While your new home will be entirely yours, don’t forget that the home will also be where your pet will be living as well! A living area foreign to your pet may make it a bit anxious for quite some time. We recommend getting your pet acclimated to the area once the home buying process is on its way.
- Walk your dog around the home and neighborhood
- If approved by the current homeowner, bring your pet inside
- Give your pet some treats within the home before moving in
- Keep them in a room with the least packed boxes to keep the home familiar to them
- On moving day, let them stay at a friend’s house so they avoid the stresses of moving entirely
Now that the whole family is in the home, make sure that the home is safe for your pets! In a vacant home there can often be exposed electrical cords and possibly not-so-consumable plants on the outside.
- Tuck in electrical cords
- Make sure your furniture is set up in a way your pets can’t get stuck
- Double-check for any pest traps around baseboards and other areas
- Remove poisonous plants outside of the home
- Check for chemicals in the water (sinks, toilets, etc.)
After the move is successful, there’s still some work to be done to ensure your animal friends are happy folk. They can be wary of new surroundings for a while, so do your best to get them acclimated to their new home. Keep them in their crate in a room with you for a few hours if possible–your own comfort in a new home will ease their apprehension. Take them out of it and play or pet them for a bit to show that they can have fun in their new surroundings. Once they seem a bit more like their normal selves, open the room’s door and let them explore one room at a time.
At this point, they’ll probably be as excited as you are to check out their new home, so let them run wild! They’ll lay and roll around on the new carpet, slide all over the slick hardwood and much to our dismay will likely jump over new furniture. It’s all the fun of being a pet-owner.
From our pet-loving team to your family, we wish you luck on moving pets and moving homes![/three_fifth][two_fifth_last padding=”0 15px 0 15px”]
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