- Joined
- Jun 17, 2007
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I really hope you can offer some advice to us. We moved March 10th because we were tearing down our house and building a new one. My female cat did pretty good with the move to our temporary residence, but my male cat (who is usually scared of his own shadow), really didn't do well at all. For 2 days he hid out in the basement and refused to come out. However, they are doing fine now.
Hoping to avoid scaring them again when our new house is ready to move back to in a month, we took them for a car ride hoping that if we slowly introduced them to the new house and they get used to it, that the move then won't be so traumatic for them.
BIG WRONG.
We got to the house and at first it seemed to go really well. They ran around sniffing everything, but when they went down to the basement that's when all heck broke loose. DH was outside and came in the house through the side garden doors and when my male cat heard him walking upstairs he absolutely FREAKED and went hiding behind the hot water tank. I could hear my female upstairs and yelled at DH that she was up there and I could hear that she was scared as she was scooting all over the place up there. DH tried to go near her (she couldn't see him from where she was, but she could hear his footsteps). She was obviously terrified and must have thought she was being chased cause she just kept running.
I bolted upstairs and as soon as she saw me she bee-lined for me & the basement steps making the awfullest howling I've ever heard. She too then joined my male in hiding behind the hot water tank.
DH & I immediately rescued both of them, put them back in their carrier and promptly took them home. Normally they LOVE car-rides but neither one of them would come out of their carrier during the ride home. They're both sleeping now, but I'm terribly worried about how to help them adjust when we move back.
I'm sorry this was so long. But any tips you can give me that will help ease how terrifying this is for them would be greatly & sincerely appreciated. It breaks my heart to see them so scared like that!
Hoping to avoid scaring them again when our new house is ready to move back to in a month, we took them for a car ride hoping that if we slowly introduced them to the new house and they get used to it, that the move then won't be so traumatic for them.
BIG WRONG.
We got to the house and at first it seemed to go really well. They ran around sniffing everything, but when they went down to the basement that's when all heck broke loose. DH was outside and came in the house through the side garden doors and when my male cat heard him walking upstairs he absolutely FREAKED and went hiding behind the hot water tank. I could hear my female upstairs and yelled at DH that she was up there and I could hear that she was scared as she was scooting all over the place up there. DH tried to go near her (she couldn't see him from where she was, but she could hear his footsteps). She was obviously terrified and must have thought she was being chased cause she just kept running.
I bolted upstairs and as soon as she saw me she bee-lined for me & the basement steps making the awfullest howling I've ever heard. She too then joined my male in hiding behind the hot water tank.
DH & I immediately rescued both of them, put them back in their carrier and promptly took them home. Normally they LOVE car-rides but neither one of them would come out of their carrier during the ride home. They're both sleeping now, but I'm terribly worried about how to help them adjust when we move back.
I'm sorry this was so long. But any tips you can give me that will help ease how terrifying this is for them would be greatly & sincerely appreciated. It breaks my heart to see them so scared like that!