My Cat Won't be doing Disney

[Dazer22]

Does anyone have experience leaving at cat at home while you go away on vacation. Is a person coming in to feed her and change litter once a day enough. Our cat is loving and very sociable ( always around us). I fear that she will be extremely lonely with our family gone.

I am excited about our trip but leaving our beloved pet has me very anxious.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

I used to never leave my cat, until we had kids! Now we go all the time. We had a neighbor ( teen girl ) come over everyday. She loves animals and would pet her and feed her. It is true that when we came home she would go crazy upon seeing us (purring, rubbing up against us, meowing), but I think she was O.K. Sometimes we had to leave for 10 days to see family. We used to take her, but she just can't ride in the car anymore. Cats sleep a lot. I have heard some people leave a radio or TV on. Hopefully you can find someone that would enjoy taking car of your cat.

 

[hollyb]

We share duties with our niehgbor. When we go away she watches our animals she comes twice a day. Same when they go away we visit her pets twice a day.

DD is sad we are leaving the pets for vacation this year. Little does she know that I have been making a photo album of the pets. I will give it to her when she starts to miss them.

 

[Kailani6]

I don't know if this is an option for you but this is what we do...
I used to travel for work so I knew I would need to leave my cats and my mom (the only person I trust to feed them while away) can't travel to me since she has 2 young adopted children and does foster care
SO since they were young I have brought them to my mothers. They actually like it there better I think-she has a basement (all sorts of stuff to get into down there) and there is more for them to do then in my apartment(they are inside cats) and she has 3 dogs which makes life more interesting as well.
They actually will walk right into their carrier when I get it out. So if you have someone willing to do that, you could take them for visits every once in a while to get used to it. This is what I did, that way when the trip comes around they will be used to it. And I know they are having fun.
Good luck!!

~Farley

 

[lexmas]

We always leave our cat at someone's house, as he is very needy and thinks he's a person lol. I'm sure your cat will be fine if someone is coming in to take care of her, but if you have someone you trust who would watch her at their house, it may be better, as then she can get all the attention she needs, and maybe even extra, if she is a "guest" at someone's house who loves cats!

 

[pooksma]

Luckily my parents live up the street so they feed/check in on him. He's not at al sociable so he won't be too bothered. When we come home he usually gives us the cold shoulder for a 1/2 day, just to let us know he's miffed we left him.

 

[flying_babyb]

were a 4 cat household. Just a bit about our clan:
Dana- loves people (as long as you dont touch her)
tabby- hates anyone whos not mom (men especally)
bosco- loves everyone( everday)
bandit- very unsocial

We leave our whole clan to go on vacations. Our cats seem ok with it. Bandit is kinda snubbish (leave me alone you jerk who left me) when we ome home but otherwise it works well. We hire our neighbor to vist, pet, play and fill the water dishes. she also feeds the 14 fish.

 

[Sweedee]

We just got back from a vacation (sheesh, sometimes we have to visit the inlaws and bypass the World!) where we left both our cats from a Wed night until late Thursday of the next week. My mom came in every 2 days to make sure that they weren't dead, out of water or food. Since we left all the toilet seats up, and a dutch oven full of cat food....they were fine. Well, they were fine until my mom hid the garbage can they kept knocking over! When she hid that, I came home to all my cupboard doors open, drawers standing wide open, etc. Kitchen Maid cabinetry doesn't stand up to the assault of 2 felines with no owners to love them.

 

[hvivona]

We hire a pet sitter for our sweet siamese, Hanna. She is very sociable and has to have human contact. The sitter comes to the house each day and cleans the litter box, puts fresh food and water out and stays to play/cuddle for about an hour or so. You should check and see if there is anyone who provides this service in your area. It shouldn't be that expensive, we only pay $15/day. Good luck, I know its tough to leave the furry kids at home.

 

[kldmom2000]

We have my friend's teenage daughter come by daily to feed them, clean their litter box, and pet them for 30 min. or so...she gets our mail too and waters the plants (We have 2 cats so they have each other for company though they are both quite social and need human interaction) Everything has gone well so far-we usually get shunned by the cats for the first 6 hours or so upon our return as they try to show us that we shouldn't do that to them again but then all is well again afterwards!

