Where does your kitty go when you cruise?

[shipgeeks]

In the past, our cat has gone to my friend's house while we are away.  He apparently appreciates his home so much now that he fights being taken away from his routine. We are very private people; I can't see having a pet service come into our house every day, and the friend who boards him lives too far away to stop in daily. Ideas?

[lenquixote66]

Just now, shipgeeks said:

In the past, our cat has gone to my friend's house while we are away.  He apparently appreciates his home so much now that he fights being taken away from his routine. We are very private people; I can't see having a pet service come into our house every day, and the friend who boards him lives too far away to stop in daily. Ideas?

We had a cat for 19 years.Whenever we were on cruises or other vacations we had a relative come in twice a day to feed the cat ,clean her litter and play with her.

[GeezerCouple]

We slowly developed a relationship with a housecleaner.  She would stop by to attend to the cats.

 

Then we moved into a much larger house, and felt uncomfortable leaving it unattended (not just people, but a tree down, etc., water damage...).

 

So we started paying her to housesit, and she would "be here", although she was free to come and go as she pleased.

 

There was a time when one cat needed IV fluids, so we changed that such that one of the vet techs at our veterinary clinic would come by to administer the fluids, and then just attend to the other cats as well.

 

We no longer have any warm fuzzies, and we miss them. A lot.

GC

[George C]

We have a great cat sitter that comes to our house, picks up the mail , puts out the garland spoils our cat , we spend extra to have her spend extra time with our cat , she’s sends us pictures of our cat being spoiled daily, did send cats to be boarded in past , but we find that the best thing is keeping cat at home.

[LHT28]

We had a great neighbour who come in a feed  our cat  or when she was not available  we hired  a local cat sitter

We have moved away  so now  looking for  a new sitter

One lady recommended someone  & she lives  5mins away  so  will see how it goes

we booked a fall cruise so hope the Princess will be OK

[K32682]

The cat stays at home and we hire a house sitter. The house sitter is not just for the cat but also takes care of the two dogs and the horses. 

[klfrodo]

We used to board her at the Vet but she got 86’d. We have to give her gabipentin every time we take her to the vet.

 

we now use rover.com to have somebody drop by twice a day to feed her, clean the cat box, and they stay for an hour to give her some attention. You get to select the person you’re most comfortable with thru short visits and interviews. You get a notification every time they enter and exit the house, plus they throw in some pics.

I recommend looking into them at least.

[panoramaofthepast]

In the past, we had a house/cat sitter who stayed at the house, but when we moved our new  retirement community had a cat-sitting co-op; basically everyone knows everyone's cat and will feed, change litter, and play for no charge. We just pay it forward. 

[LHT28]

1 minute ago, panoramaofthepast said:

In the past, we had a house/cat sitter who stayed at the house, but when we moved our new  retirement community had a cat-sitting co-op; basically everyone knows everyone's cat and will feed, change litter, and play for no charge. We just pay it forward. 

That is  a great idea

[YourWorldWithBill]

We had someone who was very trustworthy who house-sat for us, but due to health she is no longer available. Now a next-door neighbor comes over, and we pay him to make him feel good as well as maybe more responsible. 

But really, there is no substitute for someone staying in the house. I can see the difference when I return from a trip. We have three cats and two very small dogs, so they are around each other, at least.

I would like to find someone to house sit that I could trust, again.

There is an organization called "Trusted Housesitters"; people who want a free place to stay in your city will stay in your house at no charge. Although there is feedback and they are supposedly vetted, we haven't felt comfortable using them yet.

[fruitmachine]

In the UK family have used Trusted House Sitters (https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/) and I see that they have a number of international options including in the US. They and their friends have been delighted with it.

 

Both the "host" and the "sitter" pay an annual fee, but after that there is no cost.  The host gets both pets and house looked after while they are away, the sitter gets a free holiday!

[9tee2Sea]

look into automatic feeders and automatic litter box cleaner.  I never had cats, but my old dog ( dog was about 13 at the time) did not want to leave her yard.  So I got a HUGE automatic dog food feeder.  Filled it up, programmed it to dispense 3 times a day.  It held about 25lbs of dog food kibble.  Enough for about 2 weeks.  As for water, she loved drinking out of the pool.  She was an outdoor dog, with a great doghouse under cover incase of bad weather.  And neighbors would stop by to rub her belly

[shipgeeks]

For those who have a neighbor (kid?) come over to feed and clean, how much do you pay them?

[mrgabriel]

We have a house sitter - my sister’s boss. In the past, we have had different pet sitting services. Most were good, one was bad. The worst was a 16 year old neighbour who spent exactly 5 minutes in the house each visit, forgetting that we have cameras outside. 

[mrgabriel]

7 hours ago, 9tee2Sea said:

look into automatic feeders and automatic litter box cleaner.  I never had cats, but my old dog ( dog was about 13 at the time) did not want to leave her yard.  So I got a HUGE automatic dog food feeder.  Filled it up, programmed it to dispense 3 times a day.  It held about 25lbs of dog food kibble.  Enough for about 2 weeks.  As for water, she loved drinking out of the pool.  She was an outdoor dog, with a great doghouse under cover incase of bad weather.  And neighbors would stop by to rub her belly

Gosh, we would never, ever leave a pet unattended for days.  There are too many things that could go wrong - especially an issue with water supply. Most reputable pet sitting services will refuse to visit less frequently than once every other day.  

