Advice on moving house wih nervous 4 year old cat

Plek Trum

Hello guys,

I haven't been in here for a while so a quick hello to everybody

My partner and I are moving house in the next week or so (about 8 miles away) Our cat is a very timid, nervous and shy cat and gets distressed with change. Packing up the house over the last few weeks has her quite confused!

She associates the car with the vets only which she hates. We have decided not to wash any of her toys or bedding before the move so she has a familiar scent when we get there.

We were thinking of bringing her to house over the weekend (we have the keys) and keeping her in the cat carrier for a few hours while we clean and unpack a few things. Get her used to the smells etc.

We are delaying moving in too until a Friday so we can be there with her for a full weekend before we return to work on the Monday too, help her settle in.
We were told not to leave her outside for a month (?) in case she tries to make her way back to the old house also (seems long period of time!)

Has anyone any advice or experience to help make this as stress free as possible for her?

We used Feliway before when she was anxious, worth putting a new one in the new house? She is prone to scenting when upset so we don't want to give her free access to all the rooms in the new house, maybe utility room, large kitchen diner (both tiled) would do her for a few weeks?

Opinions and advice welcome, many thanks!

Pumpkinseeds

I wouldn't move her before you actually move in permanently. Put a Feliway in at least a few days before you move in. I'd leave moving her until everything else is moved in and sorted, that way she can explore everything where it's going to be. You're right not to wash her things, scent is so important to them.

As for scenting, we use Fizzion for spraying soft furnishings and carpet and bio washing powder/liquid for wiping down hard surfaces, it does the trick and stops them scenting the same places over and over. A lot of people find confining a cat to 1 room for a bit is good, then again I know people who let their cats have the run of the house when they move in and that works too.

I wouldn't let the cat out for at least a week, maybe longer. I think it often depends on the cats nature. If she isn't microchipped I'd highly recommend getting it done. Collars can be lost the microchip can't be and it's only about 15/20 euro, for huge peace of mind. Good luck with it:)

Almost forgot, there's non addictive natural calming pills for cats that worked very well with ours. It's called Zylkene, it's available from vets and from Vet UK and Vio vet too. We are using Royal Canin Calm, dry food at the moment with our 4, one of our cats was doing a lot of spraying due to stress and he's almost totally stopped now.

TG1

We moved our cat from Dublin to Cork years ago, and kept him in afterwards for a full month. We then kept him in for another month but took him out on a lead and harness (Well, at the time it was a long piece of washing line my dad made into a harness, but you can buy harnesses now!!) about 4 times a day (he initially hated this, just rolled over and attacked it, but after a few days he got over that), then began to let him out but always left a window open so he could come in for another two months.

It seems extreme but he was a nervous little guy, and we just worried that he would panic seeing the new environment, especially as he had moved from flat Dublin suburbs to miles up a hill looking over Cork! Before we had moved he was an outside cat, sleeping in our utility room and coming and going as he pleased, but he adjusted really really quickly to being kept in, it didn't really stress him at all.

We did everything you're saying, kept his old unwashed bedding etc. and I think that was a huge part of easing the transition.

The journey with him was hellish though, and an experience no-one in the family wants to repeat so maybe rethink doing that twice to your little one, even if its a shorter journey!

Plek Trum

Thanks for that Pumpkinseeds, will certainly take it all on board and get ordering a few feliways too.

Will get a quote from the vet for microchipping too - even though we live in a rural area and there's only 2 vets (should be easy to locate her if she was found and handed in) its great piece of mind to do it! Appreciate the advice, thanks.

anthonymax

My cat is also a nervous wreck and gets stressed out really easily, I was so worried about moving her, even more than the children really. I was advised similar to all the above advice especially the not washing of the bed etc. Turned out fine actually, she was anxious the first couple of days and stayed close to her bed, she weed on the floor the first day so I was panicking but after five days or so everything was fine. Good luck!