We’re in. Waited until all the furniture was in place and all the empty boxes removed before moving MIckey. Lucky my hands aren’t scratched to ribbons, had some trouble getting him into the carrier. I put food beside it and he was starting to eat so went for it. It’s a top loader, but the problem is that the lid falls down with the slightest touch. So that happend when I picked him up. Had to hold him with one hand while lifting the lid with the other and forcing him down in. Luckily his claws went to the side of the carrier and not my hands
Less than a 10 minute ride to this new place. Brought him into the bedroom which right now is empty except for an air mattress, and closed the door. Set him down facing it while I lied down on it for a few minutes. Opened the door but he wanted to stay inside, so I went out into the living room. In about 10 minutes he was low walking around the bedroom, getting as low to the ground as he could. But in a cautious way, not panicked.
10 minutes later he was doing the same in the living room. Now he he is sitting on the floor beside the couch. In another 10 minutes he’ll probably be on the couch with me.
– but he wanted all those empty boxes! They would have been filled up with Cat!
Sounds like he’s adapting quite well and quite fast to this new place. (And he’s probably relieved that this one doesn’t include the Terrible Basement.)
Concur that an empty box or two will make kitty feel more secure - gives 'em a second “hidey hole” (even if they’re ridiculously oversized for it) and prompts more of a settled-in feeling.
We moved across country (2000+ miles) about 5 years ago in two cars, with two cats, a teenager and a dog, during high summer. The dog and kid were OK, as was one of our cats, who is pretty chill about everything. But not our tomcat, who tends to get freaked out by pretty much everything and generally hates driving, hates moving, hates guests, etc.
We used “feliway” spray on his cat carrier and reapplied it during the evenings when we stopped at motels. This stuff contains some kind of chemical, it might be a pheromone, that helps the cat feel good about the object it’s sprayed on. We think it helped: It minimized his vocalizations of protest and distress and he never used the pet carrier as his litter box.
What he did do: Every night he would, at about 3AM, wake us all up with loud protest noises. Fortunately, that’s about as bad as it got. To remedy this, we would also spray around the motel room to help calm him down.
I think feliway is available OTC, if not, your vet should be able to help you get some.
Feliway is over the counter-Chewy or Petco on-line, as well as readily available at PetsMart and PetCo stores.
It is indeed a pheromone and diffused in the cat’s environment it reduces stress, anxiety, etc., even moderates competition or crankiness between cats in the same household.
I used it as nightlight type diffusers plugged into an outlet.
Yeah…it took my tomcat literally years (it seems) to recover from the move. He’s pretty happy with the new house, but still hides from strangers. He even hides from & hisses at the teenager.
Moving out of the old house, the tomcat had been losing his traditional hiding spots one by one (boxes, furniture etc.) until, at the very end, he was the last thing to be moved from the house.
First I found him, in the basement but up in the ceiling, stuffed behind a metal plate that helped form a heating duct. I dragged him out…his claws were grasping the ceiling beams…and stuffed him into his feliway-scented crate. Carried him out to my car, took a look around, said goodbye to our home of 20 years, and…started our drive out east. Memories of the cat’s behavior are forever welded to my memories of moving out of that special house (first one I bought, where I raised my baby boy, etc.).
Last time I moved, the cats spent the day on which nearly everything disappeared from the house shut up in one room with a sleeping pad, some familiar bedding, and some other things that would fit in my car and which I now don’t remember though probably including all the cat carriers (and, most likely, with a large note on the outside of the room saying DO NOT OPEN THIS DOOR.)
I came back to the old house and spent one more night there, sleeping on the sleeping pad, surrounded by cats; then moved the cats in my car the next day, into a house already full of their familiar furniture etc.
Had to stop once enroute to try to calm down one extremely worked-up cat because it was so hot (and the early-80’s car had no air conditioning) that I was afraid he’d give himself heatstroke. Put them all in my new bedroom and shut them in there; though one managed to disappear in there so thoroughly that I thought for a while he might have escaped (he was under a dresser that was so low to the ground I didn’t think a cat could fit under it.) Two others were under the bed. The fourth cat was on top of the bed, looking regal.
He is doing fine in the new place, but lately has taken to crawling under the blanket on the bed and sleeping all day, usually from about 1 when I usually get up to 8 or 9. So I stole from Monty Python’s The Lumberjack Song to write this little ditty-
He is Mickey and he’s ok
He’s up all night and he sleeps all day
He plays with toys, he eats his food
He goes to the litter box
On Wednesdays he gets treated
With tuna fish and lox
He licks my hand, sits on my lap
He curls up in a ball
He wants to be a doggy
Comes to me when I call
He is Mickey and he’s OK
He’s up all night and he sleeps all day
Lox! That is one well-treated cat! I haven’t had lox myself in ages.
Cats who want to snooze inside most of the day and then wake up and want to go out just when I’m going to shut them all in for the night – those, I have got. Cats are rather crepuscular, if given the chance.
I can’t believe what just happened. I coaked Mickey into coming out on the deck with me, albeit for just a minute. My timid cat, who we rescued years ago, and who until now would not come within 10 feet of the door when it was open, ventured out. For his whole life, even when we had a house in Rhode Island with a big yard, he never showed any interest in the outside. He never even got up in the window to look out. But he screwed up his courage tonight and went out.