How to Reduce Stress for your Cat when you visit the Veterinarian

shynabeforegoingtothevet

This is my cat watching out of her Pet Carrier before we went to the Veterinarian today in the morning. She still looks a little bit suprised and it looks like she has questions like “What? We go to the Vet today?”. But in fact it was so easy to get her into the Pet Carrier because we practiced this a lot. So what you see on the photo is not a stressed or afraid cat. She just looks nosy because my Smart Phone I used to take photos

So I would like to explain how you can decrease stress for the cat while transportation to the Vet. I think most cats would not understand it what happens, if you would put your cat just in the Pet Carrier without practicing it before going to the Vet. It might cause stress when you close the lid. But I have done it like explained on the website of my Veterinarian and theirfor my cat did even went into the Pet Carrier without trying to jumping out or being afraid.

The thing is you should consider that you can teach your cat, that the Pet Carrier is her place. This is done easy. You should not only use the Pet Carrier on the day you have a date with the Vet. What you can do is, bring the Pet Carrier already out weeks ago and place some cozy blankets in it. Most cat will declare that place soon as their own cozy sleeping place. And that´s what you want! That means your cat will jump into the Pet Carrier already on her own several times.

Next thing you can do often before visiting the Vet is, throw some treat into the Pet Carrier so that she can eat it there. As you can imagine, she will soon connect the Pet Carrier with good things like eating and sleeping. It is soon her place.. a place she likes. Not a place she get forced into. It´s her Pet Carrier soon.

I did read that on the website of my Vet and can tell you this is working pretty good! But now you should also consider that closing the lit of the Pet Carrier could still cause stress for your cat later on when you want to visit the Vet. So when your cat is in the Pet Carrier you should time by time also close the lit.

I mean when you practice the things above, you can do that. Start slowly. Close the lit for a few seconds and increase the amount of time for let me say up to one or two minutes. Dont do that on one day. Start off slowly with just a few second the first days and every day a little bit more but not too much time ok? Also dont close the lit too often since your cat could get bored of that game. Just practice it time by time while you feed her in the Pet Carrier or when you see her jumping in the Pet Carrier on her own.

Hopefully you will see same results like I have seen today, when you want to bring your cat to the Veterinarian for an examination…

I went to the Veterinarian with my cat today. I did put her in the Pet Carrier without much trouble before we went to the Vet. It was so easy and as you can see I even did have time to take photos of her. She didn´t leave the pet carrier while I took the photo above. We now went to the Veterinarian and she was so relaxed when they opened the Pet Carrier there. The examination of my cat started and after that, even putting her back to the Pet Carrier was again no trouble. It has been an easy stress-free day for us. Indeed, she was still shy and little bit afraid because she didn´t know the doctor but there was no additional stress because my cat didn´t see the Pet Carrier as a hazard.

The tips from the website of my vet, did help a lot. As I am german and as the tips on the website of my Vet are writen in german, I thought it might be something useful to share and write about in english…

I hope this will help you too, to minimize stress for your cat, when you visit the Veterinarian.

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