The most asked questions we have gotten about the move is about the cats. The questions range from “are you taking the cats?” to “how will you get them there?” and “how did the cats do with with move?”.
The real answer is it wasn’t easy. I researched it a ton before we actually moved to try and make it as easy on them and us as possible. My research at least prepared me for what to expect.
I ordered cat carriers for them a couple weeks before we left. In a perfect world, this would have been done earlier, but we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. When the carriers arrived I opened them up, put some treats in them and left them in the living room for a day or two. Then Aaron loaded the cats in them and brought them to our office for a minute to see how they would do. It didn’t go well. Jade cried the entire drive to the office, and once Aaron let the cats out to get some love it was nearly impossible to get them back in the carrier.
We decided at that point they might need something to calm them down. We took them to the vet a couple of days before we left to have them checked out and talk about calming drugs. The Vet gave us something to lightly sedate them during the stressful drive and flight. We did a test run that night and it seemed like it was going to work.
On moving day we gave them lots of love, food, and tried to keep the day as stress-free as possible. We gave them sedation drugs right before we walked out the door for the drive to the airport. We had a very long day ahead of
Because the cats weigh under 40 pounds they can fly in the cabin, under the seat in front of use. That means we had to take them through security. We had to take them out of their carriers, walk through TSA and get our hands swabbed, then put them back in the carriers. This part went way better than I thought it would, they went right back in with no problem. Because of the government shutdown, we got to Detroit Metro 2 hours before our flight. The cats slept the entire time we were in the airport.
The very moment we got on the plane both cats lost it. They yelled, cried, and wanted out of their carriers. We were on a four and a half hour flight and Jade especially, cried through 85% of it. I kept telling Aaron they were probably scared, confused, and hungry and we felt so bad because we couldn’t help. We did put the carriers on our laps and stick our hands in to pet them and give them some treats, but they just wanted out. Luckily, the flight was almost empty and almost everyone slept through the crying. It’s probably also a good thing that I will probably never see those people again.
We finally landed in San Francisco at 9:30 PT (which felt like 12:30am ET) and grabbed out luggage, called an Uber, and got to our apartment as quickly as we could to let the cats get out of their carriers.
The time change was rough on them and us, but after the first three or four days the have adjusted for the most part and love looking out the window down to the city.
