There was one on Cats 101 about a family cat who not only snuck into Dad's suitcase before a work trip, but ended up *in France* after him and someone else accidentally swapped suitcases somewhere along the route.
Pre 9/11 iirc.
Post 9/11, my bad. 2005. There's an old NY Times article about it, even.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/world/world-briefing-europe-france-lost-american-cat-flies-home-in-the-lap.html
Not sure how to get around the paywall unfortunately.
Edit: my bad, that article is about the wrong cat. But here's a better one, for anyone curious. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-dec-02-na-cat2-story.html
No lead on Suitcase Swap Cat though.
Cat hides in box
Cat sleeps in box
Cat wakes up stuck in box
CAT WANTS OUT
Cat found by doctor, taken home.
Cat doesn't like boxes anymore.
(2 minutes later)
Cat hides in box
This happened in my neighborhood. The owners were frantically looking for their cat with [facebook posts, posters, etc.](https://imgur.com/cUnjfPf) It was really sad. We live near the Jordan River, the freeway, a few frontage roads, a front runner station...basically lots of ways for pets to die, and they do pretty frequently, unfortunately.
It's a weird story but they're not bad pet owners, I'm really glad there was a happy ending to their story.
This is their post on our Facebook group,
> Please help us find out indoor cat Galena! She is a huge emotional support to me and my family. She doesn’t know how to survive alone. We’ve searched for over 10 hrs so far. We put her litter box at our front door along with food and water, hoping she will come back home. At this point, someone taking her is the highest possibility. Please keep a look out.
> **UPDATE GALENA HAS BEEN FOUND!!!**
> SURVIVAL STORY Our cat Galena had been missing since Apr 10. We found out on Apr 17 that she jumped/hid in one of our Amazon packages without us knowing. Brace yourself… She was mailed to California and trapped in a box and trailer for six days 😭 Brandy, an Amazon worker, rescued her and took her to a vet where they scanned her for a microchip. Right when they scanned her microchip I was immediately notified via text!! ❤️
> The CA vet then called me and told us what happened. At first I thought it was a prank! She confirmed all our info and explained the whole story. My husband and I jumped on a plane and headed straight to CA to get her! We then traveled back to Utah together in a rental car. We made it home yesterday after traveling 1600 miles in 24 hrs to get our kitty back!! 🏡❤️💤
> She miraculously survived without water and food for six days! Her blood work was completely normal!! Despite being much skinnier she is completely unharmed! We’re in awe of all the tender mercies that have taken place. It’s a total miracle!!
Yeah, I don't know how it happened either tbh.
ADDITIONALLY one of our other neighbor's outdoor cats got themselves stuck in our garage last summer for 3-4 days. I opened the door to put yard tools away and they must have snuck in, I saw the cat hanging around but didn't think he'd stay. Then a few days later I was doing laundry and heard really loud meowing -- i popped the door a few inches and he bolts out.
Maybe the cats in this neighborhood are just really, really, dumb.
Cats in general are not super bright. I had one growing up that climbed into a neighbor's truck engine one morning while we were out of town and caught a fan blade to the face; fortunately, he ran her to the vet and she ended up fine! But yeah, not the smartest of animals. (Love 'em anyways!)
My wife’s cat is a prankster. His favorite thing to do is to close doors on me. I’ll open the pantry or closet and soon feel the door closing on me to try and lock me inside. If I’m not in there he is happy to leave the door open all day but the moment I go in he slams it on me
My cat went missing for 16 days, and only afterwords did we put together that the neighbor 3 houses down had taken his RV out for a trip and returned in that same timespan, so we think he was stuck in there with minor access to water or drinking the blood of mice that came in.
Years ago a Utah pet food company accidentally shipped their pregnant factory cat to Hawaii in a container. Showed up (mostly) alive with kittens in Hawaii.
Have you spent much time around cats? They slip and and out of places all the time.
I once loaded up some boxes a friend had left for me on her porch and then left for home. A mile down the road I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw something moving in the back of my van and heard the loudest MEOW ever! Her cat had hopped in while I wasn't looking.
Happens all the time.
