office cats moving to a new location

I work in a retail store, but I'm in an office and not in the actual
store part. We have 2 cats that have been here with us for 13 years.
One was 1 1/2 years old and the other was 3 months old when I adopted
them. At some point over the summer my office will be moving to one
of our other stores and the cats will be coming with me. The layout
of the two stores is similar, in that there's an upstairs & a basement
space. My office is in the basement and will be in the basement at
the other location.

I know the move will freak the cats out. One of them, Stinky, is very
shy and does not like to go out on the floor. She spends most of her
time in my office or wandering around the back half of the basement
where other offices & workspaces are. If she hears an unfamiliar male
voice she panics and hides but she's usually okay with women she
doesn't know. Harriet is very friendly and will roam everywhere. She
has a huge fan club and people come in just to see her.

What can I do to make the move easier? I'm worried that the cats will
panic and want to find their "real home", and try to run out of the
store. I'm hoping that they'll just be so upset they'll just want to
hide for a few weeks until they get more used to the space. The
problem with that is they are very good at find hiding spaces and it
will freak ME out if I can't locate them. The new place won't have
nearly as many crazy nooks & crannies for them to hide in.

Stinky has two pillows in my office, one under my desk & one on the
floor in the middle, and she spends a lot of time sleeping on them so
those will definitely be coming with us. Harriet doesn't have a
special bed because she spends most of her time outside my office.
She sleeps on the floor or on boxes or on the merchandise or sometimes
on a pile of papers on my desk.

Elizabeth Blake poodlebone optonline.net wrote:

I know the move will freak the cats out.

Not sure what the gender junk was about, but...

I have a hard-core feral female that has learned to cope and probably
much prefers being inside than outside. Her born and raised outside
mindset is dormant, but it's still there. She showed that when I cut
off access to her loft area, she went berserk. Not as bad as when she
first got trapped here, but it was all the same type of behavior.

In my estimation... They will need time to adjust. You should prepare
for the worst, prevent them from escaping back into the not-so-great
outdoors.

How will the move happen? Will it be done quickly, or over the span of
some days? I'd suggest, on moving day, that you shut the cats in a
room in the old building and put a large sign on the door saying
"cats, do not open," so no one lets them outside by accident.

Set up your office first and bring as many familiar items (to the
cats) as possible. You will initially want to confine the cats just to
the new office until they are comfortable enough, then slowly let them
explore the new area on their terms. Buy a Feliway plug-in diffuser
(it emits a happy pheromone) for the new office to help calm them.

It will take some time, but they will adjust.

Rene

I'm not sure how the move will work. I know that they're working on
what will be our new space now. They will need to have that ready
before I can move out of my current office. I have a feeling that the
workmen (two guys who have done things like this for my boss for many
years) will probably come to take my stuff late at night after I've
left, and bring it to the new office. While the cats don't enjoy late
night work sessions, they're kind of used to it and they will both
just leave my office and go to one of their other familiar hideouts at
the current location.

Since it will probably take me at least a full day to set all of my
stuff up in the new place, I'm thinking it would be better to leave
them here in the current office while I fix up the new place, and then
bring them up. My current office isn't huge and my new one will be
quite a bit smaller (maybe 6' x 8') so I don't know if I'll be able to
confine them there. There might not even be room for a litter box,
and Stinky is a bully and would probably beat up poor Harriet if they
were locked in the small room together. There's another super tiny
office next to it that they can hang out in as well, We might be able
to block off the entire office/kitchen/bathroom area to keep them
there without needing to be confined to just my office.

ALL WILL BE FINE ! They are very ajustable .

Elizabeth Blake poodlebone optonline.net wrote:

I know the move will freak the cats out. One of them, Stinky,
is very shy and does not like to go out on the floor. She
spends most of her time in my office or wandering around the
back half of the basement where other offices & workspaces are.
If she hears an unfamiliar male voice she panics and hides but
she's usually okay with women she doesn't know.

