Imagine, if you will, that you spent your entire life in one house. You have only ever known life under one roof. Your familiarity with the place runs deep and you know all of its nooks and crannies. You can imagine no other place that would feel so comfortable for you to spend your days.
Now, imagine if you will, without warning you are forced to leave your longtime home and are moved elsewhere. You are torn from your element. You are in unfamiliar territory. You have no choice but to adjust to your new surroundings.
This is what I imagine it must feel like to a pet who is faced with a new house. Simply changing a pet’s environment from house to house could have a huge impact on their whole way of interacting with their world — at least temporarily.
Most of our domesticated pets are creatures of habit. They wake up every day anticipating a meal. Many of them are better than alarm clocks at getting us out of bed to feed them. Some pets will go on a hunger strike if their owner leaves for vacation. Some cats will stop using the litter box all together if the type of litter that they are offered is changed. So you can see how changing a pet’s entire habitat might shake them to their fluffy core.
As a veterinarian, I encounter many patients that have some degree of anxiety with changes. These changes may be short and temporary ones such as loud noises, fireworks, storms or trips to the vet or the groomers. Others have to cope with long stays at a boarding kennel or even with an ill or hospitalized owner or with a new addition to the family. In some situations simply acclimating the pet to change slowly can help — other times the only solution is anti-anxiety medications and behavior training.
My brother recently purchased a new house and naturally he took his cat, Fedora, with him. She had lived in a one-bedroom apartment for several years and found herself moved to a much larger two-bedroom house with a full basement. One would think that Fedora would have been ecstatic with the change — more than twice the room to run and romp and be a cat. Instead I got the phone call after they had moved her into her spacious new abode that she had holed up and was living within a recliner in the basement. I advised him to let her be and make sure she had plenty of food and water and a litter pan available and that she may very well come out on her own. It took her about a week but she did eventually leave the confines of the chair and even made her way to the top floor where she can be found today overseeing her vast kingdom.
My own dog, Marty McFly, had to be slowly introduced to my new home a few years ago. As he ages, he does not accept change as gracefully as he once did. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to bring him with me on my repeat trips to the new house to get him used to being there while I deposited my boxes and belongings. Marty seemed to get more and more agitated as I packed my things from one house to be brought to the next but after a few days of living in the new house you could tell he was no longer waiting to “go back home” every time I opened the door.
Moving can be an exciting and stressful time, for both humans and their pets. Many times it can be a bigger ordeal for your pet’s mental status than anticipated, so takes things slowly, if possible, to ease the transition for your furry family members. Getting them acclimated to the change may be a challenge, but being positive and patient will help them adjust, and soon you will both have a new place that you can call home.
By Dr. Marisa Tong
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