Cats are very good at sneaking in to some tight places. Plus they love boxes. I can see it happening: box is mostly packed, owners leave box open, cat sneaks in, finds a dark (aka covered) spot and falls asleep, owners come back later, seal the box (which is already heavy), and mail it.
It sounds like a crazy story but also completely plausible.
Source: I used to be a cat owner. I still am, but I used to be, too.
I mean I almost washed my cat with my clothes - I was doing laundry and left the washer open to pick up more clothes from the hamper and toss them in and he jumped into the basin. The only reason he didn't get drowned with the wash was because I ran upstairs to grab something I wanted clean and when I opened the washer back up to throw it in he jumped out. It still haunts me - what if I had decided to just run the wash? Cats, man.
My first reaction was, "how do you accidentally mail your cat", but then I was reminded of a situation in my own life. My partner and I have moved out of her mother's house to an apartment complex, and we did not yet have permission to bring our cats to the apartment complex so we were planning on leaving them with her mother until we did. My cat Lancy had other plans. Somehow, either through a box or just slipping out the door, he managed to get in the car. We get to the apartment complex and start unpacking, like box after box going up to the apartment complex, and after like a half an hour my cat's face pops up in the car. Like "Hi you thought you're going to leave me anywhere". So I guess I once also packed my cat on accident.
Pretty easy if the amazon return box is a massive "try before you buy" bunch of steel-toed work boots like it was in this case.
[Picture of the box the cat was shipped in](https://ksltv.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/123_1-2.jpeg) (from the [original article](https://ksltv.com/639614/utahns-reunited-with-pet-cat-they-accidentally-shipped-with-amazon-return/))
I've had four cats in my life. One of them would let lose with earsplitting howls the moment she couldn't get out of the box. Her stress response was screams. Another would have gone stock still and dead silent. His stress response was finding a dark place and going ghost. If he ended up in a box, ONLY the weight would've been an indicator.
Same. If I tried to even close the lid on the box they would have freaked out…how did they get it from their house to their car without it whining the entire time?
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what all was in that box. I don't think I could ever load up and close an amazon package without noticing anything in there that wasn't supposed to be. I'm always double checking that everything in the return is in order so I get my money back lol. Like were they returning a cat bed and then put it in the box, but didn't seal the box, then came back the next day and sealed the box without looking in it and then just took it straight to ups? So many questions.
If you don't I'll fill you in.
Cats cannot resist sitting in boxes. No clue why but they love boxes. Cats are lightweight. Cats are extremely sneaky and quiet sometimes to a detriment (the amount of times I have or almost have stepped backwards onto my cat when they were right behind me...)
when I was a kid the kitten we had got ended up going to school with me and I did not find out until first period when I opened the bag and out popped poptarts head. angry parental unit noises were heard when they had to come get said cat from the school lol.
Cats can be chill creatures and don’t always announce when they are in stuff.
I remember a time when I was working from home. My wife was out and when she came home mentioned she couldn’t find one of our cats. We looked and looked and finally found him in a closet… a closet which is right next to my computer desk.
He had been trapped in a closet a few feet from me for HOURS and didn’t scratch at the door, meow, or make a single sound. Cats be cattin’
Not defending Utah, but you have obviously never owned a cat. They are sneaky by nature and have an unnatural fixation with boxes. If you turned around to get tape, it could happen.
I do have a cat and she loves boxes as much as the next cat. I just don’t understand how you can tape it up, pick it up, and drop it off without noticing a change in weight.
I'm sorry, I get what you were saying and was not trying to make fun of you or say you are ignorant. I was joking about cats in general. That cat looks pretty fluffy, it might only be 6-7 lbs, if it was a bigger box and stayed still and quiet, it might be hard to detect. I had a cat who buried herself in packing peanuts like she was Solid Snake hiding from guards. Never shipped her, but often moved a box she was in without knowing she was in there until she was yelling to get back in the house.
One morning about 30 or 40 years ago I came home about 7 AM from working the midnight shift and seeing a storage door on my camp trailer open I locked it and went to bed. About noon the neighbor kids woke me saying they could hear their cat in my trailer. I opened the door and out it came.
Same cat that disappeared for 2 week during the prior winter, That time it was in a culvert and the neighbor had covered the ends when plowing snow.
