If you’re moving and have all your organization ready, with your binders of important documents and boxes of moving day essentials, it’s time to get organized for your pets on the big day. For animals, moving house can be stressful and confusing. It’s important to plan the day for them too to keep them safe and as stress free as possible.
Before Moving Day
If you can, find somewhere else for your pet to go on moving day. See if a friend or family member can take care of them for the day. Or you can send them to a pet sitter. If they’re out of the way of the noise and busyness of moving day, they’re far less likely to upset, injured or lost during the chaos.
If you have to keep them with you, warn your moving company in advance that you have pets in the house. This way, the movers will know for sure if a particular door should be kept shut to stop the cat getting out or if your dog is stressed out by strangers.
Make sure you update your pets’ ID tags or microchip with new address and contact information. Many pets, especially cats, have a tendency to try to return to their old home. If their microchip is up to date, they can be returned to you if they turn up at the old house.
Before you move, find a new vet near your new home and register your pets. If one of them is ill or injured shortly after moving, you don’t want to be finding a nearby vet in a panic.
On Moving Day
You should have packed a box of essentials for you and the children for moving day of things you don’t want to go into the moving. Pack up a similar box for the pets to keep with you or to send with them to wherever they will be for the day. Pack their food dishes, their food, bed and some favorite toys. Something familiar with help them to feel calm and means you won’t be desperately searching for their food when you arrive at the new house.
Try to keep their routine as normal as you can on moving day, and stay with them to help them to stay calm and out of the way of the movers.
After Moving Day
A new home can be confusing at first for an animal. Make sure their routine is normal, and put their things where they can find them easily to help them settle in.
Cats should be kept in for the first few weeks until they understand that they now live in the new house, and not the old one. When you do let them out, send them out hungry so they can be tempted back for dinner.
Moving house with a pet can be challenging, but by getting organised in advance, you can make it less stressful for the human and furry members of the family.
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