I’ve already talked about cats on the road, but I wanted to talk a bit more generally about what it looks like to bring your pet with you travel nursing. Dan and I have two cats, Pepper & Sage, so we can really only speak to our experience bringing cats with us. Road trips with dogs look very different than cats, and finding housing may look different too. In general, we’ve found that people (and hotels) are often more welcoming to dogs than cats. If you have a dog that you bring with you travel nursing, definitely share about your experience in the comments!

Now, not to start with the obvious but…

finding housing

We covered this a bit in our 10 Things We’ve Learned About Travel Nursing video when we talk about how hard finding housing is. Add cats to that equation and that’s when you hear us saying that finding housing is the hardest part of travel nursing for us. Cats in particular seem to concern home owners or businesses renting out furnished homes/apartments/condos. And I get it, but it makes it tough when you have no choice but to rent furnished places. So just keep that in mind if you’re planning to bring your cat(s) with you. In the next section, I’ll talk about ways you can be proactive about protecting the homes you rent. Sometimes sharing that with your potential landlord can help assuage any concerns they have about welcoming in your kitties too.

maintaining the homes you rent

Thankfully, we’ve never had a problem with our cats, well, I’ll just say not using their litter box. Ever. So we don’t worry about that, but we do have to take precautions and watch out for them scratching things and knocking things over. We’ve learned a few hot tips over the last few contracts that help to minimize any possible damage our cats could do to an apartment.

In general, our cats are pretty high energy so we have to make sure we’re keeping them well entertained to make sure they don’t go to crazy leaping from furniture piece to furniture piece to wall to television… We bring plenty of toys to keep them busy and at least one of their scratching posts. The idea is to give them lots to do other than play with or scratch anything else they find in the apartment. We love playing with our cats so this wasn’t really a new thing, but I’d also recommend making sure you devote time to playing with your cat(s) to help them to get their energy out. This way you can also help to make sure they’re doing that in a way that isn’t destructive.

When we were in Myrtle Beach, we were particularly precautious because it was our first furnished rental/first contract and also it was the full-time home of the wonderful couple renting to us. They went on a super long boat trip and this was the first time they rented out their home. So for that contract, we brought lots of toys, two scratching posts, and two litter boxes. It was also two floors and, in general, I’d recommend having a litter box on each floor for your cats.

The couple also had a cat so they were very understanding of little things here and there that came up. They also gave us the tip to put wide double sided tape on the legs/edges of some of the furniture to keep the cats from scratching – we definitely recommend this! As an alternative, in our current apartment in Phoenix our landlord provided couch covers to help protect the couches from scratches, fur, etc. It may be worth it to purchase some cheap ones for your rentals as a precaution, otherwise the double sided tape is a great way to go too. Dan also really makes sure to stay on top of clipping their nails (and also changing the litter box) which makes a big difference.

In Myrtle Beach we also learned to remove knick knacks and things of that nature from the tables, bookshelves, etc. because cats have a tendency to get on top of every piece of furniture and knock things down. Take pictures when you first move in so you know where to put things back, and then remove all breakable things and put them safely away.

going on trips while on contract

When you’re in a new place every three months it can be hard to feel comfortable asking brand new friends to take care of your pets while you go away. Alternatively, boarding your animals can get super expensive fast. So we opted for making a couple relatively small upfront investments to be able to leave our cats for a few days at a time without having to worry, so that we could take advantage of the opportunity to see new places that travel nursing affords. The longest trip we took while we were in Myrtle Beach was two nights, but I’d say we could probably stretch that to three without having to worry. I would highly recommend both of these items to help give you peace of mind when travelling without your cats.

While in Myrtle Beach, we realized we wanted to take a few trips (Savannah, Charleston, Highlands) but we didn’t want to bring the cats with us for a variety of reasons. So we bought a cat water fountain which helped us to know that they wouldn’t run out of water while we were away. I also read about how it encourages cats to drink more water (running water is more appealing to many cats) and, at the time, Sage was having some health issues so we were trying to make sure she stayed well hydrated. Having multiple litter boxes was also essential to being able to leave them for more than a day or two.

We also purchased an automatic cat feeder, which we’ve loved for a number of reasons. One, our cats tend to overeat/eat to quickly so it was helpful to be able to feed them multiple times a day without having to actually do that ourselves day in and day out. Turns out a lot of Maine Coons have this issue. Two, we knew the cats would have enough food if we left for a few days. The one we got plugs into the wall, but also has a back up battery so you don’t have to worry about if the power goes out or if they manage to unplug the machine. Our cats are officially overly pampered and high tech.

Back in October we took a couple of longer trips (Denver and Montreal), but thankfully our family was around and willing to help care for the cats while we were away. Those trips were six and seven days, and we wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving the cats for that long otherwise. It can be scary leaving your pets in a place that’s still relatively new to you (I’m a bit more of a worrier than Dan is with things like that), but there are things you can do to help make it possible for you to take trips still and even have more peace of mind.

road trips with cats

I’ve already covered this in a different blog post, so I’m just going to direct you over to that one for this section – see Cats on the Road.

give them consistency

People stand on all different points on the spectrum of how much effort you need to put into caring for your pets. I’ll admit, I probably worry too much and am slightly over-invested in my cats’ happiness. Obviously we should all care about the happiness of our pets, but I think (and have been reminded by many people) that in general they’re pretty resilient and easy to please. All that to say, I worry that travel nursing is too much change and stress for our cats on a regular basis. I’m starting to be more confident that that’s not the case as I see them take each move in stride, but I wanted to add this little section anyways in case you worry about this for your pets too.

In order to combat the stress of moving every few months for our cats, I try to keep everything else as consistent as I can. We spoil them with toys and treats and all that, so having their favourite (and some new) toys as well as their favourite treats are things I make sure of for on the road and each move. If your pet has a favourite bed or blanket or something like that and you can manage to fit it in your car, that would be another great thing to keep consistently available to them.

I have also been very on top of making sure we don’t run out of their food or litter at any point so we don’t have to temporarily switch them to something else. This is also due in part to their stomach issues; no one wants to deal with a diarrheal cat on a six day road trip. They get fed the same thing at the same times throughout the day (thanks to the automatic feeder!) and we try to keep their wet food consistent.

pros of bringing your pets

Speaking of the stress of moving every few months, we feel it too! Our cats are such a wonderful relief from that (at least when I’m not worrying about them). They are lovey and fun, and petting a sleeping cat is such a stress reliever. Not to mention, when Dan was working nights I found it really comforting to have them in the house so I wasn’t totally alone. They’re not exactly guard-cats, but it was reassuring nonetheless.

to conclude

It is most certainly 100% possible to do travel nursing with pets. Is it harder? Also 100%, but it’s doable and not as hard as you may think. We haven’t regretted bringing our cats along with us at any point and honestly have been so impressed with how quickly they acclimated to each new place. They have a blast and are their normal crazy selves, and we are happier for having them with us.

would you bring your pets with you travel nursing?