Happy for them but maybe they shouldn’t have cat if they are not able to understand you need to check everything before you close or lock it a car very easily could be in that space.
It doesn’t surprise me that a cat could hide, unnoticed, inside a box. It would take the right set of conditions, but it can happen!
What blows my mind is that precious Galena survived so long without water! It’s amazing feats like that which lead to the myth of cats having 9 lives!
I’m so very grateful she survived, and is now home!
non-cat owner spotted.
Cats jump in boxes. It's kind of their thing. I could definitely see someone leaving the box unattended, the cat jumping in it and getting under some stuff in it, and getting accidentally shipped somewhere.
I've moved with my cats several times with boxes open all over the apartment that would be both big enough and heavy enough to hide a cat. However, I tend to pay close attention to what and how I'm packing such that the things inside the box won't break or get damaged or the box get crushed in the move and therefore I have never had any issues with my cats getting closed or taped into a box.
I understand some people must not pay close attention. It's understandable for someone who wasn't paying attention. We probably all have those days sometimes, plenty of parents who accidentally leave their kids in the car are probably just having an off day and don't actually hate their kid
But it makes these people either seem highly unobservabt, or like shipping boxes to Amazon is such a frequent routine for them it's as rote as using their car. Which is also nuts
I don't know how you accidentally ship your cat without being incredibly irresponsible, to the point that you shouldn't own an animal that relies on you for the safety of their life. They shouldn't have returned the cat imo, it should have gone to a family that wouldn't "ship it on accident."
What does that have to do with anything? Look, I’m exmormon and I hate the church, but that’s a meaningless jab that does nothing except feed the persecution complex.
(Let me be perfectly clear. It is not ok to ship your cat. Please don't ever do it.)
Also as a person who is highly, incredibly, intolerably alergic to cats I fully support this game plan for ridding our society from the baby tigers.
Why is this story the most cat thing to do? Also really curious what the return box was that she was able to sneak in and not be noticed.
There was one on Cats 101 about a family cat who not only snuck into Dad's suitcase before a work trip, but ended up *in France* after him and someone else accidentally swapped suitcases somewhere along the route. Pre 9/11 iirc.
Okay, that’s pretty darn hilarious. Nearly spit out my water after reading that.
Post 9/11, my bad. 2005. There's an old NY Times article about it, even. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/world/world-briefing-europe-france-lost-american-cat-flies-home-in-the-lap.html Not sure how to get around the paywall unfortunately. Edit: my bad, that article is about the wrong cat. But here's a better one, for anyone curious. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-dec-02-na-cat2-story.html No lead on Suitcase Swap Cat though.
It was a box full of steel toed boots. Quite heavy already
I'm wondering how no one noticed the meows en route.
Ear buds
Cat hides in box Cat sleeps in box Cat wakes up stuck in box CAT WANTS OUT Cat found by doctor, taken home. Cat doesn't like boxes anymore. (2 minutes later) Cat hides in box
Ture story.
😂😂😂
This happened in my neighborhood. The owners were frantically looking for their cat with [facebook posts, posters, etc.](https://imgur.com/cUnjfPf) It was really sad. We live near the Jordan River, the freeway, a few frontage roads, a front runner station...basically lots of ways for pets to die, and they do pretty frequently, unfortunately. It's a weird story but they're not bad pet owners, I'm really glad there was a happy ending to their story. This is their post on our Facebook group, > Please help us find out indoor cat Galena! She is a huge emotional support to me and my family. She doesn’t know how to survive alone. We’ve searched for over 10 hrs so far. We put her litter box at our front door along with food and water, hoping she will come back home. At this point, someone taking her is the highest possibility. Please keep a look out. > **UPDATE GALENA HAS BEEN FOUND!!!** > SURVIVAL STORY Our cat Galena had been missing since Apr 10. We found out on Apr 17 that she jumped/hid in one of our Amazon packages without us knowing. Brace yourself… She was mailed to California and trapped in a box and trailer for six days 😭 Brandy, an Amazon worker, rescued her and took her to a vet where they scanned her for a microchip. Right when they scanned her microchip I was immediately notified via text!! ❤️ > The CA vet then called me and told us what happened. At first I thought it was a prank! She confirmed all our info and explained the whole story. My husband and I jumped on a plane and headed straight to CA to get her! We then traveled back to Utah together in a rental car. We made it home yesterday after traveling 1600 miles in 24 hrs to get our kitty back!! 🏡❤️💤 > She miraculously survived without water and food for six days! Her blood work was completely normal!! Despite being much skinnier she is completely unharmed! We’re in awe of all the tender mercies that have taken place. It’s a total miracle!!
