A Cat's First 72 Hours in a New Home

Quick answer

One room, everything the cat needs inside it, and no pressure to come out. That is the whole plan for the first days.

Give a new cat one room, not the whole house. A cat that arrives into an open-plan home with three floors and a dog will find the worst hiding place available and stay there.

Expect hiding. Hiding is how a cat handles a completely unfamiliar territory, and a cat that hides but eats, drinks and uses the tray overnight is doing exactly what it should. What is not normal, and what most first-week advice gets wrong, is a cat that does not eat.

• Set the room up completely before the carrier comes through the front door.
• Secure windows and balconies first. This is the single most dangerous thing about a new home.
• Let the cat come out on its own. Do not lift it out of the carrier, and do not pull it out from under the bed.
• Keep the food, the litter and the routine exactly as they were at the previous home for now. Change one thing at a time, later.
• A new cat that has not eaten for around a day needs a phone call, not more patience.

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Secure every window and balcony before the cat arrives.

Cats fall from windows and balconies, and the injuries are severe: fractured limbs, a split hard palate, chest injuries and internal bleeding. A cat that is disoriented in an unfamiliar home, or startled, is at higher risk than a settled one.

Tilt-and-turn windows are their own hazard. A cat that tries to climb through the wedge-shaped gap slides down into the narrow end and becomes trapped by its own body weight, which causes crushing injuries and can be fatal.

Fit proper screens or restrictors before the cat comes home. Insect mesh is not a restraint. Do not rely on remembering to shut a window.
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Decide in 60 seconds

Before the carrier arrives

Everything below is done with the cat still elsewhere. A room assembled around an arriving cat is a room the cat watches you assemble.

Pick the room. Quiet, with a door that shuts, ideally one you can sit in without disturbing the rest of the household. A spare bedroom is ideal. A bathroom or utility room works if it is the only option, but the cat will need somewhere better within a few days.

Litter tray. At the far end from the food. Big, uncovered to start with, with a low entry for a kitten or an older cat. Use the same litter the cat is used to if you can find out what that was.

Food and water, apart from each other. Cats do not like eating and drinking in the same place, and neither goes near the tray.

Two hiding places at floor level. A cardboard box on its side with a towel in it, a covered bed, an open carrier with the door removed. Cheap and enclosed beats expensive and open.

One raised place. A chair, a shelf, the end of a bed. Height gives the cat a view and lowers its stress.

A scratching post. Tall, stable, and standing from day one, because whatever the cat learns to scratch now is what it will keep scratching.

The old blanket or bedding. Whatever came from the breeder, shelter or previous home. Do not wash it. Its smell is the only familiar thing the cat has.

Take the hazards out. Blind and curtain cords, houseplants, loose wires, small swallowable objects, string, hair ties and elastic bands. Check what fits behind and under the furniture, and block gaps behind appliances.

Lilies out of the house entirely. Every part of a true lily, including the pollen, causes acute kidney failure in cats. A cat that brushes past a bouquet and grooms the pollen off its coat is poisoned. There is no safe way to keep them.

Existing pets shut elsewhere. Completely separate for the first days. Scent comes before sight, and sight comes before contact.

The arrival, hour by hour

Carry the carrier into the prepared room and shut the door behind you.

Put the carrier on the floor, open the door, and then leave the room, or sit still on the floor with your back half turned and say nothing. Do not reach in. Do not tip the carrier up.

Many cats will not come out while you are there. That is fine. Leave the carrier open, with its bedding inside, as a permanent hiding place. It is also the fastest way to make future vet trips easier.

Go back in periodically to sit quietly, read something, and ignore the cat entirely. Sitting on the floor, not looking directly at the cat, and slow-blinking if it looks at you are all more effective than any amount of coaxing.

Offer food and leave the room. Most new cats will eat when nobody is watching, and the first meals are often eaten in the small hours.

Do not invite people to meet the cat. Do not let children go in and out. Do not hold the cat to reassure it.

Do not bathe the cat, change its food, or start any new routine.

