Expert: Kate Tilmouth - 6/28/2009

Question
Hello

I was wondering if you could help me? I am looking for advice on how to 'move' our much loved 13 year old cat - we are immigrating to Australia and have decided after much soul searching that she is too old to cope with the move and then a new location with spiders and snakes she has never seen before.

Very kindly and luckily a neighbour 5 houses down has offered to take her and their 10 year old daughter is very excited at the propsect and visits her each day. I am comfortable she is going to a good home where she will be much loved and very happy. My problem is how do we get her to move house by 5 numbers on same side of the road?

She doesn't really go much outside of our yard and is a bit of a scaredy cat so I am hoping regular keeping her in for a bit and feeding her will get her used to her new home and that she'll never know how close she is to her old home. Of course I am concerned she will make her way back to our house (which will be rented out) and attempt to get in to her old cat flap. What are the basics to try and get her to be comfortbale on her move? Should we only move her once we leave or try before we leave?

There is much advice on moving with your cat but not much on helping her if she has to move owners! I would be grateful for any advice or links to websites you can provide.

Many thanks


Answer
Hi
well you are quite right in your idea about having to keep her inside her new home for quite dome time before alowing her access to outside. I would say at least a month in this case if at all possible.

The good thing is that in the worse case scenario and she does try to go home she will not be far away to retrieve.

I have a web page about moving with a cat it has some information which may be helpful in this situation. I also have a web page about bonding which her new owners may like to read.

There are lots of other pages too about how to keep a cat happy inside etc. I will give you the links to the pages here

http://www.our-happy-cat.com/moving-with-cat.html

http://www.our-happy-cat.com/new-cat.html

http://www.our-happy-cat.com/indoor-cats.html

best wishes Kate