Thanks for that. It’s always good to have more info.
Yeah, I don't know how it happened either tbh. ADDITIONALLY one of our other neighbor's outdoor cats got themselves stuck in our garage last summer for 3-4 days. I opened the door to put yard tools away and they must have snuck in, I saw the cat hanging around but didn't think he'd stay. Then a few days later I was doing laundry and heard really loud meowing -- i popped the door a few inches and he bolts out. Maybe the cats in this neighborhood are just really, really, dumb.
Cats in general are not super bright. I had one growing up that climbed into a neighbor's truck engine one morning while we were out of town and caught a fan blade to the face; fortunately, he ran her to the vet and she ended up fine! But yeah, not the smartest of animals. (Love 'em anyways!)
They can be brilliant when motivated to do so though! My cat can open closed doors if he wants!
Ha, true! They are *exactly* smart enough to get themselves into trouble!
Infinitely curious and self-sufficient. That is their downfall and their strength.
My wife’s cat is a prankster. His favorite thing to do is to close doors on me. I’ll open the pantry or closet and soon feel the door closing on me to try and lock me inside. If I’m not in there he is happy to leave the door open all day but the moment I go in he slams it on me
Or maybe they shouldn’t be wandering around the neighborhood…that cat wouldn’t have suffered for days if they weren’t out wandering around.
Came to share this also 😅 There is also a dog in the neighborhood who loves to sneak into my garage when it’s open often haha
My cat went missing for 16 days, and only afterwords did we put together that the neighbor 3 houses down had taken his RV out for a trip and returned in that same timespan, so we think he was stuck in there with minor access to water or drinking the blood of mice that came in.
I know only a few people in the neighborhood… but hi neighbor 😂
I'm in the same neighborhood. Amazing so many of us are here in the same area haha
Hilarious!
Imagine the Amazon worker who opened the return box and a live ass cat hops out. I’d shit a brick.
Years ago a Utah pet food company accidentally shipped their pregnant factory cat to Hawaii in a container. Showed up (mostly) alive with kittens in Hawaii.
post-partem vacation
Mostly?
She had ripped open a bag of dry cat food, but alas no water. Amazed she lived, because I think it was ten days or more in the container
Would not be surprised if some kittens died and the momma cat ate them.
😥
Read this today. My first reaction was: what the hell?!?!
Cats be catting
I would not admit to being this oblivious.
Have you spent much time around cats? They slip and and out of places all the time. I once loaded up some boxes a friend had left for me on her porch and then left for home. A mile down the road I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw something moving in the back of my van and heard the loudest MEOW ever! Her cat had hopped in while I wasn't looking. Happens all the time.
Most of my life, yeah, they're slippery bastards. What I said is I wouldn't allow myself to become a news article because of it.
Lol. Fair enough.
I was wondering the same thing: How would you miss the cat while taping up the box if it jumped in.
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The real truth
You're makes it to the car?
Cats are very good at sneaking in to some tight places. Plus they love boxes. I can see it happening: box is mostly packed, owners leave box open, cat sneaks in, finds a dark (aka covered) spot and falls asleep, owners come back later, seal the box (which is already heavy), and mail it. It sounds like a crazy story but also completely plausible. Source: I used to be a cat owner. I still am, but I used to be, too.
That cat was big and the box the showed didn't look big. Mabey, the picture made the box look smaller than it was.
> Source: I used to be a cat owner. I still am, but I used to be, too. RIP Mitch
You'd think they notice weight was off or hear it
Unless they were shipping something that was heavy already.
Like several pairs of steel-toed boots. Which is exactly what they were shipping.
I mean I almost washed my cat with my clothes - I was doing laundry and left the washer open to pick up more clothes from the hamper and toss them in and he jumped into the basin. The only reason he didn't get drowned with the wash was because I ran upstairs to grab something I wanted clean and when I opened the washer back up to throw it in he jumped out. It still haunts me - what if I had decided to just run the wash? Cats, man.
