When you have a pet, there are bound to be times when they get stressed, even if you try to avoid it. Obviously, spotting these times of stress can help you manage your furry friend’s anxiety and learn some techniques to help keep this down to an absolute minimum. There are a few different events, which when we had our house rabbits, were more likely to cause stress or anxiety. It’s likely that these too will apply to your pet’s, so let’s check some of these out in more detail to help you prepare for them and get ready to keep your pet as calm as possible.
Moving Home
Pets tend to be creatures of habit, and they can become highly territorial of the space they consider theirs. Therefore, during the occasions in life when you need to move home, this can cause a great deal of anxiety. You need to make sure that you are giving yourself plenty of time to get the move done in the smoothest manner possible. If you’re travelling any kind of distance, it might be beneficial to look into proper cat transport for your move at sites like
https://www.shiply.com/us/pet-transport/cat-transport. We used a large cat carrier to move our rabbits, and kept them together – this really helped them both and keep them safe in an unknown and stressful situation.
You should also establish a space in the new house for your pet and give them all their blankets, toys, and anything else that can help them feel right at home. It often helps for them to have one set space to feel safe and then be introduced to the rest of house slowly.
Sudden Noises
While it is hard to always predict sudden noises, these can signal danger to pets, so they can obviously prove to be times that can cause great stress. With this in mind, you should be ready to manage these occasions successfully. To begin with, firework displays are the most obvious times when a sudden noise is likely to be an issue. So, what you can do, is to make sure that your pet has a place that they can retreat to, and you can be ready to keep them nice and calm too. There are plug-ins to create scents that can help keep your pet calm, and even noise-reduction products might help.
There are also times when the day-to-day stresses can start to spring up. What you can do here is to ensure that they have a bedroom in a part of the house where any common noses –such as those that you find from passing traffic – are kept down as low as possible.
New Members of the Household
Any new members of the household can certainly provide stress factors for your pet. Therefore, you need to be fully and properly ready to ensure that they are integrated into the household, and your pet does not feel like their place is going to be threatened. This is certainly true if you have a new baby in the house. Obviously, another key stress-or is going
to come up if you decide to introduce a new pet into the equation. In this situation is can be beneficial to make sure that the introduction is slow and gradual – all interactions should be short, under control and fully supervised.
Visits to the Vet
Obviously, another one of the main times that can cause a great deal of stress is when you must visit the vet with your pet. Ensure they are used to the pet carrier and that you keep them calm during the car journey itself. Of course, it can make it a great deal easier if you have more than one person. You will need one to do all the driving and another one that is going to be in charge of keeping your pet as calm as possible during the journey.
There are all sorts of events in the lift of your pet that can lead to stress. Obviously, you are not going to be able to protect against each and every one of these. However, what you can do is be ready to ensure that you are there for your pet and ready to manage their anxieties. Hopefully, this is something that you will become better and better at during your time looking after your pet, and you will get into a strong and solid routine that will give them plenty of reassurance.
*Collaborative post
