Moving With Pets: How to Safely Move Your Dog, Cat & Other Animals

Your dog has no clue what escrow is, and your cat definitely didn’t sign off on the new lease. From where they’re sitting, the house suddenly smells like cardboard, strange guys keep walking through the front door, and the sunny windowsill they’ve napped on for six years is now blocked by a wall of boxes labeled KITCHEN. So moving with pets ends up being its own little project inside the bigger one, and it’s usually the bit people don’t think about until about 11 p.m. the night before.

We work around animals constantly, whether it’s a nervous rescue pup pacing the hallway, a cat who has wedged herself behind the dryer, or a cockatoo with a lot of opinions about our tape guns. Below is how to move with pets the way we’d explain it to a neighbor, with separate notes for dogs and cats, what to do with fish and birds and hamsters, how moving pets to another state works, and a checklist you can screenshot.

The Three Things We’d Tell Any Pet Owner

Forget everything else and you’ll still be mostly fine if you do these:

1. Let the routine stay dull. If breakfast is at 7 and the evening walk is at 6, keep it that way even when your living room looks like a Costco aisle. Ask pretty much any dog owner and they’ll tell you the same thing, pets settle down way faster when nothing about their day moves.
2. Shut them in one room on moving day. Put their bed in there along with water and a litter box or pee pads, then tape a note on the door. Our guys prop doors open all day long, and that’s exactly how a cat ends up three streets away.
3. Fix the microchip info before you go. A dog who bolts in an unfamiliar neighborhood can’t find his way home, and a chip still pointing at your old place in Sunnyvale isn’t going to help the shelter that scans him.

About a Month Out: The Boring Prep

Most of this is phone calls and paperwork, done weeks before anybody tapes a box.

• See the vet. Catch up on shots, refill whatever pills they’re on, and get the front desk to email you the full records. If car rides turn your pet into a trembling mess, that same appointment is a good time to ask about calming help, rather than trying random stuff off the internet.
• Line up a new vet close to the new address, which matters a lot more if you’re leaving the Bay Area entirely, and put the nearest 24-hour animal ER in your phone while you’re at it.
• Read the pet rules at the new place. Some Bay Area buildings are pretty strict about breed, weight, how many animals and monthly pet rent, so get whatever they promise you in writing.
• Order fresh ID tags with your cell number on them. Your address is changing anyway, so the phone is what counts.
• Drag boxes in gradually. If thirty boxes appear in one afternoon, some pets totally lose it, whereas five here and five there barely registers.

Moving With a Dog

Most dogs care about two things, you and their schedule, so the trick with moving with a dog is keeping both of those around as much as you possibly can.

Here’s how to move a dog without the drama:

• Stick to the usual walk times, packing day or not, because a dog who’s had a long walk is way less likely to herd the movers.
• On a local move, take him over to the new street a few times before you move in so he can sniff every single tree.
• Try not to crate him all day while you pack. Lots of dogs get more wound up when they’re shut away from you, so let him hang around, as long as he’s not shredding the bubble wrap.
• His bed, bowls, a couple of toys and that gross blanket he loves should go in the car with you and come out first at the new place.
• For the first few days, keep a leash on even in a fenced yard, since every yard has a gap under the fence that you won’t discover until he does.

Got a dog who barks at strangers? Then honestly, a daycare or a friend’s place for the day is the kindest option. Four guys hauling a dresser past a barking dog is stressful for the guys, the dog and you.

Moving With a Cat

Cats kind of take a move as a personal insult, so moving with a cat needs a longer runway than moving with a dog, but give her a slow, quiet intro to the new place and she’ll most likely be bossing you around again in a couple weeks.

How to prepare your cat for moving:

• Weeks before the move, leave the carrier sitting open in the living room with a blanket and some treats inside, so it turns into a napping spot instead of “the box that means the vet.”
• Going a long way? Take her on mini drives first, like once around the block, then over to Safeway and back, building up from there.
• A pheromone diffuser like Feliway plugged in near her favorite spot can take the edge off, both at the old place and the new one.

As for how to move a cat on the actual day, get her into the safe room with litter, food, water and the carrier before the truck shows up, shut the door, and put a big “CAT INSIDE, DO NOT OPEN” sign on it. Then mention it to the crew lead. We’d much rather hear about the cat at 8 a.m. than find her curled up inside a box spring at noon.

Moving with a cat to a new home goes smoother if she starts in one room (litter, food, water, bed, scratcher) for a few days before you let her explore the rest, room by room. Hiding under the bed, skipping a meal, maybe a little litter box protest, all of that is pretty normal. If she flat out stops eating for more than a day or so, though, call the vet.

