Moving is a time of stress and worry for many people since on the one hand there is the excitement of going to a new home, but on the other hand, facing moving everything and packing it is endless tasks.
If you add a cat to this moving, it can become an even more stressful time.
Cats and movings are not a good match. Cats are territorial animals that like to mark all their furniture and objects, so getting to a new place with new smells and rooms can be a difficult time for our cat.
How can we prepare a cat for a moving?
It is important to note that, as we have said in previous blogs on how to prepare a cat for vacation or arrival home, there are certain guidelines to follow to avoid stress on our pet.
Before the moving:
The days before the moving it is good to prepare our kitten for the imminent change that is coming. In this sense, it is important to maintain the routines that we have with the cat, even if we have a thousand boxes ahead to do.
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Play with the boxes
Although it seems silly, cats love boxes, they are like a den specially made for them. For this reason, if you leave him one or two boxes for his own recreation and fun, he will not relate seeing the house upside down and packed as something bad.
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Get used to the carrier
If your cat has never left the house or used the carrier, it is good that we prepare him for that moment.
Leave the carrier at his fingertips, smell it, get in and out as much as he wants and even take it for a ride so that he knows that there is an outside world.
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Relax
If you and your family are stressed by the moving, this nervousness will inevitably spread to the cat. Be carefree and calm as much as possible since cats very easily notice the mood of their family.
During the moving:
It is important to leave the cat in a neutral zone, what does this mean? If we provide your cat with a room where he can be during the move, he will avoid stress or confusion.
Ideally, we should leave the cat with all its things in a separate room where no one from outside the family enters. The last one to leave the house during a move is the cat.
When we get to the new home:
As we have said in previous blogs, we must let the cat explore by itself and not force it to do things that it does not want.
Just as he must be the last to leave the previous home, in this case he must be one of the first to arrive at the new house and explore it.
The ideal is to leave the cat with the carrier open and let him decide when to go out and what to visit. In case he gets scared and want to go back to his safe place, we must leave him.
If you see that he is calm you can leave him explore the whole house, otherwise it is good to enable a room for the cat and leave it as his trusted place for the first days until he is encouraged to go out. Obviously, while the move is taking place, we should not let the cat walk at will to avoid accidents.
It is important that before the cat explores, we make sure that it is a safe place for the feline, controlling the possible escape routes that it may have and places to climb that are not safe.
If you let your cat go outside you must take into account that days before the move it is advisable not to leave him, in case he has noticed something strange and decides not to return in a couple of days. On the other hand, take care in the new home and the exits to the outside.
To sum up, once you have taken all these tips into account, you must establish the new spaces for the cat in the new home, such as the place for the litter box, feeder, bed and more.
Always as much as possible keep the same routines in one house as in the other.
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