Cats: home visits or boarding away

If you live with a cat and are leaving for two weeks, the question always takes the same shape: do I leave it at home with someone dropping in, or do I take it somewhere else? The right answer is almost always the first, and it is worth understanding why — because the "almost" carries exceptions that matter.

The underlying misunderstanding

The idea that cats are independent and therefore cope alone conflates two different things. It is true that a cat tolerates solitude far better than a dog: it eats at its own pace, does not need to go out, and sleeps most of the day.

What it does not tolerate is a change of territory. A cat builds its security on a map of smells, routes, hiding places and high points it knows perfectly. Take it out of that map and it loses everything at once. The typical reaction of an adult cat moved to an unfamiliar flat is to hide under a bed, stop eating and not emerge for forty-eight hours. It is not sulking: it is managing a threat.

Which is why, for the great majority of cats, the comparison is not "continuous company versus solitude" but "its own home with visits versus an unknown place with company". And in that comparison its own home wins nearly every time.

What a proper visit has to include

Here is the nuance that decides whether this works. A three-minute visit to fill the bowl does not cover what is needed:

A genuinely clean litter tray, every day. Not a glance. A cat that finds a dirty tray starts looking for somewhere else, and recovering the habit afterwards costs far more than the trip that caused it.

Water changed entirely. Not topped up over what was left. Cats drink little to begin with and drink less if the water has stood for two days — and dehydration in cats is a serious, silent problem.

A check on the animal. How much it has eaten, whether there is vomit, whether it moves normally. Many feline problems announce themselves through a small change in food intake before any visible symptom.

A period of presence. Ten or fifteen minutes of wand toy, brush, or simply sitting on the sofa. An indoor cat with no stimulation for two weeks gets bored, and boredom in cats translates into overeating and marking.

All of this is exactly what defines the cat sitting service, and it is why you should agree the length of each visit and not only its frequency.

How many visits it takes

• A healthy adult cat: one daily visit usually suffices.
• Two or more cats: one a day, with even more slack, because they keep each other company. What increases is the time the sitter needs inside.
• Kittens, elderly or convalescing cats: two.
• Medication every eight or twelve hours: the schedule rules, not anyone's convenience.

When taking it out of the house is worth it

There are three situations in which boarding away makes sense:

1. Building works or a house move. Its territory no longer exists as it knows it, so the change argument loses its force. Continuous noise is worse than relocation.
2. Very long absences — more than three or four weeks — for cats that handle solitude particularly badly. They exist, above all among the oriental breeds and among cats raised with another animal.
3. Medical care requiring continuous presence, where the reasonable answer is neither of the two, but a clinic.

Outside those cases, moving a cat usually means solving the human's anxiety at the animal's expense.

The first visit, with the cat present

Do it with you at home and without hurry. It is not a formality: it is where the sitter learns the things no form has a field for.

That the cat only drinks from the bathroom tap. That the terrace door must stay shut, no exceptions. That it hides in the gap behind the sofa and not under the bed, which is where everyone looks first. That touching its belly earns a bite, even if it is not meant seriously. That there is a second bowl in the kitchen because the other cat eats the first one's portion.

It also lets the animal associate that person with your presence — which is precisely what makes the first solo visit less strange. A cat that has seen someone sitting on your sofa talking to you processes them very differently from a stranger opening the door to an empty flat.

A note on pilling

If your cat takes medication and does not cooperate, tell the sitter before booking, not at the first visit. Getting a pill into a cat that resists is not trivial: done badly it ends in scratches, in the animal hidden for three days and in the dose on the floor.

There are professionals with specific experience in this, and they are worth seeking out. In cities with deep supply like Valencia or Málaga it is perfectly possible to filter for it; in less dense areas, ask about it explicitly before fixing dates.

What to leave prepared

• Food for the whole stay, plus a margin, in its usual format.
• Spare litter, in sufficient quantity.
• Medication labelled, with the schedule in writing.
• The carrier accessible and your vet's phone number.
• An alternative contact who will answer if you are on a flight.

And one thing almost nobody does that helps enormously: leave something that smells of you where the cat usually sleeps. A worn, unwashed T-shirt does more for its calm than any pheromone diffuser.