martin@dciem.UUCP (Martin Tuori) (08/09/84)
Cats can indeed become upset by house moving. We recently moved a short
distance to a new home, taking our 3 indoor/outdoor cats with us. The oldest
had moved twice before, and was calm. The youngest is a rehabilitated
tomcat, and was calm (he may have known where he was, since the distance
is only a few blocks). The third cat had never moved, and hissed and screamed
for a day and a half -- at anything: us, the other cats, shadows, doors.
Then he was fine, remembered how to purr and eat.
My advice to anyone moving with cats is to treat the situation with care.
The cats should be moved in a solid kennel or cage. Their immediate reaction
to a new place may be fear, and they may want to bolt. Don't let them out
of the cage until the moving is done, and all doors and open windows can
be shut. They'll get used to the new space with time, but I wouldn't let
a cat outdoors for one to three weeks. At that point, allow the cat out
under supervision (we put them on a line at first), and decide for yourself
if the cat is treating the new home as a safe place from which to explore
the new outdoors.
Ours are happily settled in now, and the street we're on is much quieter.
--
Martin Tuori
{allegra,decvax,duke,floyd,linus}!utzoo!dciem!martin