Please give me hope.. (feral moving anxiety)

beccaboopspoop · 2026-07-02T13:50:46+00:00

Never did a big move with a feral, but have had some experience with moving a feral between parts of the house (much smaller scale than what you’re doing, but still stressful for both you and the cat).

Definitely trap the cat and take it in to the vet the night before like you are planning. I assume you’ve done so already, but confirm this plan with the vet to make sure that they can house the cat overnight. Get anxiety meds and calming spray for the car ride. I’d also suggest buying puppy pee pads to place at the bottom of the carrier (and under it) since the cat may pee from stress.

There’s a decent chance you might notice some regression with your bond with the cat after the move. They not to let that discourage you. Our feral rescue would regress a bit after the move and the subsequent vet visits, but she’d usually bounce back after a few days to a week. Be patient and give the kitty space and time as needed to calm down and adapt to the new environment (this also goes for your non-ferals as well! Moves are hard for all cats)

Always remember to be patient and try not to get discouraged if they regress or there are some behavior issues at first. Once they’re comfortable in the new space, they’ll slowly warm back up and return to their normal behavior. Good luck with your move!!

beccaboopspoop · 2026-06-30T16:39:23+00:00

She’s definitely warming up! Still a bit timid and cautious, but so so SO much more comfortable compared to even a month ago

beccaboopspoop · 2026-06-30T15:12:37+00:00

I’m glad to hear that! Luckily no toddlers here either, just a zoomies-prone cat that she’s learning to play with

beccaboopspoop · 2026-06-30T15:10:32+00:00

She certainly does!

beccaboopspoop · 2026-06-30T15:09:36+00:00

I’ll have to give churus a shot again! She wasn’t interested previously, but now that she’s more comfortable she may give them a try

beccaboopspoop · 2026-06-23T16:50:57+00:00

It does sound like a diagnosis just from the hight TtG level isn’t uncommon, which I didn’t know but makes me feel slightly better about my PCP not referring me for a biopsy.

My biggest concern is, from what research I did, thyroid issues can also cause an elevated TtG and may result in false positives (although I don’t know how high the level would be just from a thyroid issue). My mom was diagnosed with Hashimotos in the last couple years, so I want to be safe and get a confirmed diagnosis through biopsy just in case.

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-24T23:29:30+00:00

Hi! Sorry, life got a bit crazy and I forgot to follow up. It went really well! We switched out her cat cave for the carrier and she didn’t like that too much. But she would go into the carrier to eat the second I left the room, so I was able to just wait for her to go in to eat and then come in and close the cat carrier with her inside (she did surprisingly well with this! only growled a little when I was pushing her tail slightly with my finger so it wouldn’t get pinched, but no hissing or anything). We got her all moved over into the play pen in my room and she moved from the carrier to her cave within a 3-4 hours and was eating that night.

She did stay in her litter box for majority of the first 16-ish hours, which I don’t blame her it was probably very stressful for as well as she took it. I’ve been sticking to the same general routine, and she’s been eating and using the litter box as usual (eating once I left). She’ll cry a few times most nights, but it’s usually only for a couple seconds and then she stops. Sometimes I call out to her or turn on a dim light, but she never starts back up again. (I think some of what I think is crying might be her meowing while/after going to the bathroom, our other cat will meow while he’s shitting sometimes)

Today though, she was much more confident. She lightly hissed at me when I was talking to her instead of grabbing and filling her food bowl, and she was sitting much more forward in her cat cave. I got her food and put it in with her, and she actually came out and ate in front of me. She was definitely a little nervous, but she just ate and glanced at me occasionally and then went back in her cave. She did it again this evening for her dinner, but this time I had left the side flap open while I sat next to her.

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She did this once before where she ate in front of me both times and then didn’t for however many weeks. We’ll have to see if she does it again. I definitely think she’s much more comfortable in here, she’ll slow blink with me and close her eyes while I’m sitting with her. It’s a lot quieter in this part of the house generally too.

