It's on!

Just arranged for all 10 barmies to be picked up around 9.30am next Monday. They will go straight to the Ministry Vet to get their health certificates and then on to the kennels, where they'll stay for about 12 hours, then it's off to the airport. Not quite sure how Louis and Roxy are going to take to being shoved into their boxes in a van with a load of cats. It's going to be traumatic for everyone, to say the least. Karina at DKC has been awesome, not only assured us that everything will be okay but was convincing enough that we believed her! The only thing now is that we may have to split the air waybill into two to avoid some outrageous vet check fees in Amsterdam when they're not even entering the European Union. If they can't avoid it, they are talking about changing the flights to another airline. Trying not to even think about that until it becomes a reality.

Meantime, we have started them all on herbal relaxants prescribed by our friendly homeopathic vet, Hilke. Managed to pill all 10 of them in less than 10 minutes this morning. Let's see how easy it is tomorrow, now that they're wise to the fact. The pills are quite big, and smell vile, so it's a straight down the neck job. The cats just love that! Loulou has got an abcess in her mouth, so is on antibiotics too. She seems a bit subdued. They can all sense that something's going on, but we're keeping it as normal as possible to try to minimise everyone's stress.

At the other end, our cat enclosure is ready, but the dog run will not be ready till a week after we arrive. That'll be straight out onto the hiking trails and into the dog parks then. So watch out canines of LA!