I board my cat for a week or two , once a year. (for vacation travel)
And I use blunt words…I don’t call it “boarding” at the “kennel”.
I call it what it is : Putting the cat in jail.
I don’t like it. The cat doesn’t like it.
But it is necessary, and the cat gets over it pretty easily.
She stays mad at me for a full day when I bring her home, but then she forgets all about it.
The first day at the kennel she hides under the blanket and doesn’t eat. The second day, she hides, hisses at the staff, but eats. The rest of the time, she finds a routine…she gradually comes out from under the blanket, stops hissing, and sits quietly.( The kennel doesn’t have cages…each cat has a private room. The room has a plastic armchair with a cushion, a rug with a blanket below the chair, a wooden cat tree, and is big enough for two or three people to stand inside. So it’s a cat-sized jail cell, but at least it’s not a cage)
You are under a lot of stress for the next couple weeks. So are the cats.
Moving furniture (or large boxes) is traumatic for cats.
Put them in jail for two weeks, and it may be easier for all of you.
Also, before you bring them home from the boarding place, make sure your new apt is in its final configuration. The cats should arrive in a new home which is stable and unchanging, so they can create their new daily routine.in a calm, stable environment. Make sure that all the furniture is in position, and will not be moved again , no big boxes which you will be dragging around for the next couple days, making the whole world look different (and scary) to the cats every day
If your new home isn’t yet stable, leave the cats at the boarding place for an extra day, while you finish unpacking and arranging everything.
I agree that we’re all stressed. Everything is still in place. The disruption is more in the nature of spring cleaning. There won’t be any boxes until 9:00 am on Sept 5. By that time the cats will be out of the house, either that morning or earlier (per your ideas). The packers pack everything. The next day they move all the furniture to the new place and put it where I have it on the floor plan above. They bring the boxes, unpack them all, and put everything away. Then they take away the boxes.
It sounds impossible, but this is exactly what happened when I moved to this 1,000 sq ft house from the country-- 2,200 sq ft house. At the end of move-in day, everything was put away, no boxes left, pictures hung-- it was a bit disorienting. Like when you get on an airplane in a sunny, tropical climate, sit strapped inside a big metal can for several hours, and then get out into a snowstorm without any physical sensation of having traveled.
That’s what these moving companies do. It’s miraculous. And not cheap. But worth it.
Lovely home lovely floor plan, Craftsmen they don’t build them like that anymore. As long as there’s light I don’t mind walls and hall’s. Woodwork and built ins? Please house gods preserve it from a massive remodel to an open floor plan. Will the list price be a shocker? Sounds like prime real estate.
Keep those cats on a tight leash before the move! Escape artists!
Right now it’s appraised at $354,000. Four years ago, it was $223,000. This isn’t San Diego or Long Island. IMHO those prices are ridiculously high for this area. Not my problem.
If necessary to keep cat out of a room you can always take the nuclear option.
Once when Lucy decided she was absolutely not going into her carrier (and thus to the vet) she went into a room and I could not find her. (As it turns out, I couldn’t have reached her even if I knew she was behind the desk on top of the UPS.)
So I gave her warning then put the vacuum cleaner in the room, turned it on and closed the door. Five minutes later when i carefully opened the door, she admitted defeat and went with only a perfunctory fight into her carrier.
It only can deprive you of sleep because you elect to give it the opportunity.
Where cats, and children, win is by getting you to take 90% of your powers of persuasion and coercion off the table before you begin. Bring that excluded power to bear and the terms of the exchange are very, very different. And much more favorable to your interests.
Alternately, they do so by being a mommy’s cat, who is a soft touch, and prevents me from using my powers as listed above. I could and would win against the cats, but not against my wife.
Me: -locks cat in downstairs bathroom with small litter box, water, and snacks-
Cat: -Yowls like the world is coming to an end, for over an hour of duration, at least one yowl every other minute-
Cat-Mom: “He’s so unhappy. It’s okay, he doesn’t understand why you’re doing this!”
Me: “That’s true, but he can be trained. And he has everything he needs!”
Cat-Mom: “It’s okay, let him out, he’ll calm down.”
Me: “Fine, but remember, after midnight, he’s -your- cat.”
-proceeds to let the cat in and out of the bedroom (because he’ll yowl outside the door as if a thousand damned souls were ripping out his entrails otherwise) until cat finally calms down around 10:30pm. Falls asleep-
Cat: -2am hits, and cat is now ready to Plaaaaaay, starts making claw filled biscuits on Cat-Mom-
Me: -finally in deep sleep, stays asleep-
Cat-Mom: -attempts to soothe cat, hug cat, get cat to go back to sleep. After 20 minutes of disruption, chases cat down in the dark bedroom and finally locks unrepentant feline fury in same downstairs bathroom- Goes back to sleep.
Yes, exactly like that, except turn the video playback speed to 2x, and the volume to 250%. Then it’s perfect, except the parts where I let Cat-Mommy take care of half the issues.
For the record, he’s a spunky little purebred Bengal we got for a substantial adoption fee when his prior owner moved out of state. And they are notoriously active, affectionate, and LOUD.
Lots of this, same breed, although not my video of course.
What a freaking ordeal! I stood at the back door with it kittie-width open between 1 and 4 am waiting to see if she would come in, so I could close it behind her. She came close – sitting within two feet of the door for 20 minutes at a time, then turning and walking away. I went back to bed eventually and closed the door, due to possums in the yard that have no hesitation about coming in. When I got up again at 7 am, I opened the door and left it open (no possums in the day time). Just now I caught a glimpse of her inside the house out of the corner of my eye and ran to shut the back door. She will likely go into my closet (which I have left untouched), her familiar hidey-hole.
She’s already unhappy. But she’s not going out again. I’m an old hand at keeping kitties in. And this house, with all of its doors and rooms, will make that easy for me. No one else comes into my house except me.
Love it! All’s fair in love and kitty carriers!
