Moving with Pets

Like women in childbirth, you forget.

You forget the agony of packing up the dishes, the blankets, the scary stuff in the kitchen drawer, and (oh, the horror!) disassembling the chaotic mass of wires at the back of the computer, and moving.

Because if we didn’t forget, we’d simply put down roots wherever we were and never, ever change addresses, because short of having a small human being forcibly expelled from your body through an even smaller opening, what could be worse than moving?

Moving with pets, that’s what.

I’ve had just about every nightmarish pet moving experience imaginable, including having one cat disappear before I moved (I found him a week later and he lived to a ripe old age). I’ve boarded my pets, kept them in the car, brought them to someone else’s house, emptied a room and kept them there, and hired someone to sit with them while I moved.

And none of it works at all. It’s just hell, for me and them, and there really is very little I can do to minimize it.

Oh, we read, and in my case, write, articles giving advice on stress reduction and safety for pets during a move. And let me tell you, as the author of such articles, they’re all a load of crap. You can put them in a covered container with food and water and soft ambient music and mist flower essences nearby and heck, you could sit there next to them holding their little paws all day, but the bottom line is this:

They don’t want to move. Not now, not later, not ever. Not to a bigger house, not to a better house, just not.

Especially cats. To an extent, for a dog, wherever you are, is home. They might get settled in their routines and not like being uprooted, but the chances are, if you manage to keep them safe during the actual move, they’ll adapt fairly easily to the new home as long as you’re in it.

Cats, on the other hand, have already had all the change they wish to experience in their life ten times over.

Cats don’t want to be put in a container, covered or otherwise, and have no interest in flower essences or ambient music. And they’d really like you to stop clutching their paws, thank you very much.

So, what do you do if circumstances beyond your control, such as a desire to have enough closet space for your shoes or a kitchen in which you actually can prepare a meal instead of just using it as somewhere to store the microwave, cause you to start noticing “for sale” signs everywhere you go?

First, you look deep into your cats’ eyes and let them try to talk you out of it. Odds are they’ll succeed, because have you ever tried to argue with a cat?

But if you don’t have cats (as I currently don’t, for the first time since I was a baby), or if your cats are unpersuasive in their arguments, don’t even bother asking the dogs. The dogs will wag their tails and look interested and give you admiring looks but inside will be going, OK, forget it, if that mover thinks he’s taking this sofa out of here I’m getting a piece of him.

If nothing your pets say convinces you, then you’re going to have to face reality: You’re a selfish jerk.

Your cats will not speak to you for at least a week, if not much longer. They will piss on your underwear, scratch the new sofa, and if you let them out, not come back for several days. They will laugh at your agony with all their little kitty friends. They will decide not to eat the food they’ve been eating for years. They will forget they ever learned to use a litterbox. In short, they’ll make you wish you’d either never been born, never met a cat, or simply stayed in the old house the way you were intended to by the cat gods.

Your dogs will speak to you, because they are, after all, dogs, and there’s only so much they can bear to do that will hurt you. But they’ll look at you with a reproachful gaze, and at last you’ll fully understand where the phrase “puppy dog eyes” came from. They’ll go on walks but will sadly inform you that they miss their old familiar smells, and worry that, without them to refresh the scent, the dogs in the old neighborhood will forget them. And yes, they’ll probably pee right in front of the new dog door, to your eyes identical to the old one but not to their (infinitely more discerning) nose.

Sure, one day your relationship with your pets will be restored to its former equanimity. You’ll be sitting there, idly flipping the remote on the TV, and a purring fur creature will emerge from somewhere and jump in your lap just like, well, in the old house. Your dog will race out the door, straining her leash, to see what new dogs might have peed on her spot last night.

Just don’t fool yourself, while calling movers and arranging for the new phone to be connected and the internet service turned on and the cable installed, that you’ll be able to make this easy on the pets. I mean, do all that stuff… the safe carriers, update their ID tags, microchip them and board them and mist them with Rescue Remedy. It won’t fix it for them, but it might make you feel better.

And don’t worry, eventually, you’ll forget.
 

Comments

[KathyF]

Oh, I remember now. My dog was 3 when we moved overseas. The worst day was the third day of the five-day packing and loading period. That was when they loaded the bulk of our stuff into crates, leaving only the quick shipment and the things for storage, and the dreaded suitcases. She curled up next to the stairs and refused to move. I was too busy to worry much, but when the truck left, and we got ready to go to a hotel for the night, I realized I needed to tell her what was going on.

"Do you want to go blah blah blah?" I said. Suddenly one very depressed dog was ecstatic. Her first visit to a hotel, followed by a month-long visit with relatives in a hot climate, followed by 12 hours in a plane, followed by another month in a London flat, and she was absolutely fine throughout.

Moral of the story: Use the go word as soon as you can.

[KathyF]

Oh, and one piece of advice: It's a good idea to get dogs used to staying in a hotel BEFORE you decide to move to another continent. She was a trooper, but I wished I'd travelled with her more before we absolutely had to.

[Crystal R S]

Any suggestions on how to find a pet-friendly rental? I've got 4 dogs and 3 cats and I'm having NO luck whatsoever. If I could afford to buy, I would, but that's just not in the cards right now. This post caught my eye and I just thought I'd ask.