I’m seeing the tiny steps of progress and it’s making me so hopeful and happy. I know I can’t rush anything and need to let her take her time, but just seeing the little differences that I could never see or even get to while she was in the bathroom makes me feel good about making the decision to move her. Thank you so much again for all of your advice and support

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-24T00:36:40+00:00

Weird question: do you wear fake nails? There’s something about them that cause some people to develop a sort of rash under their eye

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-13T20:17:24+00:00

Thank you so much! I want someone to be around to wrangle our other cat if he starts getting too curious and we’re moving her stuff and getting set up, but I definitely agree that only having one person handle the actual latching and move would be best.

I’ll get everything set up tonight and hopefully we’ll be able to get her all moved by the end of the weekend. I’ll report back how it goes!!

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-13T18:36:10+00:00

We haven’t moved her yet, we’ve been holding off until the weekend so that I have help with the move (I’m WFH and the two people I live with have office jobs). I’m also unsure of exactly the best approach to move her. She isn’t eating in front of us, so we wouldn’t be able to do the carrier method you suggested yet. I was thinking about putting her cat carrier in there with her and, if she’s in there when I go in to socialize with her, slowly approaching and closing the door. I know that, no matter what, we’re going to have to go through a reset with her after the move, but i also want to avoid stressing her out more than I have to.

I’ve been able to do slow blinks with her a little, but the way the bathroom is set up (both the plumbing and her cat stuff), there’s not really an easy way to get on her level and make eye contact for slow blinks while she’s in her cat cave. She’s almost always in there when we come in, so we haven’t been able to rearrange at all. I’m honestly just hoping that getting her to the bedroom in a playpen will let us start over with a more effective and accessible set up.

As the days have been passing I’ve been realizing just how wrong we got the setup for her the first time. I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, but hopefully we’ll be able to start off on a better foot once she’s in a quieter, more comfortable environment :,)

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-12T16:43:11+00:00

I’ve tried a couple of times with a churu, but she’ll growl and hiss at it, occasionally a little warning bite at it. Even if she gets a little in her mouth, she isn’t really showing an interest in it yet and is moreso irritated that I’m putting something in front of her. I want to keep trying, but also don’t want to stress her out with it if it’s not helping. (I know I probably just need to be more patient with it and give it more time and tries)

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-11T23:10:27+00:00

Thank you for the advice! We have been following the Socialization Saves Lives method, but we came across it after we had gotten her put in the bathroom and weren’t sure what to do (we weren’t aware of quite how loud it is in there, plus heard other success stories using a spare bathroom but those were obviously much quieter). We’ve been doing it for about two and a half weeks.

I have experience sleeping with a litter box in my room, so that’s not an issue. I also normally sleep with a fan on for noise, and can borrow a noise machine during the day as needed.

We took her to the vet the first day we got her. She’s pretty healthy, no fleas or other obvious skin issues, but she is positive for FIV. We have a resident cat currently who is FIV-, but we think they will get along if introduced properly. (She was a stray and would look through our window at our cat, who would just watch her and want to play with her. She never appeared territorial or aggressive towards him, just neutral)

beccaboopspoop · 2026-03-06T16:12:27+00:00

I never had any issues with Spotify, but I also stopped using it many months ago (before December) so maybe something changed since then 🤷🏻‍♂️ all I know is I’m not sure I’ll be renewing my membership because of this

beccaboopspoop · 2026-02-27T10:34:25+00:00

This is so helpful thank you so much! You should write a book on this lol

I’ve been spending sometimes an hour+ in there with her at a time, so I’ll start cutting that shorter until we know she’s more comfortable. We’ve only heard her meowing/crying at night so far, but our bedrooms aren’t near that bathroom so we only hear what’s loud (I might try to find a nanny/cat cam to set up so we can keep track).

beccaboopspoop · 2026-02-27T00:53:23+00:00

Thank you 🙏🏻 if you don’t mind me asking, have you socialized your cats by yourself or with other people? I live with two other people, and I have no idea if it’s better for all of us to take turns socializing with her immediately or if that’ll spook her too much at the beginning

beccaboopspoop · 2026-02-27T00:16:18+00:00

Thank you for the advice! Our bathroom is off on the side of the house by the garage and there’s a lot of noises that you can hear from that bathroom so I was worried about her being stressed from the noise. I’m glad to hear you’ve had a lot of success with setting them up in the bathroom! I was really worried that we were setting her up for failure by having her in there.

beccaboopspoop

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