Any tips for moving house with a cat please?

[FlatShoesOnly]

We will be moving house next year for the first time since getting our cat. I’m concerned about the journey and also looking for any tips or experience about introducing a cat to a new house please.

Journey will be 4-5 hours drive. He barely copes with 15 mins to the vets at the moment - miaows himself hoarse and seems entirely distraught at being in his carrier. Is there anything we can do to make it easier - will vets prescribe a light sedative? It’s hard to make his carrier cosy as we have to pour him into it whilst standing it on its end, so any blankets just end up at one end rather than along the floor.

Getting used to the new house - I know we will have to keep him inside for several weeks, but wil we also need to confine him to one room to start off with too? We did this when we first got him but obviously then he didn’t know us, whereas now he’s very happy and confident, very affectionate, totally nosy and curious about everything. Although the house will be new to him all our things will presumably smell familiar and we will be there. Any experiences of moving house welcomed!

Cat tax

Firstly, get a carrier with a removable top so you can take that off to put the cat in, and then you won’t upset the blanket or whatever inside. Also won’t have to tip up the carrier and then tip it back again with an already stressed cat in it.

Depending on how your cat feels you can cover the front of the carrier while you travel so that seeing out doesn’t stress him too much, but it does depend on the cat.

I’ve moved house several times with cats and when I’ve got to the new house I’ve typically put them in one room only while we were unloading furniture, and then just given them the run of the house.

With my current cats, I didn’t even put them in a single room when I brought them home as kittens, they just moved in. Equally I have recently been to stay with my parents and I took the cats with me as no-one to look after them here, and when I let them out of their carriers they just wandered around as if they lived there. But that’s very much going to depend on the cat.

I did get a sedative for the cat when we moved as he got so distressed (ended up giving him half)

Can't help with the new house part, but re the car journey our cat is much calmer if I have the carrier on my lap and she can see out. I have to disable the air bag, but it's worth it to stop the constant howling!

Thank you for tips! The only way to get him into the carrier is by the short end, he fights like a devil as soon as he spots it so it has to be a very quick process. I’ll see if I can make a better arrangements of blankets anyway. @2024riot did your vet prescribe the sedative?

Definitely get a top loading cat carrier. The key to success here is remembering that scent marking is everything to cats. They leave their scent on everything because that’s what tells them their home is theirs. So make sure you take his litter trays with the litter still in them (double/triple bag them). Then place the litter trays in a room in the new house with him. His own litter box with his scent all over it will be incredibly important to giving him the confidence to know this is his new territory. Don’t wash his blankets or beds before you move, take them to the new house soaked in his scent. Watch Jackson Galaxy on YouTube for tips.

We only had to out our cat into the carrier twice since we got him...
The first was very traumatic, cat saw carrier and would not let us near him. Ended up with two of us trying to corner cat and cat crapping on the floor in distress.
Second time, we hid the carrier. I fed the cat, then picked him up to make a fuss of him, hugged him to my chest and chatted, then walked into the corner of a room so he couldn't see anything apart from me. Husband crept behind me and put carrier on floor and held it while I turned round, me stroking cats head and I smoothed my hand over his eyes to hide the carrier. Popped him in before he knew it was there!

I agree that if your cat gets distressed at the vet, a mild sedative is a good bet. Gabapentin is safe and your vet will probably have it in stock, as it is the standard sedative for cats that get agressive at the vet.
Mine is quite happy in the car for up to an hour. Then the screaming starts. She DID cope coming and going with me during university days, which was 5 hours away by car, but I'm not sure how well she would cope with the journey now as back then we would do it every month or so.
I'd also invest in a Feliway for the new house to make the transition smoother.

If he goes outside, make sure you have a plan of how to stop him running off when he realises something is going on with the movers. Is there anyone who can take him for a few hours, shut in a room with his things, before you are ready to drive to the new house?

Yes to keeping him in one room then gradually opening up the rest of the house to him once you've moved.

