Quote from: Stottie Girl on June 26, 2026, 03:56:38 AMI was very upset and didn't sleep a wink hoping I would hear her crying at the door. 5:00 this morning a very scared and nervouse cat appeared at the back door. Thank christ for that!
Oy! That had to have been a nightmare come true. Thank goodness it had a happy ending!
Keeping our cats safe during the move was one of the most nerve-wracking things in our planning process. If one of them had gotten loose, we would never have gotten him back. The plan was to empty one room and confine the cats to it while the movers were doing their thing, with warnings to the movers not to open the door on pain of death. Then, as soon as the movers' truck pulled out of the driveway, we were going to sneak into the room without them escaping and (somehow) get them into their travel crates. After the road trip, we would unload them in a closed room in the new house while the movers unloaded.
It kind-of worked. The cats knew something was up on the initial round up. One of them freaked out and tried to escape out a window. (Our bad: the windows should all have been closed.) My wife had to grab him before he tore out the bug screen. She got a nasty puncture wound on her thumb for her efforts. We eventually got a blanket over him and slid him across the floor into the holding room. When it was time to crate them, one was easily pick-up-able, one was already in a crate and the skittish one was bouncing off the walls. We had to blanket him again, and slide him, blanket and all, into his crate. Three weeks later, he is starting to forgive us.
I managed to avoid injury thanks to wearing a pair of heavy-duty leather fireplace gloves. His teeth didn't puncture the leather, but they were sure trying! My wife put every kind of antiseptic treatment on her bite, and managed to avoid any obvious infection, but the joint is not right. We are thinking that the bite caused her arthritis to flare up.
I hope the rest of your move goes smoothly, and that no kitties or humans are harmed in the process.
