Moving With Your Dog – How to Keep Your Pet Calm

Moving with your dog doesn’t have to be stressful. Most dogs are very adaptable to change and will settle into a new home without too many problems. Nonetheless, some dogs can find moving to be extremely hard, especially if they are older, they’ve lived in one home for a long period of time, or there are other stressors associated with the move. When getting prepared to move, there are a number of things that you can do to prevent, reduce, and manage your dog’s stress through the moving time. The more time you have ahead of time to help your dog’s stress levels, the more smoothly the entire process will go.   

Even though moving is an extremely busy time, it’s important to be still able to focus on your dog and remember to take him or her for a walk in the days leading up to the actual move. Regular walks will keep you bonded with your dog as well as help calm him or her down during this time of change. Try to plan in advance that you might need extra time with your dog to take him or her for a little bit of a longer walk if your dog is seems extremely agitated with the moving process. Be sure to keep his or her dog bowls, bedding, and toys out as your dog will want as much of a sense of comfort while the rest of the house is being packed.

In addition to monitoring your dog’s stress levels, be careful to avoid the most damaging effects of the stress of moving with your dog: having them running away. One of the most important practical things to keep in mind while moving is to be sure that your dog doesn’t escape. With lots of people coming and going during the moving process, it’s easy to keep a door open or not notice if your dog wanders off. Dogs are most likely to run away during the first two weeks in a new location, so make sure that all movers, contractors, painters, and others know that there is a dog on premises. If there isn’t a fully fenced area in the new location, you may wish to keep your dog on leash for the first couple of weeks if he or she might have a tendency to try to escape in times of stress.

One way to prevent this is to make sure that your dog has a fully dedicated space that is his or her own during the move. You may even want to have a friend or boarder take care of your dog on moving day. The more time that you spend preparing for the move to prevent any possible stresses, the more likely that your move will go off smoothly.

Pet Remedy works really well to bridge the gaps in stress management during the moving process and is available in both a calming spray or plug-in diffuser. Especially when you don’t have as much time as you’d like to take care of your dog’s needs, Pet Remedy works no matter how much or little time you’ve devoted to reducing his or her anxiety about moving.

One huge benefit of using Pet Remedy is that it provides a familiar sense of stability from one place to the next. You can use Pet Remedy in only one of the locations, but if you use Pet Remedy in both the old home as well as the new home, it offers a continuity of calm when moving with your dog. Dogs are very responsive to smells, and if your new home has the same, reassuring and calming scent as in the previous place they called home, they are much more likely to associate the new location as their new home sooner.
Happy Moving!