Three Types of Moves: Which is Yours?

The first time the woman moved with cats, it was across town from an apartment to a house. That was easy. Cats were locked up in a bathroom while everything was moved out of the house.

If there’s something to remember about moving: when moving items out of the house lock us, the cats in a safe room. In most cases, the woman has used a bathroom. Sometimes she used the bathroom in the old place and then moved us LAST to the new place on a short move. When she married the male, one time she did move us first and stayed with us in our safe room and unpacked some pre-moved boxes and let him deal with the hauling of things at the old place. That was quite smart, I thought.

The across town checklist includes:

• Knowing your new home takes cats. All your cats (and dogs or fish or whatever)
• You have a safe room for your cats, all your cats (and dogs or fish or whatever, although fish are less likely to go running out the door if you leave it open).
• You have carriers to transport your cats safely. They can be the same ones you use for the vet. Yeah, we were short one nice carrier and used an adoption box for Gemini because the three of us never went to the vet all at one time. For the twenty minutes it took to drive to the new place, she did fine. Gemini got the box because she was small and she liked to hide in dark places.
• You have a safe room at the new place so we don’t run outside there either. Remember doors will be open now for things to be brought in!
• Microchips, just in case we do get out.

The next sized move is the move that takes a few hours to arrive there. I did this move when the Woman moved up to Sammamish from Vancouver, WA to be with the Male (a sorrier move I have never seen). The drive time was about 3.5 hours.

This move required:

• Knowing your new home takes cats (or dogs or fish or whatever)
• A safe room for your cats (or dogs or whatever)
• Carriers to transport your cats. Now here, the pet adoption box is much less user friendly. We were riding for over three hours and we’d be left in the car for at least one pit stop. All that caffeine the woman chugs while driving, well let’s just say that she has to make a stop. So the carriers need to be a bit friendlier with more space to move and stretch. Ideally, we’d have had a litter pan but her car was loaded down and we made due without one.
• A safe room at the new place where we could be with our food, water, cat litter and beds while things were unloaded.
• Microchips just in case we got out.
• Knowing the laws in the new area about vaccinations and if you are crossing a state line (like California) whether or not you need a health certificate.

The last move was from Seattle to Charlotte so you know that was long. It meant days

This move required all of the above PLUS:

• Knowing which hotels took pets and reservations at the stopping places along the way.
• A trip plan so that the woman knew where to make reservations for herself, the male and the three of us.
• A carrier that had space for a litter pan and the three of us (this will depend upon your cats, some prefer their own space)
• Extra water and a host of necessary items to be discussed later
• A check up on the car to be sure it wouldn’t break down in the middle of the trip
• Knowing the weather reports (it was January for us, but because we were meeting the male in San Diego, where they trained him–don’t ask–, we went south and hit a bit of heat.).
• A decision on how to move us (by planes, trains, or automobiles).
• Understanding the necessary documentation we would need for the style of travel.
• Getting the documentation, vaccinations and a nice copy of our health records.

We will go into more detail about the things we packed for this move and how we ended up moving in the next posts.