Moving With Pets When It Is This Hot

A moving day is stressful for pets in any climate. In a St. George summer it is also genuinely dangerous, and the danger comes from ordinary moments rather than dramatic ones.

Just-In-Time Moving works throughout St. George and Washington County.

Never a vehicle, not even briefly

The most important thing on this page. A parked car in this climate reaches lethal temperatures within minutes, and it does so with the windows cracked and in the shade.

Not while you run inside. Not while the truck is loaded. There is no version of it that is safe here, and it accounts for avoidable deaths every summer.

The best plan is elsewhere

Boarding, a friend's house, or day care for the moving day. It costs something and it removes every risk at once.

Doors stand open for hours on a moving day, people are coming and going, and animals bolt. A frightened pet outside in this heat is a serious situation, and it happens most often at the least convenient moment.

If they must stay

One room, closed, with a sign on the door saying so. The bathroom or a bedroom that is emptied last.

Water, their bed, a familiar item, and the cooling running. Tell the crew which room and why, and we will work around it.

Check on them regularly rather than at the end.

Travelling

Carriers or crates, secured, with the air conditioning on. Never in the back of a moving truck, which is unventilated and dangerously hot.

On a longer journey, plan shaded stops, carry water, and know that pavement and sand here get hot enough to injure paws well before it feels extreme to you. Walk on grass, early or late.

Do not sedate without veterinary advice, particularly in heat.

At the new house

Set up one room for them first, with familiar bedding and their own things, and keep them in it while the truck is unloaded and the doors are open.

Check the garden before letting an animal out: fencing, gates, gaps, pool access, and anything left behind by builders on newer properties.

Update the microchip registration and any tags with the new address. This is the single most useful thing you can do in the first week, and it is the one people forget.

Tell us

Say when you book that there are animals in the house, and which room they will be in. It costs nothing and it prevents the door being left open at the wrong moment.

Call (435) 862-3080 or email office@movingjustintime.com.