Fish, Birds, Reptiles and the Little Guys

Not every pet fits in a dog crate. Here’s a quick guide for the others:

Whatever the animal, it rides with you and never in the back of the moving truck. Movers can’t haul live animals, and a box truck in July is basically an oven with no windows.

Moving Day With Pets

Moving day with pets mostly comes down to keeping them out of the way and out of trouble. If we could hand every customer a sticky note, it’d say:

• Give a lighter breakfast than normal, a few hours before you head out, since a full stomach and a winding drive over the hill don’t mix.
• Pets go into the safe room (or to daycare, or a friend’s) before our truck pulls up.
• Say something to the crew lead at the door, even just “two cats in the back bedroom.”
• The carrier, leash, water bowl, food, meds, poop bags and litter all stay in your car, not on our truck.
• Right before you lock up, go get the pets. Sounds obvious, and yet people do forget in the chaos.

The day is a lot calmer when you’re not also wrestling a tape gun. Our residential moving crews and packing services can handle the boxes while you look after the animals.

Long Distance Moving With Pets

Long distance moving with pets adds hotels, long hours in the car and sometimes state rules to the mix. Moving with pets across country is really a planning problem more than anything, so here’s what changes.

Should you drive or fly?

We’d pick a road trip over a plane for most animals, mainly because you’re the one deciding when to stop, what the thermostat says and how long each stretch of I-80 lasts. If flying makes more sense, book early, because airlines cap how many pets can ride in the cabin and cargo has temperature cutoffs in summer and winter. Flat-faced breeds like pugs, Frenchies and Persians often run into extra airline restrictions too.

Paperwork for moving pets to another state

Moving pets to another state comes with rules a lot of people have never heard of. Plenty of states want a certificate of veterinary inspection (basically a health certificate) for dogs, and sometimes cats, crossing the border, and airlines typically want one issued within roughly 10 days of the flight. Proof of rabies shots is pretty much always on the list. Since the rules vary by state and get updated, check the USDA APHIS pet travel page and the destination state’s agriculture department a few weeks before you leave.

On the road

Moving across country with pets means planning the route around them:

• Call the hotels ahead, because “pet friendly” on a booking site sometimes turns out to mean one dog under 25 pounds and a $75 fee.
• Pull off every few hours so everybody (humans included) can drink some water, pee, and stretch on a leash.
• Never leave them alone in a parked car, not even for a quick gas station run, since a car on a warm day can heat up by something like 20 degrees in ten minutes.
• Cats stay in their carriers the whole drive. A loose cat under the brake pedal is a genuinely scary thing.

Heading out of California altogether? Our guides on moving from California to Texas and moving from the Bay Area to Florida cover the whole timeline, and our long-distance moving team can time the delivery so you and the dog aren’t camping on an air mattress for a week.

Settling In After Moving House With Pets

Moving house with pets doesn’t really wrap up when the truck pulls away. Funny enough, the first two weeks after the truck leaves is when we hear about most of the escapes and the shredded blinds.

• Before they roam, do a lap of the place hunting for open windows, torn screens, holes under the fence and phone chargers dangling right at puppy height.
• Don’t switch their food brand the same week you move, trust us on this one.
• Work from home the first couple of days if you can, then try going out for twenty minutes, then an hour, then a whole afternoon.
• Look up whether your new city or county wants dogs licensed, because a lot of them do.
• Get a “hi, nice to meet you” appointment with the new vet on the calendar in the first month.

Moving With Pets Checklist

The short version. Screenshot it, print it, stick it on the fridge.

4–6 weeks before

• Vet visit, shots, records copy, meds refilled
• Microchip updated with your new contact info
• New vet and emergency clinic picked out
• Pet rules at the new place confirmed in writing
• Carrier or crate out and familiar

1–2 weeks before

• New ID tags ordered
• Health certificate if crossing state lines or flying
• Pet-friendly hotels booked for long drives
• Daycare or pet sitter lined up for moving day (optional)

Moving day

• Safe room ready, sign on the door
• Crew lead told about the pets
• Pet bag in your car: food, water, bowls, meds, leash, litter, waste bags, favorite toy
• Pets loaded into your car last, after the final walkthrough

First week in the new home

• One room set up first, then the rest of the house slowly
• Fences, windows and screens checked
• Normal routine back in place

Moving With Pets in the Bay Area? We’ll Handle the Boxes

Your job on moving day is the animals, and ours is pretty much everything else. CEO Moving’s crews work around dogs, cats and the occasional chatty bird all the time, and we’ll stick to your safe-room plan. Request a free quote, mention your pets when you book, and the crew will know what to expect before they knock.

Frequently Asked Questions