As a side topic, that is IMO an interesting observation. In my
opinion, typically women have a more soothing voice. Of course men
can be excellent singers, and even though I sing badly, my singing
calms my hard-core feral female. I think there is a correlation
between those two observations.

The two office cats & I are on Day 2 of our new location. After a short period (less than an hour) of "where the hell am I?", Harriet settled right in. She's socializing with anyone who looks at her and seems very happy.

Stinky spent the first day hiding inside a small plastic footstool. My boss said that he showed up late last night to set up my computer and she was still there, but when the workmen showed up with the rest of my stuff she freaked and ran out of the office. We just now found her new hiding place.

I'm worried that she hasn't had anything to eat or drink for more than 24 hours now. I left food out for them last night but I don't think either of them ate, although Harriet has eaten some of her breakfast this morning. I put a bowl with some kibble in the area that Stinky is hiding in and I hope she'll eat but I think she may be too freaked.

Any suggestions?

On 6/7/2012 9:32 AM, Elizabeth Blake wrote:
The two office cats& I are on Day 2 of our new location. After a short period (less than an hour) of "where the hell am I?", Harriet settled right in. She's socializing with anyone who looks at her and seems very happy.

Stinky spent the first day hiding inside a small plastic footstool. My boss said that he showed up late last night to set up my computer and she was still there, but when the workmen showed up with the rest of my stuff she freaked and ran out of the office. We just now found her new hiding place.

I'm worried that she hasn't had anything to eat or drink for more than 24 hours now. I left food out for them last night but I don't think either of them ate, although Harriet has eaten some of her breakfast this morning. I put a bowl with some kibble in the area that Stinky is hiding in and I hope she'll eat but I think she may be too freaked.

Any suggestions?

capture her and confine her to a small cage in one area. put the
water/food in the cage, and let her get used to the sites/smells of the
new place.

Elizabeth Blake poodlebone optonline.net wrote:

The two office cats & I are on Day 2 of our new location. After
a short period (less than an hour) of "where the hell am I?",
Harriet settled right in. She's socializing with anyone who
looks at her and seems very happy.

Stinky spent the first day hiding inside a small plastic
footstool. My boss said that he showed up late last night to
set up my computer and she was still there, but when the workmen
showed up with the rest of my stuff she freaked and ran out of
the office.

That's what all of the conditioning was covering up. She is
probably hard-core feral female like mine. She will never
completely get over it, she just gets used to her surroundings.
But the freakishness is probably not as bad as at first.

Hopefully you don't mean outside. That's the critical thing, she
will probably run away if possible. You must prevent that.

We just now found her new hiding place.

If you want to calm her nerves, if you have some time, speak
gently to her. You might notice a calming effect. Try to provide a
better hiding place, but if you force her out of her current
hiding place, she might run elsewhere. It just takes time.

I'm worried that she hasn't had anything to eat or drink

Put water, food, and a litter box in the area. That's all you can
do. She is just scared, but she will come out to eat, drink, and
go to the restroom. Better if her hiding place is out of the way.

You might notice a large amount of urine at a time. That means
she's holding it for a while. Not that it matters, but... If a
normal house cat is harassed around the litter box (the opposite
of what you are doing), you will notice the opposite reaction.
Then they will go a tiny amount very frequently.

--









for more than 24 hours now. I left food out for them last night
but I don't think either of them ate, although Harriet has eaten
some of her breakfast this morning. I put a bowl with some
kibble in the area that Stinky is hiding in and I hope she'll
eat but I think she may be too freaked.

Any suggestions?

Sometimes they might not look as scared as they are. You can get
clues by how they move, when they do move. My hard-core fertile
female will sit by a closed window looking out into the yard
below. But if a person down there in the yard glances up at the
window, she will run away from the window. Scared to death of
people.

If I come around the corner and surprise her up on the Skyway, she
will still hiss at me. But then, when calm, she will move away.
After five years, the closest mine gets to a human being is
sniffing my hand for food.