My last move, 9 years ago, went better for the cats than the previous move, but I found that even my “bravest” cat, Blackjack, wanted his own “quiet room” — he went up inside an armoire and hid in a drawer. I found him when I was getting ready to fill the drawer with my stuff, and found it was already “filled”. My two lady cats were content to hide under the bed in the quiet bedroom.

I considered the cats (and my dogs) in my selection of the lot for my new house — it matched the layout of their former home in that it was at the end of a street, with a view of the curve to the next street, and on the same side of the street. I wanted them to have somewhat the same view out the front window as they had before - don’t know if they noticed, but they adjusted to the new home well.

I was scared my cat, who is skittish and handled shorter moves much worse in the past, would be traumatized by the move. Not so. All of my planning and preparations got her ready. By the time we took her to the airport she was comfortable in her crate, and had more confidence about new situations and strange people.

I’m glad I didn’t assume she would be better left behind than moving with us. Though I admit to fearing she would handle the move so poorly I would regret putting her through it.

And another discovery I recently made when we had tornado warnings and I had to sit in the basement for a while to wait them out - I’ve recently added a third cat, but forgot to buy another carrier. And I discovered I was short one carrier to get all the critters to the basement!

Fortunetely one of my cats is rather quiet and accepting, and so I put her under an upended milk crate-type box. Not perfect, but it worked out okay.

Early the next day, however, another crate was added to my household belongings!