Hi guys welcome to my latest video and as you can probably tell by the background it's going
to be about moving with cats people have been asking me to make this video for years and uh
well i'm moving right now so i thought what a great chance to do this
hey mr p how you doing so moving with cats it's definitely a big worry you know moving is often
an anxiety-inducing time in our lives and it's even more so when we're worried about the stress
uh it causes our little critters as well as just the general arrangements that need to be made for
it around them before we get going please remember to squish that subscribe button and pet the bell
notification icon so that you can watch me pet this little guy a little more often all right
all right oh we have a guest guest star in the background there but don't let me get distracted
so moving with cats uh very very stressful now moving in general is very very stressful i hate
doing it i've had to move far too much in my life but it's a necessity it's a process we all
go through and when we're moving with felines um i feel like it's stressful for them but it's also
even more stressful for us because we worry about them so it's kind of this positive feedback loop
to understand the effect of moving on cats we have to understand the biology of cats and i'm going to
get to a few tips a little bit later in the video but i just want to talk to you a little bit about
why relocating your home might be a little bit stressful for your felines
and now we all know that cats are territorial and we all know that they're uh middle of the
food chain predator meaning that they have all these terrifying claws and fangs with which to
hunt small helpless creatures but they're also uh small and delicious so they have to watch out for
predators hunting them so for a cat being aware of its territory and to know it intimately is really
important they have to know where the dangers lie they have to know where the good hiding spots are
to know where the trees they can climb are so and they have to be aware of any changes in the
environment that might herald danger so cats get to know their environment very intimately
and then are very very aware of any changes in it and certainly you've seen a cat strutting around
as territory and they'll be very very confident they'll be walking tall looking around looking
really comfortable and i'm sure you've also seen cats who are walking through unfamiliar territory
and they're slinking down low to the ground their ears are really really perky they're looking
around they freeze all the time to stop and observe so very very very aware of their territory
and when you're moving you know the stress comes early on even as i started packing my guys started
acting really weird uh you know pirate wouldn't sleep all night she'd walk around and yell
and just hop in at bed out of bed in bed out of bed it's impossible to get him to settle
uh claudia well claudia is actually a very brave little cat she's been coloring it pretty well
but then occasionally she'll get super spooked and her tail will puff up and she'll go sit between
and find like a crevice between two boxes to hide in and this is all normal because
uh you know this apartment that they have lived in for the last couple years is their territory
and as soon as we start changing furniture around putting things in boxes that territory
changes so this puts the cats on high alert just look at this vicious predator
massive paws fangs let's look at the fangs and of course moving is stressful for us too it's a
lot of work it's a lot of hassle expense and i think there might be a little bit of a feedback
loop happening there as well where the cats get stressed out because we're a little bit stressed
so that's why cats get a little bit anxious around the move and our goal during a move
should be both to comfort the cats and help them relax during the preceding period and then also to
help them adjust to their new environment when you get to the new home wherever you're going
there are many reasons why you want to mitigate a cat stressor on the move i mean of course we want
our little friends to just be happy and relaxed all the time so we just don't want them to worry
right but we also know that some cats can develop toileting issues when they're really stressed out
and for an update on that please check out the video i made called why does my cat pee
inappropriately uh it's very very informative and it talks about feline interstitial cystitis which
is a stress-triggered health conditions other cats might develop spraying particularly if you have an
unfixed male or a male who's been neutered later in life they may be tempted to spray
either during the move process or when they get through a new territory so again
you want to mitigate stress around that and of course if your cat has other health conditions
you know you can a little extra stress never helps you when you're sick so here are my tips
for helping cats deal with a move the number one tip i can give you guys is to try to maintain your
cat's routine as much as possible so this means even in this chaos of boxes and moving around
try to leave their favorite places to sleep intact until the very later stages of the moves try
especially their places like to hide like maybe a little cat bed in the closet or something out
of the way like that maybe try to like leave it in place until the very last day of the move uh
please try to feed them at the same time each day and don't change their food or their litter so try
to keep as much constant in their life as possible because again the term we use as vets is neophobic
cats are neophobic they don't like anything new and you already have new things being thrown at
them in terms of their environment and in terms of your movement and patterns and what you're doing
you might have strange people come to the house to help you pack who aren't usually there so you
know those things cannot be controlled so we try to control what we can the second thing we can do
