Yet Another Method of Cat Transportation

By Camilla Garrison

The next step in Providence house cats Echo and Ember’s training journey is the stroller. As you may know, Echo is really not a cat who enjoys travel and movement. He absolutely detested being trapped in the bubble backpack, and doesn’t love the car, but he does like to walk around and explore both the front and back yards, and is practically immune to noise, (unless it involves vibration, like thunder, in which case he turns into a little scaredy cat.) So feel free to imagine, what he’s like in a stroller. Taking that into account, it may seem impossible to train Echo to enjoy it, but experienced cat trainers Isaac and Camilla Garrison are attempting it. Surprisingly, they’ve actually made some progress, Echo can jump into the stroller with a hand signal, get a treat, move across the room, and jump out. Ember on the other hand, learned really fast how to jump in, lie down and stay there for about ten minutes, while walking around the house! The only problem...he is terrified of cars/loud noises. Camilla and Flor (see The Adventures of Flor) took him out in the stroller to walk up and down the block, and they had only gotten a few houses down, when a car came by. Ember got totally freaked out, jumped out of the stroller, and ran into the neighbor’s front yard. Camilla caught him, and luckily he never got out of his harness. She put him back in the stroller, and he relaxed, but soon wanted to jump out and explore.