By the end of the first day you want to know three things: has it eaten, has it drunk, and has it used the tray. Check the tray rather than trusting your impression, and weigh or count what you put down so you know what has gone.

Food and water within a few steps of the hiding place, and the litter tray at the other end of the room. A frightened cat will not cross a room it does not trust yet.

Days two and three

Widen the world only as fast as the cat asks for it.

The usual sequence is: eating at night, then eating while you are in the room, then coming out of the hide while you are there, then approaching you. Some cats do all of that within a day. Others take weeks. Neither is a problem and rushing does not help.

Play is the shortcut. A wand toy dragged slowly along the floor and around the side of furniture works on cats that will not yet approach a hand, because it engages the hunting sequence rather than requiring social contact. Let the cat catch it. End the session with a meal.

Do not open the door to the rest of the house until the cat is coming out, eating in front of you and using the tray reliably. When you do, open it and let the cat choose, rather than carrying it out. Keep the safe room set up and accessible for weeks afterwards.

Keep the routine boring and repetitive. Cats settle on predictability far more than on affection.

Do not let the cat outside. However tempting, a cat that goes out before it regards this house as home may simply keep going. Ask your vet how long to wait, and keep an indoors-only cat indoors permanently.

What is different by age

Kittens. Feed more often and in smaller amounts, and check the tray more often. Kitten-proof at kitten scale: gaps behind appliances, wires, small objects, string and hair ties, and any place a kitten can get into but not out of. Play biting and scratching at hands starts now, so redirect onto toys from the first day rather than allowing it and correcting it later. Do not let a new kitten meet other cats until your vet has confirmed its vaccination status, and keep it away from other people's cats entirely for now.

Adult and rescue cats. Often need longer, particularly if they have been in a shelter, moved several times, or lived outdoors. Under-socialised cats may take weeks to approach and that is not a failure. Ask what the cat was fed, what litter it used, whether it lived with other animals, and what it is known to dislike. Keep the answers, because they are more useful than any general advice.

Senior cats. Orientation is the priority. Keep the tray very close, with a low entry, and add a second one. Keep everything in exactly the same place. A stiff or arthritic cat needs a bed it can step into rather than climb into, and a route up to a perch that does not involve a jump. Older cats moving home can become disoriented and vocal at night, so a night light and an unchanged layout both help. Any senior cat that has moved home should have a check-up early rather than late.

The admin nobody remembers

Routine handling like this comes later, once the cat is settled and asking for contact. In the first days, keep your hands to yourself.

The microchip is the one that catches people out. A chip stays registered to the previous keeper until somebody actively transfers it, so a lost cat is reunited with the wrong person, or with nobody. Do it in the first week.

Insurance is the other. Anything already noticed, mentioned or recorded before a policy starts is generally excluded from it for the animal's whole life. Deciding after the first symptom appears is the expensive way round.

What never to do

Do not give the cat the run of the house on day one.

Do not lift a cat out of the carrier, pull it out of a hide, or drag it out from under the bed.

Do not wash the bedding it arrived with.

Do not change the food or the litter in the first days. If a change is needed, make it slowly, one at a time, and not while the cat is unsettled.

Do not introduce it to other pets, children or visitors yet.

Do not let it outside, and do not leave a window open on the assumption it will not jump.

Do not punish, spray water at, or shout at a frightened cat. Fear aggression gets worse with confrontation, not better.

Do not accept a day without food as part of settling in.

When to get help

Call the clinic the same day if the cat has eaten nothing in around 24 hours, has passed no urine in 24 hours, is straining in the tray, is vomiting repeatedly, has diarrhoea, or is breathing quickly or with its mouth open.

Call within a day or two for sneezing, discharge from the eyes or nose, coughing, scratching at the ears, limping, or a coat that has become dull and unkempt.

The endpoint of the first week is a cat that sleeps stretched out in the open, eats in front of you, and comes to find you rather than the other way round.

Book the routine check within the first week or two regardless. Bring the vaccination record, the parasite treatment history, the food the cat is on, and the microchip number if you have it, and use the appointment to sort out the chip transfer, the vaccination plan and the neutering timing in one go.