We've never sedated a cat. With several different cats, the yowling has usually given over to sleeping within about 30 minutes of the journey. But we've found that looking outside didn't suit our cats at all (we realised this only once on the M1 with a cat who had always been fine in the carrier). They do like looking at someone familiar though. Music in the car, windows open and bumps really upset our current cat.

Once there, give plenty of time to explore the interior of the house (make sure windows are closed). These days, I'd probably confine to one room first, but it didn't seem to harm the cats when I didn't know any better and gave them the run of the house.

I've just done it for the first time with my one year old twin Maine Coon x British short hair twin girls (7.5kg plus! Each) They're too big to go in a carrier together and we didnt want to split them to transport them, so we put them in a borrowed dog crate in the car to move them and took them into the new house on harnesses. They've been absolutely fine, loving the apparatus caused by boxes and bags!
They mooched about and ate and toiletted as normal - they're indoor cats still and have an electric self cleaning litter tray and their climbing thing, toys etc went before them as we were fortunate to have a couple of days after completing on the purchase before we left previous house.
I did get some natural calming tabs as we moved fireworks/Diwali but they didn't need them. They've just been climbing into every space including the new dishwasher !

They'll still be kept indoors for a month or so until we've cat proofed the garden (with cat friendly net) then I'll butter their paws when they do go out unsupervised.
Hope it all goes well.

Make sure you shut the cat in a secure room maybe even the night before the move, and that no movers go in there, you don’t need the stress of trying to locate a carrier hating cat on the morning of the move. A sedative to make him dopey before you even put him in the carrier might be useful if the vet will prescribe it, we had to dope one of our cats up every time they needed the vets.

Once in the new place, again shut him in a room with a big sign telling everyone not to enter so he doesn’t bolt, leave some blankets that smell of the old house and some treats, and then go sit with him for a while later. Our cat was so freaked out by our move she rammed herself behind the toilet cistern for half an hour, but soon calmed down. We kept her in another nicer room for a day or two before letting her lose on the house, which was a lot bigger than the old one.

We used to travel with our cat quite a bit and it wasn’t his only own scent that reassured him, it was anything that my husband had been wearing (he had had him since he was kitten).

Incidentally, if your cat does get out the new house it won’t necessarily run off so don’t panic unduly. Ours escaped within 12 hours by jumping out of the upstairs loo window. We had already pulled him down down out of a chimney. He came trotting back down the lane at 4 in the morning (my husband stayed up all night).

You could get a pet seat belt and let your cat sit in the back of the car with someone.

I transport one of my cats in a dog crate because then I can fit in a litter tray and a small cat carrier for her to hide in. Whenever I've taken her in just a carrier she's got so distressed she's pooed herself. This way it's much better. Also, my vet has prescribed a sedative for her, so it's definitely worth asking for one.

Will you let us know how it goes OP? I have a very similar cat and often wonder how I will manage when I eventually move, as it is likely to be several hours away.

The dog crate sounds a good idea, as well as gabapentin.

In my rescue cat's life-before-me she did a transatlantic flight, pretty sure it put her off any travel whatsoever.

@Sayoonara i have just seen this thread and realised I needed to update.

we got a dog crate and put Dcat’s bed in there. We saw the vet who prescribed Gabapentin. It made the cat quite docile but he still realised something was up when it came to the moment of capture. He wasn’t very happy but he was much less unhappy than he has been on short trips and he did brilliantly on a car journey of several hours with some complaining but not the constant crying we got on any other journeys. He did a
grand job of settling into the new house too.

Thanks for updating! Glad it all went well, gives me hope for my future move.

Just realised date of post !

The vet should be able to give you something for the trip. When we moved with cats we kept them in one room on arrival for practical reasons - doors
open, people going in and out etc… but then as soon as the movers left and the furniture was unpacked we let them out

We booked our cats into a cattery near our new home a week before moving date so they wouldn't be stressed by the packing. Then picked them up a few days after moving so we had at least the living room, kitchen, bedroom sorted again to reduce stress. I still remember the meowing in unison for every second of the journey! I put catnip and the calming spray on their blankets. I think we kept them in for a couple of weeks.

They settled really well. Good luck with your move.

I missed the date of the OP and OP's response.