Christmas Travel Dilemma

Okay... it's come down to this. A dilemma for our holiday travel plans -- What to do with Money Bags (the cat)? When we got Money Bags, we decided to get a cat because they are easy to leave alone when you go out of town. However, our extremely social cat loves to ride in the car and go on trips with us. So... for the past 3 years, we have taken him with us. This year, my mom's house has turned into a zoo and Money Bags, being the big dominant male cat is not wanted for fear that he might eat the other cats. Shocking, I know...

No -- to be fair to my mom... she has the two dogs, Kali (Money Bags sister), a new cat Squeaky (who is very petite), and then Ruthie will bring her cat LuLu along. So it really is a zoo. And Money Bags does think he is in charge when he comes. The other part to the dilemma is that we are first going to stay with Tony's family. As I posted earlier, his mom's dog was beat by intruders a couple weeks ago. So I'm not sure what the dog would think of us bringing $bags to his house. Honestly, I'm kind of afraid Tido might eat Money Bags. And my mom said we could bring him, as long as we took him with us to Laura's and didn't just drop him off at her house for the full week.

So... here are our options:

1) Provided my neighbors are going to be in town and willing: Leave $bags at the house and have the neighbors feed him.

2) Board him at Petropolis for $10.50 per night. I would do this in a heartbeat, however, the new cat suites are all reserved. So he would have to go in the old one and it is 2.5 cubic ft. Kind of a tight space for a guy who is used to running the house.

3) Threaten Tony's mom that we won't bring Kaiya unless we can bring Money Bags, and then keep him contained in her basement away from Tido while we are there. And then once we go to my mom's house keep him contained there.

4) Convince my mom to keep him contained in one of her basement rooms while we are at Laura's.

So much thought for the beloved cat. :) I'm sure Tony will have something smart to say in response to this long post about "the cat." But I don't care. I love him...Money Bags, that is...