Nip and Tuck - Part 1 - The Beginning and the Journey

Why cats don't fly planes

Last week it was seven years since I lost Tuck - well, 'lost' is the nice word for it.  His twin sister, Nip, had been put down about a year earlier.  Both had kidney failure for several years that I managed quite successfully through diet, medication and bi-weekly subcutaneous injections of fluids to ensure that they had a good quality of life.

This is the story of their lives, and my life with them, because I was reminded last week how very much I miss them and what a huge part of my life they were.

Nip and Tuck - little cuties! (Tuck is on the left - I can tell the difference now!)

Nip and Tuck were adopted from the SPCA in Edmonton in 1992.  I was living with a roommate, and been very recently been dumped by a boyfriend that I thought I had loved (in hindsight, I didn't, and as most past relationships go, he probably wasn't worth the emotions that I went through for several months after.  But we all learn, don't we....?).

Feeling raw and bare, and deeply hurt and unlovable, and of course being a massive fan of cats, I dragged Mum along to find some furry creature to fill the perceived hole in my heart.  Well, perception is reality, so I actually did have that hole.

Cats are great when you are single as they take less physical care than a dog, and I did like the idea of getting two so that they could keep each other company.  Mum and I spied two gorgeous, almost identical black and white kittens in a cage and I fell in love.  I fall in love with any kitten after 0.3546 seconds, so this isn't actually remarkable.

Nip and Tuck settled in to my life very quickly and were an absolute joy.  As the saying goes, if you have kittens you don't need a tv, and they were a shining example.  Tuck used to play so hard that he would stop and sit in the middle of the living room and fall asleep, slowly tipping to the side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, until gravity took over and he either fell over or awoke with a jump.  Nip had an affinity for repeatedly knocking over pot plants.  I barely have a green thumb to start with, so this didn't help the plants' overall health. I gave up on plants in the end.

Nip and Tuck has such similar markings that I had to keep their numbered paper collars on them for as long as possible until I could tell the difference.  Nip had more white on her paws and had white eyebrow whiskers, while Tuck only had one white eyebrow whisker and the rest were black.  Their looks only differed in subtle ways, but their personalities were miles apart.

If I gave them a little smack for being naughty, Tuck would roll over onto his back and present his belly in all of it's cuteness (it worked, by the way).  Nip would turn around and smack me back.  Yes, she was in independent soul.

So tiny!

We lived our lives together, moved out on our own to an apartment, acquired Fred, my parents' cat, bought a townhouse and adopted a couple of guinea pigs (Thelma and Louise) to share our lives with.  They remained indoor cats and were steady constant company through all of my life changes, including jobs, volunteer positions, and a variety of boyfriends.   For 9 years they never failed to make me laugh or feel loved, and on the day that I decided to move to Australia, my decision naturally included them.

I'm a firm believer that pets are not disposable.  And seriously, if any man had stuck with me for 9 years, I would have considered paying for his airfare too!

Nip and Tuck liked to cuddle at my neck.

Moving any animal to Australia is complicated and frustrating.  I understand the need for strict policies - due to it's physical isolation, Australia is free from many diseases that are rampant in the rest of the world.  Therefore the government needed to ensure that my pets were disease free before they would be allowed into the country.

I spent the better part of a year preparing Nip and Tuck for their sojourn across the globe.  Anything that had to be done by my veterinarian, had to be signed off by a government veterinarian, recorded and tracked, and all within certain timelines, depending on the requirement.  Flea treatments (ahem, there are no fleas in Edmonton, that's one thing the cold is good for), worm treatments, and the correct vaccinations including rabies vaccinations.  Being indoor cats, Nip and Tuck had never had the need to be vaccinated against rabies, but as this was a requirement, I had to get it done.  Once the shot was given, their blood had to be tested for their rabies titre levels.  Oddly, there was only one place in North America that conducted these tests, and it was in Texas.  So off their blood went to Texas.  As with all red tape, this all had to be done in certain time frames.  Australian quarantine required a minimum stay of 30 days and a maximum of 6 months.  I didn't want my cats in kennels for 6 months (nor did I want to pay for it, you already get an idea of the amount of coin this was all costing), so I got out a calendar, and my vet and I plotted out when we would have to send the blood away in relation to the cats' departure date so that they would be eligible for the minimum stay in quarantine.

The gorgeous Nip as a kitten - oh, the attitude.

Long story short, it all worked out.  I had to buy special cat carriers that then had to be modified and I had to arrange transportation.  Due to the length of flights and changeovers, it was decided to fly them to Vancouver to be picked up and kennelled overnight at a pet transport company, and then put on the plane for the flight to Sydney via Honolulu.  A seal was put over the door of the cages by a government official, and if that seal was broken on arrival at Sydney Airport, a six month quarantine would be required.  Sheesh.  Just to add to the stress, this was just over a month after 9/11, so airports and customs were still on edge and hyper vigilant.

The drive to the airport wasn't one of my top 5 days.  The staff at the airline counter did look at me oddly as I dropped off their cages and paperwork, tears streaming down my face and snot running from my nose.  I could barely speak between the sobs - was I doing the right thing?  Was I needlessly torturing my cats?  The cats weren't impressed and screamed at me the whole drive there, which didn't help my mental state.

The cats arrived in Sydney and were picked up by customs (charged to me times two), transported to Eastern Creek Quarantine Station (charged to me times two) and quarantined for 30 days (charged to my times two).  They got to be in the same kennel, and we were able to visit them when we were in Sydney for a wedding.  The facility was fantastic, the cats were assigned one main carer and you could call every day to find out how they were doing.

The very exciting day came when I could pick them up.  Again, my face wasn't pretty as they handed me my gorgeous feline family that I had missed terribly.  Nip was quite thin and Tuck quite fat, so I'm guessing there were some sibling issues during those 30 days stuck together.

Nip and Tuck had arrived in Brisbane - I couldn't have been happier and I knew then that it was all worth it.

Say tuned for Part 2 - Our Aussie Adventure in one weeks time.

These two had a serious love of boxes.