or flood warning, which matters more in most of Australia than the vet trip does. Keeping a cat happy indoors covers the rest of an indoor cat’s routine, and if the cat is new, the carrier belongs on the new kitten checklist from the first week, because a kitten that grows up with a carrier in the room rarely needs any of the above.

If the appointment is tomorrow

None of this helps a household with a vet booking in the morning and a cat that already knows the carrier. For that one trip:

• Shut the cat into a small room with the carrier well before you need to leave, so there is no chase through the house.
• Take the top off a split carrier and lower the cat gently into the base, then replace the top. Cats lowered from above fight far less than cats pushed through a front door.
• If the carrier does not split, stand it on its end with the door facing the ceiling and lower the cat in hind legs first, then close the door and tip it back gently.
• Wrap the cat loosely in a towel first if it is likely to scratch. This protects you and gives the cat something familiar in the carrier.
• Cover the carrier with a towel in the car. Most cats settle better when they cannot see the world moving past.
• Do not withhold food unless the vet has asked you to, and do not give any sedative or calming medication that a vet has not prescribed for this cat.

Then, once you are home, leave the carrier out. The next trip is where the plan above starts.

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