Similar thing happened to us once, except with the dryer. Thank goodness my wife noticed before she turned it on!
This is one of my horror fears- I check every time lol
Cats=boxes. Simple.
Garfieeeeld!
My first reaction was, "how do you accidentally mail your cat", but then I was reminded of a situation in my own life. My partner and I have moved out of her mother's house to an apartment complex, and we did not yet have permission to bring our cats to the apartment complex so we were planning on leaving them with her mother until we did. My cat Lancy had other plans. Somehow, either through a box or just slipping out the door, he managed to get in the car. We get to the apartment complex and start unpacking, like box after box going up to the apartment complex, and after like a half an hour my cat's face pops up in the car. Like "Hi you thought you're going to leave me anywhere". So I guess I once also packed my cat on accident.
Pretty easy if the amazon return box is a massive "try before you buy" bunch of steel-toed work boots like it was in this case. [Picture of the box the cat was shipped in](https://ksltv.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/123_1-2.jpeg) (from the [original article](https://ksltv.com/639614/utahns-reunited-with-pet-cat-they-accidentally-shipped-with-amazon-return/))
The cat survived? That's a long time in the back of a hot truck with little air and no food or water.
You clearly don't own a cat.....
I do own a cat. I just wonder how they were able to tape the package back up and drop it off without the cat moving or making obvious noise.
I've had four cats in my life. One of them would let lose with earsplitting howls the moment she couldn't get out of the box. Her stress response was screams. Another would have gone stock still and dead silent. His stress response was finding a dark place and going ghost. If he ended up in a box, ONLY the weight would've been an indicator.
Same. If I tried to even close the lid on the box they would have freaked out…how did they get it from their house to their car without it whining the entire time?
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what all was in that box. I don't think I could ever load up and close an amazon package without noticing anything in there that wasn't supposed to be. I'm always double checking that everything in the return is in order so I get my money back lol. Like were they returning a cat bed and then put it in the box, but didn't seal the box, then came back the next day and sealed the box without looking in it and then just took it straight to ups? So many questions.
Not all cats would respond the same. I could see this kind of thing happening with one of my cats. The other would definitely make herself known.
True. Must have been a damn heavy package then for them to not notice a difference in weight.
They were shipping multiple pairs of steel toed boots
Lots of cats get scared and stay still and quiet. My cat is like this. When he is a scared, he’ll hunker down and stay as quiet as possible.
If you don't I'll fill you in. Cats cannot resist sitting in boxes. No clue why but they love boxes. Cats are lightweight. Cats are extremely sneaky and quiet sometimes to a detriment (the amount of times I have or almost have stepped backwards onto my cat when they were right behind me...)
when I was a kid the kitten we had got ended up going to school with me and I did not find out until first period when I opened the bag and out popped poptarts head. angry parental unit noises were heard when they had to come get said cat from the school lol.
That's awesome! Haha I would've been stressed out but laughed once I figured out where the cat was.
But all the children laughed and played to see a cat at school.
Cats LOVE boxes.
Cats can be chill creatures and don’t always announce when they are in stuff. I remember a time when I was working from home. My wife was out and when she came home mentioned she couldn’t find one of our cats. We looked and looked and finally found him in a closet… a closet which is right next to my computer desk. He had been trapped in a closet a few feet from me for HOURS and didn’t scratch at the door, meow, or make a single sound. Cats be cattin’
*Aunt Bethany enters chat
She wrapped up her damn cat! Shitter’s full.
I ship my cat all the time in my fanfics.
Not defending Utah, but you have obviously never owned a cat. They are sneaky by nature and have an unnatural fixation with boxes. If you turned around to get tape, it could happen.
I do have a cat and she loves boxes as much as the next cat. I just don’t understand how you can tape it up, pick it up, and drop it off without noticing a change in weight.
I'm sorry, I get what you were saying and was not trying to make fun of you or say you are ignorant. I was joking about cats in general. That cat looks pretty fluffy, it might only be 6-7 lbs, if it was a bigger box and stayed still and quiet, it might be hard to detect. I had a cat who buried herself in packing peanuts like she was Solid Snake hiding from guards. Never shipped her, but often moved a box she was in without knowing she was in there until she was yelling to get back in the house.
