Moving Soon

[soka]

I might be moving soon (just need to get the security deposit together) and I have a few questions about moving the cats. Now, I've moved the cats a few times but never in with a roommate. We will be renting a house and my husband's coworker is joining us as a roommate. She already lives at the house with a few dogs and two cats. We will be bringing 1 dog and 4 cats to the house. I know that is a lot of cats in one house but its not a small house so there is plenty of space.

1) Dogs. Our cats tolerate our dachshund, but he can't really do much harm to them. Mostly he just tries to lay on them. But the dogs we are moving in with are larger dogs. Two hounds and a rottweiler. All are very well behaved and obviously live around cats since she has 2. But since we are moving into their territory, what is the best way to go about introducing them all and having the house be safe for both dogs and cats to roam freely?

2) Microchipping. We were hoping to have all the cats microchipped. Miki and Tyran were both microchipped a few years ago, but I never activated their chips. Will it hurt them to be chipped again? Is there a way to get their old chips activated even though I lost all the info the vet gave me?

3) Stress. I was thinking that once we move them over, keep them confined to our room for a few days just to get them settled. Let them establish our room as their territory and let them get comfortable. I want to provide them with a cat tree and multiple hiding spots so if they feel the need to hide from the other cats or the dogs, they may do so. Any other advice to help with stress?

 

[icklemiss21]

Microchipping does have some risks attached to it so I would not re-chip an animal unless there was a fault with the chip or it had migrated to an area that does not regularly get scanned.

Microchips, although not registered will still read a number that you can use to register it - take them into a vet or shelter and get them to scan them for the microchip and give you the number to register. It is something all shelters around here do free of charge because we prefer they have up to date info so if we pick them up we can get in touch with you.

Once you have the microchip numbers, you can register the chips

As far as the bigger dogs, it is good they have lived with cats before but your animals (including your dog) may be seen as a threat and I would do intros very slowly. There is lots of info on intros on the forums so I wont go into it but keeping them separated and introducing slowly through scent swapping before meeting is a great idea.

One thing that comes to mind is checking on your local regulations for having that many animals in a home, here they would likely consider you a hoarder if a neighbour or someone told them how many animals are in the home, even with two sets of owners unless you have different physical addresses (101A and 101B Feline St etc)

Stress: Feliway can be great when moving, we use both the spray and diffuser at the shelter, it takes some time to work so if you can set the diffuser up at home before you move and a second one a few days before you move in their new isolated room, and then if you think they may find the actual move stressful you can use the spray in the carriers

 

[soka]

We will try the Feliway and do intros very very slowly. We were hoping to take the dogs to a neutral area (like a dog park) and introduce the dogs there on leashes.

She rescues dogs so the dogs are used to new dogs coming into the house. She said the landlord doesn't care about how many animals are in the house. The law might be different, but she said neighbors don't care and keep to themselves.

I will definitely get their chips scanned and registered. What are the risks of the chips?

 

[icklemiss21]

With any injection (vaccines included) there is a risk of a cancerous lump forming at the site of the injection as well as other minor infections related to any foreign object being inserted (although the needle is sterile, the hole does not close immediately) - the other reason I would not rechip is they may only read the inactive chip and not the second one and get no information from it - making both useless

They are both very rare side effects of microchipping but since you do have the option of just registering the existing one I would not risk a second