[CTGirl74]

I'll say upfront that we have A LOT of cats--11.  There's no way we'd be able to shuttle all those cats to a boarder, plus it would be expensive. The only time we've taken a cat to be boarded, which is at our vet's office, is when we have an aging kitty who need regular meds.

 

We used to live much closer to friends and family, so we'd have them come over to feed, scoop the litter and whatever else. Now that we're about 40 minutes away from them, we use two of the women who work at our vet's office. One is a vet tech and the other works the front desk. I feel so much more confident about my cats being well taken care of, and I'm comforted by the fact that they know cats and can handle anything the comes up unexpectedly. The biggest bonus is probably the fact that the multiple litter boxes are actually clean when we get home. For payment, I believe it's 20.00/day, which I think is a bargain.

[George C]

10 hours ago, mrgabriel said:

We have a house sitter - my sister’s boss. In the past, we have had different pet sitting services. Most were good, one was bad. The worst was a 16 year old neighbour who spent exactly 5 minutes in the house each visit, forgetting that we have cameras outside. 

We also discovered our pet sitter skipped some days and spent very little time other days , love ring camera. 

[mrgabriel]

35 minutes ago, CTGirl74 said:

I'll say upfront that we have A LOT of cats--11.  There's no way we'd be able to shuttle all those cats to a boarder, plus it would be expensive. The only time we've taken a cat to be boarded, which is at our vet's office, is when we have an aging kitty who need regular meds.

 

We used to live much closer to friends and family, so we'd have them come over to feed, scoop the litter and whatever else. Now that we're about 40 minutes away from them, we use two of the women who work at our vet's office. One is a vet tech and the other works the front desk. I feel so much more confident about my cats being well taken care of, and I'm comforted by the fact that they know cats and can handle anything the comes up unexpectedly. The biggest bonus is probably the fact that the multiple litter boxes are actually clean when we get home. For payment, I believe it's 20.00/day, which I think is a bargain.

 

This sounds like the perfect pet-sitting arrangement!

 

I pay at least $20 a visit (2 visits per day for 2 cats). In Atlanta, I was paying a bit more than that ($22/visit for 2 cats). It's only a bit more expensive to have someone stay in the home ($50 is about average), and then the cats have more company plus the house is lived in. 

[mrgabriel]

3 minutes ago, George C said:

We also discovered our pet sitter skipped some days and spent very little time other days , love ring camera. 

 

Yes! Don't people understand what those cameras report?

 

When the teenager was taking care of the pets I had absolute FITS when she would show up 5 hours late and then stay for 4 minutes. The lesson we learned with that one was to have a friend or family member with a key so they could go in as needed. 

[9tee2Sea]

10 hours ago, mrgabriel said:

Gosh, we would never, ever leave a pet unattended for days.  There are too many things that could go wrong - especially an issue with water supply. Most reputable pet sitting services will refuse to visit less frequently than once every other day.  

My dog always had an independent streak.  She would stare at the door when outside to come in.  I let her in, fuss over her for maybe 5 min, then she would stare at the door to go back out.  She was just one of those dogs that layed around in her dog bed ( she had two outdoor beds, dog house and 1 indoor bed).   She didn't like to get fussed over ( she would just get up an go, after a short period of time).  If I had a needy animal, I would never think of leaving them alone for two weeks.  She drank out of the pool ( she preferred that over her water bowl), and maybe she would chase a squirrel for some exercise.  We also put a radio on a timer so there would always be some noise inside the house.  

But of course, being in Los Angeles, the weather is mostly nice ( except for this winter), so I never had to worry much about bad weather. 

[Mary229]

We had a cat sitter but our cat preferred to got to the vet.  Admittedly the vet was also a family friend and our kitty received special treatment such as free roaming during the day and many laps to sit on.  She seemed to have a crush on the clinic cat and they were kenneled together in a spacious kennel for the evening.  (Caveat - since we traveled a lot on business she was there at least once a month and i got a very good rate)

[panoramaofthepast]

21 hours ago, shipgeeks said:

For those who have a neighbor (kid?) come over to feed and clean, how much do you pay them?

When I had a house/pet sitter, it was $30/day, but she stayed at the house. 

[BillB48]

On 4/1/2023 at 2:39 PM, fruitmachine said:

In the UK family have used Trusted House Sitters (https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/) and I see that they have a number of international options including in the US. They and their friends have been delighted with it.

 

Both the "host" and the "sitter" pay an annual fee, but after that there is no cost.  The host gets both pets and house looked after while they are away, the sitter gets a free holiday!

Our daughter who lives in the Baton Rouge LA area used them when we went on a cruise in January.  She was very pleased with them.

 

[hallux]

When my parents had cats (last one passed 2 years ago, I think but it seems longer than that), a neighbor would go in once a day to put down wet/canned food and check the water.  I'd go in every few days and scoop the box(es) and then stay longer to give more attention on the weekend.

[lifes-a-beach]

Our neighbor loves our 3 kitties as much as we do, thus she’s more than happy to help.  I still work so we don’t book long trips and honestly I don’t even like to be gone longer than a week because I miss them.