Need advice – complicated house move with cats

[TMarieClara]

OK, I desperately need help working out what the best thing to do for my two 7yo cats is. We are expecting to complete on the sale of our house (in the South East) in 3 weeks, but we can't move into our onward (in the South West) until September. For childcare reasons, we are have decided to rent an airbnb near our current house and move at the end of August, but we can't take our cats with us as the only place we could find isn't pet friendly.

Ultimately, where we're moving is a small annex on a family farm, so our current plan is for our two lovely cats to go on ahead of us and move in with my in-laws. The tricky thing is they have dogs, and I'm worried that will add stress to an already stressful experience. We're thinking they'd initially be contained in one of the bedrooms the dogs rarely go in, and then after a few weeks in, they'd be introduced to the outside, and they can access the bedroom still from a window. When we get there in September they can then move next door with us.

Is this an OK plan? Can anyone think of anything better? I hate the idea of cateries. The other thing we looked into was having our catsitter, who they know well, host them until we move down, but again they'd be shut in and it seems not ideal to add another place into the mix.

Any good experiences moving pets I'd also love to hear them!

Can a cattery be put over the window for when they move so they aren’t just confined? I’d be worried that the lack of human contact, as well as being confined, plus the smell of strange dogs would be very stressful.

At least with a catio they would have outside and not be so bored so less stressed as more occupied I mean.

Thanks @CheckEngineLight – I'm also really worried about them being stressed. Although, I'm not sure there's an alternative to the confinement, as everything I've read says you have to keep them indoors after a move for the first few weeks.

My parents have done similar as their house isn't ready till November. They've moved in with my sister and her husband who claims to be allergic to cats. (Not convinced as his mum hates cats) he's sleeping in my sisters utility and they are building a Catio for him to get fresh air.