to help cats deal with the stress of relocation is and you guys can probably guess almost guess what
this is going to be because this comes up and so many of my videos have to do with feline behavior
and that's going to be feel away here's a little box for a few way refill
and i talk about this stuff in many many of my videos because it's a really useful behavioral
tool for managing stress in cats as probably everybody's been following me knows feel away
is a synthetic version of a cat's cheek pheromones that comes in a little diffuser
and you plug it into your wall and humans can't sense anything that when you do that but cats
can scent this pheromone and it just makes everything smell like home so if you plug
this into your house when you're moving uh it'll just help them relax a little bit and then it'll
help the cat deal with stress and just so you guys know i'm not sponsored by feelway i mean
i'm not getting any money to promote them this is just something i honestly feel as a professional
and i use this in my clinical practice all the time to manage stress-related conditions in cats
so just having it plugged in in your house when you're packing will help your cat chill
out a little bit and deal with the stresses of moving a little bit better now of course
if you plug it in next to an air purifier an open window won't work so well so try to plug
it away from open windows and preferably in the room where your cat spends most of their time
and then on move day what you want to do is package the cats up take them to the new
house and have feel away either waiting there already or plug it in and put them into a small
room like a bathroom or a walk-in closet or a spare bedroom make sure fuel always plugged in
there have food and water and litter all sitting there ready for them and leave them in that room
to just relax in their own private space that smells nice smells nice and homey
while you finish your move while you bring in your furniture people stomping around
and they can stay in there till the end of the day when everything's already settled in your home
and then you can open the door and let them explore but do leave that setup in the room that
you've designated for them so that that can be their safe space it's a place they can retreat to
and it'll probably be somewhere they'll be tempted to stay for at least the first day or two
and there's another video in the works just what to expect when a cat's exploring a new home
but in general terms what you can expect is that they'll be very tenuous there'll be a lot
of slinking around a lot of sniffing a lot of checking out dark corners
claudia here is checking out the boxes while i talk so there'll be a lot of investigative
behavior but they'll want to have be have a safe space to retreat to and that room with
the feel way plugged in their food their water litter box can be that little safe space for
them and then after probably a day or two they'll just get used to the new living space and you know
then you can just set it up however you want to set up for your cats now here i just want to take
a quick moment to talk about outdoor cats so my guys live indoors so not really a concern for me
but if you have cats that are used to going outdoors there's a real issue there with when
you relocate these kinds of an outdoor territory that they're very uh fond of and there's a real
concern there about that cat relocating itself back to where it came from and there are stories
of cats walking hundreds of kilometers to get back to their home after they've moved or the families
moved so and those stories are real that really happens you know the incredible journey which is
a wonderful book and a pretty okay dc movie uh it's kind of based on that awesome children's
book i highly recommend you read it to your kids so but that's real like cats will travel
long distances to get back to where they came from to stop your cat from absconding when you
relocate what i suggest is keeping them indoors for at least the first month after you move
and then start to let them out the side gradually in small kind of bursts opening of the door they
may be a little bit hesitant to walk out at they might be really looking forward to running out but
doesn't really matter if you just let them out in small bursts usually right before the feeding time
have the food ready call them back for food let give them a chance to explore the new territory
gradually with a strong motivating reason to come back in a short order i.e dinners ready
and then hopefully over the course of a few weeks they'll explore the territory on your new house
get familiar with it and it'll be their new home territory and then you don't have to worry
about them wandering off to your old house so a couple weeks of confinement in the home
and then gradually increasing short periods of outdoor exposure graduating up to the outdoor
lifestyle that your cat is used to so that's for outdoor cats indoor cats are easy a lot easier of
course the next tip i'm going to give you for making moving with cats a little bit easier is
going to be to not forget about your cat take some time to bond with them make sure you're
giving them attention that you normally would or maybe eating a bit more because you know as we're
worrying about the move as you're worrying about packing relocating finding a new place
our cats may not be the first thing on our minds right we may neglect them a little bit
but i think that reconnecting with your cat and just having spending a
little bit of time even if it's just a very very small amount of time each day
petting them playing with their favorite toy just generally spending some good quality time with
your felines will help them relax and help them feel more assured it'll also help you because
let's face it petting a cat is quite relaxing and pleasant and in the middle of a busy move
it's important to give yourself that time and space to just relax and enjoy life a little bit
