Indiana Couple Takes Their Cats Camping and It Goes Surprising Well

This time of the year, it doesn't take too much scrolling on social media before you will see pictures of friends camping. I know several families that go camping on a pretty regular basis, and I'd be lying if I said I was NOT just a little bit jealous of them. The pictures usually share a lot of the same elements - you will most likely see their RV/camper, a campfire and/or grill, maybe some bicycles or other outdoor activities, and usually a dog. What I almost never see is a cat, at least not a domesticated cat - but I think that trend might be changing.

I was recently spending (wasting) some time on Facebook, scrolling through some of the groups that I am a part of, and that's when a rather strange picture on the Indiana State Park Camping page caught my eye - it was a picture of a man walking a cat on a leash. The picture was shared by Patti Andrews and featured a 6-month-old cat named FRED. Patti tells me that they recently rescued Fred off the streets and that this was his first camping trip and his first time on a leash/lead.

Why Take a Cat Camping?

I get the impression that dogs love going camping, at least, they sure look happy in every picture and video I see. Have you ever wondered if cats actually enjoy camping with their owners? Patti told me about her other cat, BUD, who was a feral cat before learning to become a house cat. She says they started taking BUD camping within the first year of getting him, and now he loves it. And is there a benefit to having a cat on your camping trip versus having a dog? Patti's number one answer is that BUD doesn't bark. Haha! And he is self-sustained. They can run into town and not worry about leaving him - that may not always be the case with a pooch.

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It didn't take too much scrolling through the comments to find several other pictures of cats on leashes, shared by other campers in the group. So, taking your cat camping is either becoming a more popular thing, or it's already been happening and I just need to get out more. It's probably the latter.