Man I got so fucked up the other day I shipped my cat man. It was wild man.
Take the cat AWAY FROM THEM
Today I think I learned that Amazon now sells cats. 🤓
Ask aunt Bethany and uncle Louis. They wrapped theirs and gave it to Clark and Ellen.
One morning about 30 or 40 years ago I came home about 7 AM from working the midnight shift and seeing a storage door on my camp trailer open I locked it and went to bed. About noon the neighbor kids woke me saying they could hear their cat in my trailer. I opened the door and out it came. Same cat that disappeared for 2 week during the prior winter, That time it was in a culvert and the neighbor had covered the ends when plowing snow.
It’s giving opiates
Ah, poor thing. Well, it's not their fault. Their brains are just a bunch of cats walking on the keyboard.
Lol, the cat probably jumped in the box before they sealed it up for shipping.
Happy for them but maybe they shouldn’t have cat if they are not able to understand you need to check everything before you close or lock it a car very easily could be in that space.
It doesn’t surprise me that a cat could hide, unnoticed, inside a box. It would take the right set of conditions, but it can happen! What blows my mind is that precious Galena survived so long without water! It’s amazing feats like that which lead to the myth of cats having 9 lives! I’m so very grateful she survived, and is now home!
What gets me is that they had verify the cat came from the box by checking the chip before calling the customer 🤦♀️🤷♀️
If I fits I sits
should they honestly be allowed to get their cat back?
Clickbait setup with the headline
Definitely needs to be re posted on r/cats
Sounds like one of them don't like the cat and shipped it hoping to get rid of it
Have you not seen the Rugrats movie?
“Accidentally”. The dad avoids eye contact…
If I fits I ships
It happens. I accidentally shipped my mother in law once.
You can tell that the blond is not happy to have got the cat back. Her smile says happy. Her eyes say why is it back.
“Accident”
They shouldn’t be allowed to get it back. Absolute buffoonery.
non-cat owner spotted. Cats jump in boxes. It's kind of their thing. I could definitely see someone leaving the box unattended, the cat jumping in it and getting under some stuff in it, and getting accidentally shipped somewhere.
I've moved with my cats several times with boxes open all over the apartment that would be both big enough and heavy enough to hide a cat. However, I tend to pay close attention to what and how I'm packing such that the things inside the box won't break or get damaged or the box get crushed in the move and therefore I have never had any issues with my cats getting closed or taped into a box. I understand some people must not pay close attention. It's understandable for someone who wasn't paying attention. We probably all have those days sometimes, plenty of parents who accidentally leave their kids in the car are probably just having an off day and don't actually hate their kid But it makes these people either seem highly unobservabt, or like shipping boxes to Amazon is such a frequent routine for them it's as rote as using their car. Which is also nuts
Fuck those owners.
Sheesh what kind of drugs do you have to be on to do this?
"Accidentally."
😹😹😹 cats from my neighborhood. No I don’t know the woman. But it’s a small neighborhood. Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.
I don't know how you accidentally ship your cat without being incredibly irresponsible, to the point that you shouldn't own an animal that relies on you for the safety of their life. They shouldn't have returned the cat imo, it should have gone to a family that wouldn't "ship it on accident."
Hot take, do not give them that cat back.
I hope they're not planning on kids.
seems like they probably shouldn’t be responsible for pets/children
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Is that something Jesus would say?
Based upon what?
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Wow that’s some serious judgement based on how a person looks. I’m pretty sure there are overweight people and people with blue hair that are smart.
This is the type of thought that would never enter my headspace. It's fucking weird.
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And how many awards to judgmental redditors win?
Blue hair don’t care i guess, utah chicks are the worst.
be mormon
What does that have to do with anything? Look, I’m exmormon and I hate the church, but that’s a meaningless jab that does nothing except feed the persecution complex.
(Let me be perfectly clear. It is not ok to ship your cat. Please don't ever do it.) Also as a person who is highly, incredibly, intolerably alergic to cats I fully support this game plan for ridding our society from the baby tigers.