Moving in together with pets: two routines, two vet files

Her cat has lived alone for six years. Your dog thinks every animal is a friend. The lease starts on the first, and nobody has yet agreed which vet, which food, or who takes the 7 a.m. walk.

Moving in together with pets is two jobs at once: introducing the animals slowly enough that the first week does not set the tone for the next five years, and merging two households’ routines, records and permissions so that either of you can act for either animal. The introduction advice below comes from Cats Protection and ASPCA Pet Insurance; the records part comes from the Ontario regulator’s rules on consent and ownership.

How do you introduce the animals without a fight?

Slowly. With cats, start with scent and let them set the pace. Cats Protection’s leaflet Introducing cats to others puts the new cat in its own “safe” room with food, water, somewhere to hide and somewhere high, out of bounds to the resident cat, “for at least a week” as a rough guide. Scent swapping comes next and “should take the greatest portion of the overall process”: rub a clean cloth on each cat’s cheeks and sides, put it on the floor of the other cat’s territory, and keep going until both cats sniff and ignore it. Use a glass door, then a mesh barrier, before face-to-face sessions of five to ten minutes.

For a cat meeting a dog, the same leaflet keeps the dog on a short lead, gives the cat the escape routes and high places, and says the two “should always be supervised together and never left alone”. For two dogs, the ASPCA Pet Insurance guidance is to let them meet in neutral territory, greet at a distance and then closer “while leashed and supervised”, let the new dog see the house without other pets around, and take breaks when they get excited.

Plan where each animal will stay. Before the boxes arrive, decide which room is the cat’s for the first week, where each animal eats, and where the baby gate goes. Cats Protection’s rule of thumb for shared resources is one per cat plus one extra, and it applies to bowls, litter trays and beds.

Whose routine wins?

Write down both routines first. Each animal has a routine that one of you knows by heart, and during a move it is easy to miss a step of it. Write out each animal’s day as it was: meal times and amounts, walks, medication, the things it hates. Then merge them into one timetable for the house and decide who does what, instead of relying on habit.

Our guide to feeding multiple pets when more than one person feeds them covers two animals on two schedules. If one of you is late and the other assumes the walk happened, the timetable still shows whose turn it was.

Do you keep two vets?

You can; nothing in the Ontario regulator’s standards requires one household to use one clinic. Each animal has a history at the clinic it came from, and the Ontario regulator’s VCPR guide describes the relationship as one between a veterinarian and a client for a specific animal, which does not end because the client moved. Update the address and the contact list at each clinic.

If you do consolidate, the new clinic needs the old one’s records, and the person who was the client at the old clinic can request them. Our guide to switching vets and transferring records covers the request; when a pet changes hands, the records do not follow explains why the request has to come from the right person. Moving in is not a change of ownership, but the clinic will treat your partner as a stranger to your dog’s file until you say otherwise.

Who may consent, and who pays?

In Ontario, whoever you have named and authorised in writing at each clinic. The College of Veterinarians of Ontario’s informed consent guide says an established client “should designate individuals to act as authorized representatives who can provide consent in situations when the client cannot be contacted”, with a written document in the record listing them, and it advises documenting “limitations on financial and medical care decisions”. In plain terms: if your partner takes your dog to the vet on a Tuesday and you are in a meeting, the clinic needs to know in advance that they may say yes, and up to what amount.

Money is the other conversation. The same questions our guide to sharing a pet with a roommate asks apply with one difference: that guide covers one animal, and here you are each bringing one. Decide whether the vet bills stay with the owner, split, or go into a shared pot, and decide it before the first emergency rather than at the counter.

What do you update, and where?

Three records, in the first week. The licence, with the municipality, because the tag on the collar should lead to the new address and a phone that rings; our guide to applying for and renewing a Toronto pet licence is the Toronto version. The microchip, with the registry, for the same reason; set aside about ten minutes for checking and updating microchip details. And the vet file at each clinic, with the new address and the authorised representative added.

If one of you is renting, check the lease too. Toronto and some other Ontario cities count animals per dwelling, so a household that now has three dogs and two cats should check the municipal limit; how many dogs and cats you can keep in Toronto and the limits in other Ontario cities have the numbers.

Where Dana fits

Dana can keep two routines, two vets’ details and two sets of permission documents together. Each animal keeps its own profile, health record and task list; both of you are caregivers on both, so the 7 a.m. walk and the 8 p.m. tablet are logged with the name of whoever did them. Each pet’s preferred vet is in its health record, and a consent letter from the clinic can be photographed into Records Vault, part of Dana Pro. See Dana’s shared pet care app for roles and invites, and the complete guide to sharing pet care for how they work.