I usually pay her $100 for the week.... wondering if it should be more????

 

[SunKat]

We hire a pet sitter for our sweet siamese, Hanna. She is very sociable and has to have human contact. The sitter comes to the house each day and cleans the litter box, puts fresh food and water out and stays to play/cuddle for about an hour or so. You should check and see if there is anyone who provides this service in your area. It shouldn't be that expensive, we only pay $15/day. Good luck, I know its tough to leave the furry kids at home.

This is what we do as well. It's always worked out for us...and the cat. We pay $15 per day too. The pet sitter also feeds the gerbil and fish for no extra charge. Our dog on the other hand, goes off to a kennel. He would be too much of a handful for the petsitter.

 

[#1 Pocahontas]

We have two cats. We always just have a friend or family member come over every other day to feed them, clean the litter box, get the mail.....

We put out an extra food bowl and water bowl while we are gone. They get along just fine. Although, my one cat is always miffed at us for leaving.

Maybe you could take some shirts that you have recently worn and place them in your cats favortie sleeping places. The smell of you might comfort your cat while you are gone.

 

[Melissa]

I wouldn't feel right about leaving our cat alone like that, think he would be too sad. We have a great cats only boarding facility near us. It is basically the Grand Floridian for cats. For 13 dollars a day I feel less guilty knowing our furry friend is getting lots of attention and playing in the bird viewing room. If I had someone I trusted to come in everyday and feed and pay attention to him I might consider it, but to just drop off some food and check the litter box I wouldn't do it.

 

[Dazer22]

Thanks for all your good advice. I feel a little better that others have left their furry friends and it all works out in the end.

 

[!HereWeCome!]

Whenever we leave our cat - even though my sister currently lives downstairs and always takes care of him - he decides to show us his displeasure with us leaving him by pooping on the carpet. Gross, I know! We had better luck boarding him the last time we needed to go out of town. Only $15 a day.

 

[northriver]

I regularly leave my cats for 2 days, they don't seem to notice that we are gone. I think it makes a difference that there are two of them, if there is just one they might need more attention. This trip we will be gone 8 days. I have a friend to stop in 3 times while we are gone. I am also giving a neighbor an extra key - just in case. My cat that is very personable is afraid of strangers so I'm not sure having strangers visit will be of much comfort, he will probably just hide in the basement LOL.

 

[Nancyg56]

I had never left our 4 cats lone until last year, and then I hired my niece to take care of them. We worried because she had a long drive, and it was winter, so my neighbor was our backup. She came and played with them and he came when she was snowed out. This year, she came and stayed at our house, and her little beagle visited his Gramma. Everybody had a vacation.

Honestly, every pet is different, but mine are pretty needy so we felt better knowing someone was here more with them. My sister's cat is fine if she gets fed and her litter is cleaned.

 

[dsweetp76]

Our cat is very social also. We go to Disney once a year and my mother in law comes once a day to check on him. I have found in the past he hardly notices we were gone. I think he liked having the place to himself!

 

[Rustysmom]

We have 2 cats who are sisters and we left them alone for 4 days last summer and they were fine. We left lots of dry food and several huge bowls of water and an extra litter box.

When we had our cat Rusty, my FIL used to come over and check on him once or twice during the week, but I don't speak to him anymore so that option is out. Now I don't have any catsitters. I could ask my best friend, but I know she's not very careful and I'd be afraid she would let them run out. We have a neighbor watching the house and taking in our mail, but we're not comfortable with giving him a key.

We could board them at our vet, but I don't feel comfortable because I know they'd be miserable in a strange place, and I'd worry that they catch something.

I never left them for 7 days, but we're going to have to do it this summer. Since there are 2 of them and they sleep most of the time, I think they'll be fine. I'll just make sure there is nothing dangerous that they can get into while we're gone. I also have to leave my parakeet and fish, and I think it's harder to leave food for them than for the cats.