and then it'll make it easier for you to deal with the stresses and the work and effort of moving
so claudia has been bringing me her little fish toy that she absolutely loves to play fetch with
every evening since i started packing which is super adorable but it also tells me that she's
kind of feels like something's going on and she just wants to sort of burn off some steam
play with me connect with me so it's kind of a two-way street and it's really really adorable
but it's really good to be aware of these signals that your cats are giving you that
they want attention and you know i'd much rather a cat signal for attention by bringing me their
toy than by peeing on the floor and i firmly believe that a lot of the anxiety that our
pets feel are on the move comes from just reading our body language and our anxiety around the move
so you know keeping yourself calm and managing your own stress is probably not going to
hurt your pet's stress levels either now i know this video is mostly focused on cats
for dogs things that tend to be a little bit easier because dogs a little bit more easy going
for them the home is where the pack is and your dog will probably be happy anywhere you are so
a little less effort with dogs but you know if you guys are interested i can make a more dog
specific video on relocating but it's probably going to be a little bit less intricate than
this one my next tip for moving with cats is going to be what to do if all of the above isn't enough
what to do if like mr pirate for example your cat won't shut up all night and just walks around
yowling and dragging towels around the hallway where is he okay i'm glaring at him off camera
so or if your cat is prone to things like feline idiopathic cystitis or has a history
of stress-induced health issues then you might want to call a friend so by that i mean call your
local veterinarian because we do have tools in our toolbox to help mitigate cat stress
the one that i'm currently using with mr pirate is called gabapentin it's a medication
that has gained great traction in the veterinary world these days
for pain control uh it's super safe it's like a tiny little capsule that you give
your cat twice a day and i use it for all my post-operative pain control these days
but it also has an anxiolytic effect it's also used at higher dosages for cats who are really
anxious and don't like coming to the vet you give it to them at home before the vet visit it chills
them right out and makes a much easier vet visit the more pleasant vet visit both for the doctor
and the cat so it's a wonderful little drug called gabapentin and i've been giving it to pirate for
um to deal with arthritis a little bit over the last year it's a great pain control tool for a
variety of indications but i've also been giving it to him for anxiety during the move and just
by giving him this pill it just makes him quite sleepy for the first few weeks that you're giving
it which is a fantastic side effect of the pain control medication because it makes him way more
relaxed and helps him deal with the anxiety of having to make a move and in fact gabapentin is
an integral part of my practice gabapentin is a great tool that we have in our toolbox super safe
super cheap easy to administer and just a pro tip this is mr pirate's got a penton bottle
comes in tiny little capsules capsules like that so um not all medications come in sizes that are
convenient for cats so when i have medications there maybe come in tablets that are you know
human-sized and it'd be a bit awkward to give to a cat or that tastes really bad what i'll
do is i'll ask my local compounding pharmacy to make capsules with the exactly right dosage
for any individual patient that i have and it's really fantastic because it allows me to
give really precise medication dosages it saves my clients a hassle of having to cut up pills
and also these little capsules are tiny and as soon as you smear them with a bit of wet food
or even water they become really slippery so they go down the gullet really easily
it's really easy to give them and i suggest you guys look at my video on how to give a cat a
pill for tips on how to do that but uh having medications compounded into these tiny little
patient-specific doses and i use this for cats i use this for small dogs i use this for like
ferrets where there's just no good off-the-shelf medical solution is really really handy
and really probably any veterinarian in the western world should be able to do this for you
uh so then i have like a pirate specific guy penta dose that i give to him and then he gets
super chill and deals with stress a little bit better so pharmacotherapy and of course there's
many other medications that are used for managing anxiety in a veterinarian's toolbox but gabapentin
is great because it works really fast some of the more traditional ones can take weeks to actually
work uh or might have uh other side effects or or might be more expensive there's you know there's
there's a reason why i picked gabapentin so that's my definitely my number one choice for
managing short-term anxiety in cats around moving look how calm this cat is and of course a part of
maintaining routine is making sure that the cat's litter box is nice and clean mr pirate just made
a deposit in his to remind me of this so i'm going to go clean it after i'm done recording this video
but please make sure that you know their water stop top their litter box is clean all of this is
an important part of maintaining your cat's routine and all of this will stretch your cat
out if it's not done properly so let's finish this video with mr pipe in my arms just the way
we started as you can see he's nice and relaxed and dealing with life probably a little bit better
than i am during this move so um i hope you found this video helpful please try to implement these
things next that you move with your cats and i'm going to get back to packing but you guys
feel free to check out some more of those videos i mentioned and i hope you all have a lovely day