A few months ago, I shared with you the latest enlightened teaching of our Guru, Max.
Guess what?
Since then, everything has been turned completely upside down!
Was this the Guru’s way of keeping us on our toes? Seeing if we were paying attention? F**king with us?
You be the judge.
If you read the last Guru post, you know we’ve been training the Guru to go in our new travel van. (If you didn’t read the post, you now know this as well, because I just told you.)
According to all of our carefully crafted plans, the next step in the Guru’s training was to acclimate him to the van. We would do this by putting on his harness and luring him into the van with treats. Once in the van, we would feed him a meal and hang out with him. After several successful sessions of van hanging, we would sleep there with the Guru overnight. Once we all got the hang of lounging and sleeping in the van, we would drive the van a teeny distance. Eventually, the distances would lengthen until, voila! The Guru and the van would be happily wedded.
Just as with training the Guru to love his harness, we would train the Guru to love the van in small, incremental steps. Slow and steady wins the race!
Doesn’t that all sound so smart? So nifty?
Yeah, it’s good to have plans.
It’s just not good to cling to them when they don’t work out.
Speaking of clinging, that’s what the Guru did when we attempted to lure him into the van with treats.
The Guru took one look at us and proclaimed, “What is wrong with you people? Why on earth would you think I would have any interest in falling for your pathetically transparent scheme. I am not following you outside. I am not eating your treats. And I am most certainly not going in that monstrous van.”
Not to be deterred, we tried the luring the Guru outside with treats a bunch more times. It was a complete fail every time.
So we decided to transport the Guru into the van ourselves. I wish I could say that this was by a group levitation from the house to the van, led by the Guru. But no. It involved picking up the extremely resistant Guru and placing him gently into the van. At which point the Guru proceeded to yowl, moan, and violently attack every surface available in an attempt to show us how not spiritual it was that he was in the van.
We gave him a big, hearty meal to show him that it was actually very spiritual that he was in the van. He didn’t buy it. He gulped down his meal and resumed his campaign to be Released At Once. We complied.
Still determined to get the Guru to love the van as much as we did, we attempted several more rounds of feeding the Guru in the van. Progress of a sort was made, in that the Guru learned to eat his meal as quickly as possible in order to be Released At Once.
But then it happened. The Guru started hiding before mealtime. He realized that consuming his meal meant consuming it in the Evil-And-Not-At-All-Spiritual-Van. As a result, a Guru who loves his meals almost as much as he loves being a Guru, started hiding before mealtime.
In all of our slow and steady training with the Guru and the harness, he never once hid. He never once refused to be trained. This time, we had gone too far.
We had crossed a line, and the Guru had no intention of following us over that line.
Melissa and I talked it out. In the process, even though I didn’t plan on it, I ended up listing all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea for the Guru to be in the van. Then I did some online research and found ever more reasons why this specific Guru and this specific van were not a match.
There are cats who can handle small vans, and there are cats who cannot. The Guru is firmly entrenched in the latter category.
The Guru is a sensitive soul who loves routine. Barreling around in a small van is not a match for a routine-loving sensitive soul. We didn’t fully realize this until we tried it. But now we do.
And, once again, the Guru used the whole process in service of enlightenment. (Ours, of course. Not his. He knew it was a repulsive and inherently evil bad idea from the beginning.)
What did the Guru teach us this time?
1. It’s great to make plans, but you need to be willing to listen to feedback along the way and adjust accordingly.
2. If it turns out that your goals are not compatible with the components involved in your plan, you may need to abandon it altogether.
3. When your sensitive, routine-loving Guru tells you he hates your extremely abhorrent, ugly silver cage small van, listen to him. He’s speaking the Truth.
When have you had to abandon your plans? Share your comments below!
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We have 2 cats and have gone through 3 different size camper/RV’s so we have a lot of experience in these matters. We gave up our travel by flight because we want our 2 cats with us. We just miss them too much when we are away. I must admit upfront that having gotten bigger campers does make the experience better and I am not sure about the smaller van types which may effect your results. But here goes. We have one cat, “Sweeta” who is very mellow and does not care about the environment she finds herself in as long as she is with her people. She does not object to going on trips for days and happily sits on our laps during the drivetime and mostly sleeps when we are gone for hours at a time for daily activities. Sweeta has learned to ask to go out at the campgrounds where she will wander about 20 feet around the motorhome and then comes back on her own. She stays close. So easy. Our other Cat, “Vinnie” does not like getting into any vehicle. During the packing for the trip, he gets the sense of what is happening and tries to hide. When the time arrives for departure, I need to hold him tightly and place him in the vehicle. He yowls for a while and then settles down once he gets we are going. He tends to find dark hiding places when we are driving but comes out when we arrive at our destination. Over time his favorite place for the drive is in the sink. I would not say he is a happy camper but he acclimates. Given he is a hunter and likes to come and go through our cat doors when home, we have trained him or maybe he has trained us to wake us up during the night when all the other noises of campers and kids are quiet. Then I attach his collar to a leash and we take a long walk 20-40 min during which he gets to explore and move. I reward him with food when we return. So there you have it. I believe the lesson is. . . that sometimes the humans just need to decide whether the cat agrees or not. They adjust accordingly. Kinda like parenting except lacking words. Hope this helps. Enjoy the journey.
Hi Warren, Thank you for the ideas. That’s wonderful that Sweeta and Vinnie get to come with you. We will take your ideas and thoughts into consideration! And also, like you say, a bigger sized vehicle at some point, if that ever were to happen, might be more Max’s speed. Happy Travels!! XOXOZ
He could travel in a cat carrier, a chusie one, until he is acclimated??? Or is this too simple. My friend traveled with her cat in their motorhome everywhere. But we are each individuals with individual feelings and limits. He sounds like a home body, for sure.
Hi Linda, Thank you for that idea. Unfortunately, Max hates the cat carrier even more than he hates the Monstrous Van! We definitely wanted it to work and, at this point, it looks like we’ll be leaving the homebody at home! Thank you for the idea, though! Who knows, maybe some day there will be some change, somehow, and Max will hit the road with us somehow… XOZ
For several years, I let my loving daughter and her loving husband know that I would like to be a grandmother. They must have misunderstood what I had to say because they kept increasing the number of dogs they cared for. That is when I specifically asked for a two-legged grandchild with less fur. At long last, they heard me and lo and behold they provided me with a grand daughter who has captured my heart and I adore. What is the unexpected part of this? I expected (and so did her parents) that my grand daughter would go to child care at age 3 months. What happened instead? COVID. As a result, there were very few day care opportunities considered safe. Soooooo. I now take care of my grand daughter one full day a week as well as a few evenings a month. Was this what I expected? No! But the fact is it is so much better!!
Hi Janice, LOL Good for you for being specific about the two legs and less fur! And congratulations on being a grandmother!! What a blessing to both of you that you get to spend so much time with her! Thanks so much for your comment. XOZ
Hi Kids! Absolutely could never get my cat into a van! He gets very upset when I leave for a few weeks…as in totally ignoring and giving dirty looks on my return…YOU ABANDONER!…but get someone to feed and (maybe?) cuddle, he’ll be fine…
Hi Cat, Thank you – good to hear from someone else who has a van-hating cat! Luckily, we have a great housesitter situation, so that makes us feel WAY better about leaving our little boy while we go off on the road. Though he definitely still gives us the dirty looks – before and after. Especially before! Thanks for your comment! XOZ