I'm moving...what do I do with my cats?

I guess I have to move my cats (two of them) as well but I’m interested if there is a better and worse way to go about this?

Do I move them early to the new place and leave them alone in an empty apartment? Do I leave them in my place freaking while movers trudge around and take them last? Something in between?

FYI: One of the cats is a freak and spazzes easily. The other one has a much more mild tempermant.

Any ideas?

Move them last, after the movers have gone.

When you introduce them to the new house, show them the litterbox first*.

They will hide for the the first few days, maybe longer. Let them. They’ll come out and explore slowly at first, then for longer periods, and eventually they’ll get over it and forget about the old place.

But do let them hide: don’t pull them out from under the bed and force them to submit to petting. They’ll find you when they’re ready.

Leave the cats in a small room that has all the stuff moved out of it already, like the bathroom or a bedroom. Then move them over to the new place when the movers are done running in and out.

Don’t make a big deal of it, cats are pretty tough. Even the scaredy ones, like mine :slight_smile: Just a little common sense (something I usually lack :wink: …) goes a long ways.

Good luck!

Eric

sack. rocks. lake.
combine them with cat as you see fit.

Move them last, after the movers have gone.

When you introduce them to the new house, show them the litterbox first.

They will hide for the the first few days, maybe longer. Let them. They’ll come out and explore slowly at first, then for longer periods, and eventually they’ll get over it and forget about the old place.

But do let them hide: don’t pull them out from under the bed and force them to submit to petting. They’ll find you when they’re ready.

My moved three times before I graduated high school, all three times we had a dog and two cats. Combine lissener & bernse’s suggestions and you shouldn’t have a problem.

I really should pay attention more when I edit. “We moved…”

Oh thank goodness. when I saw the thread title I thought you were one of those folks who would get a cat, decide or need to move and “new place won’t accept cats, so where do I dump it?”

I’ve moved my kitties several times, and agree with the folks who recommend moving them last, so that the new place, while it WILL have new place smells, will have familiar things.

One of the times I moved, my kitty was REALLY upset, cried all night the first night, then the next morning, she, as usual, joined me in the bathroom and watched me pee, and suddenly, apparently, everything was ok again to her. Familiar routines, you see…

And if you need space while moving, just put them in a box with some radioactive stuff and you’ll have half as many cats while they’re in there.


this is not a .sig. It’s just a series of underscores with more text underneath it.

Tie their tales together and sling them over the rear view mirror. Ta da! Instant live action fighting fuzzy dice!

I guess dropping them off at the local chinese restaurant isn’t an option? They’ll watch 'em for free. Maybe even give you a free meal.

You can try an herbal tranquilizer for the “Spazz”, might make it easier on everyone.

The first time we moved with our cat he was locked in the bathroom while the doors were propped open so he couldn’t escape. Then we put him in his carrier and took him to the new house and shut him in his new room while we moved things in. Yeah, my cat had his own room. So?

Then when we moved from there, we had movers. We also had a 2 year old toddler. The toddler, the cat, and I took off for the new house before the movers came. This way, the cat and the toddler only had to deal with showing up in an empty house and waiting for “our stuff” to get there. I think it would have been torture for both of them to watch strangers packing up our belongings.

Then when we moved here, we didn’t have that luxury because we moved all the way across the state, practically. Let’s see, I think we locked him in the powder room again while the doors were propped open. Then he sat in his carrier under our porch while we closed on that house. Then my husband took the cat in his carrier and the two dogs and the then 4yo in his truck and dropped the animals off at a vet near our new house which we didn’t own yet. I had a carful and a 3 month old in my car. They stayed 2 nights if I remember right. One for the day we closed/traveled and one for the day we closed/moved in. The vet in the old town offered tranquilizers for the cat, but said that usually the tranquilizer is more stressful than the move.

I say, show him where is food/water is, then the cat box and then (as long as you don’t need to have them locked in the powder room) just let them roam where they want. And even if they come out, don’t think it’s to see you necessarily. OH, yeah, and take their food away the night before so they don’t get car sick. (Vets’ recommendation)

My cat smells everything for days after we move. He did the same thing when he came to live with us, come to think of it. He was a year old and had been living on a farm in the barn before coming to our house. Maybe my big guy thinks anyplace is preferable to horse shit, although I think he misses the mice.

I’ll second the idea of moving them last and keeping them in a small room with a litterbox for a while. Gradually give them more space. And be prepared for them to freak out for a while - when I moved my boys insisted on walking around all night meowing for a straight week. If I got up to see what they were trying to tell me, they shut up, but as soon as I went back to bed they’d start up again.

I have been told that the big worry when moving a cat is that the first time you let it outside (assuming it is an “outside cat”) it will head for the old home. To prevent this after our recent 10,000 mile move, we put a litterbox in a bathroom and kept the cat in the house for several days and then took him on walks around the house during the day before letting him out on his own. He’s still around.

Adding to that, I believe that it is HIGHLY recommended to not let them out of the house for about 2 or 3 weeks, so they come to accept the new place as home. If they go out before this, they can still be looking for their old home, and get confused. They need to associate with their new home before it leaves their sight.

From which word do you get the word ‘Spazzes’?
When you’ve thought about it, perhaps you could stop using it, and insulting people with Cerebral Palsy

From The American Heritage Dictionary:

spasm n. 1. A sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle or group of muscles. 2. Any sudden burst of energy, activity, or emotion. [Middle English spasme, from Old French, from Latin spasmus, from Greek spasmos, from ::Proto Indo-European:: span to draw, pull.]

Shades of niggardly.

Shades of… love it! Just a little sensitive as most people root it from Spastic and do you really think the cat suffers from spasms? As Brad Paisley might say “Me neither”

I’ve moved our kitties twice, and I would go with moving the cats last. One word of caution, though, make sure the room you lock them in is absolutely secure, or put them in their carriers (my preference, actually).

It only takes about a quarter of a nano-second for someone to accidentally open a door and for a freaked out cat to dash away, never to be seen again.