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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to put my cats in a cattery

79 replies

TikTakTwo · 03/08/2021 00:04

We have a baby and a toddler and DH works away a lot, so sometimes my parents come to stay to help out. My mum is now suggesting we put our two cats in a cattery when they stay from now on because they don't like their fur getting on their things, that they walk on the kitchen surfaces, & that they have accidents next to the litter tray.

My parents stay in the guest room which the cats have zero access to it's not like they have to deal with the cats in their bed. They also used to have cats in the past so it's not like they don't understand cats.

I find the idea totally batshit tbh!

OP posts:
Antsinyourpanta · 03/08/2021 10:17

Has anyone ever trained a cat?Confused
I thought they trained their humans?

We have 2 cats and they don't go on the work surface although very occassionally steal cake food from the kitchen table. (This has happened maybe once or twice a year)

OP could you alternate with going to your parents to stay (if they were agreeable?) For some of the visits?

Medievalist · 03/08/2021 10:18

My MIL used to have 3 indoor cats. Their litter tray was in the kitchen and always stank. They were always on the work surfaces and all I could think was that the bottom that had just done a poo in the stinky litter tray was now on the work surface that MIL would use to prepare food. Totally totally grim.

caringcarer · 03/08/2021 10:18

Your cats should not be kicked out of their home just to suit your parents. It is not about cost of cattery. If you have a new baby your cats will feel pushed away. When they come home they are likely to feel insecure and have more accidents. Don't do this to them. Tell your parents the cats don't go in room you will be stay in.

NailsNeedDoing · 03/08/2021 10:25

It is gross when cat owners allow their cats to walk on kitchen surfaces, I can understand where your Mum is coming from. Pet owners get used to the hair everywhere and it becomes their normal, but it’s not nice for other people visiting the house.

Personally, if people were giving me early morning help with a baby and toddler, I’d do anything possible to make their stay as comfortable as it can be.

AnnaMagnani · 03/08/2021 10:25

How often are there accidents near the litter tray or are they exaggerating?

I have one cat who occasionally sticks her bum over the edge. Doesn't matter how big the tray, or if it's covered, the bum sticks out. I put a puppy pad down - sorted.

Cats on work surfaces - until my most recent cat I'd have said you can train them with a Cat Ssscat. However new cat is ridiculously bright (Arabian Mau) and we gave up. For any other cat though a Cat Ssscat will work in 2 days.

Taking cats too and from cattery is a massive faff, even cats that are OK there are bonkers for a couple of days after and I'd consider if it was worth it for some lie-ins.

CoralFish · 03/08/2021 10:31

My cat would HATE going to a cattery. She is an independent creature, and loves her freedom. Even when we go away we get our lovely neighbour to come in twice a day to feed her and give her strokes (favour is returned for lovely neighbour and her lovely cat) and both cats are much much happier in her own home, even without humans, than a cattery. I would forgo the help with the children and ask them to stay in a hotel or Air BnB in future over the distress it would cause my cat.

Frazzled2207 · 03/08/2021 10:35

I def wouldn’t want to put cats in a cattery unless I was away and had no other option.

However if cats were having accidents all over the place and are all over the kitchen worktops I sort of see their point of view and wouldn’t want to stay wither. So neither side is being U IMO if that is what the cats are like.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 03/08/2021 11:19

There's no way my cat would be going in a cattery just because of visitors!

I always used to make my cat get down from the work surface but I have no idea what he was doing when I wasn't there! He's too old now. The layout of the flat meant there was no way I could ban him from the kitchen.

It doesn't sound as though the cats are having accidents everywhere, just beside the litter tray. It looks as though they know where it is and what it's for so there could be a good reason for this - don't like sharing a tray, don't like the litter, sides of the tray too high.

DynamoKev · 03/08/2021 11:20

that they walk on the kitchen surfaces, & that they have accidents next to the litter tray.

Errrrgh.

LST · 03/08/2021 11:21

@DynamoKev

that they walk on the kitchen surfaces, & that they have accidents next to the litter tray.

Errrrgh.

Helpful
LST · 03/08/2021 11:22

There is no way I'd put my cats in a cattery

Clymene · 03/08/2021 11:24

@CustardyCreams

Yanbu but cats on kitchen surfaces is really unhygienic, yuck. Are they indoor cats? Do you comb your cats every day to manage fur loss round the house? Do you have a decent vacuum cleaner and do you use it every day?

Maybe if you trained the cats better and we’re scrupulously clean, it would be an acceptable compromise?

Anyone who thinks their cats don't walk in kitchen surfaces when they're not in the room is utterly deluded
Xmassprout · 03/08/2021 11:26

If they was just visiting then I would say YANBU

But if they're coming specifically to help, then I would say YABU

LST · 03/08/2021 11:32

@Clymene mine actually don't as the kitchen door is closed when we're out or in bed. But when the door is open and I am in they do. I laugh at people who think they don't. They basically do as they please!

onebeauplace · 03/08/2021 11:33

No way would I do this. If you don't like cats don't come and stay at my house.

I don't like my sister's jack russell so I don't go and stay with her, I don't go and stay with her and insist she puts the psycopathic little shit in kennels - it's her dog!

onebeauplace · 03/08/2021 11:34

Maybe if you trained the cats better

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

godmum56 · 03/08/2021 11:37

well its your choice and depends on how desperate you are to catch up on lost sleep. I have got a dog and there is no way on God's green earth that I would put him into kennels for anybody. This is not intended as any kind of criticism for owners who would use kennels but i do understand why you won't.

onebeauplace · 03/08/2021 11:37

The more I read MN the more I think you can't really win with cats. Have no litter tray and let them go outdoors and you're destroying all the neighbours' gardens and giving their children toxoplasmosis. Have a litter tray and you're a disgusting, unhygienic slattern.

LST · 03/08/2021 11:43

@StrangeToSee

Can’t you put a cat gate on the kitchen door? Presumably you have a toddler gate so it would just be a higher version. Cats on the surfaces is grim and unhygienic. Their hair will stick to the surfaces, food packets, drift in the air. Our cats were never allowed in the kitchen, and if they jumped up on furniture my dad used to put them back on the floor instantly and tell them off. Therefore they didn’t leave cat hair all over the sofas and armchairs. They had cat beds and those beds on the back of the radiators.

I think indoor litter trays are also grim unless you’re potty training a kitten. They reek! I had to leave a friend’s house abruptly once because the smell of her cat defecating in the litter tray nearly made me vomit (obviously I didn’t say it was the cat!)

Can’t the litter tray live in the garden?

We also had a no cats upstairs rule, and parents vacuumed daily, so the hair didn’t build up.

Litter trays only smell if you don't clean them. Mine doesn't smell unless they shit in it and that is a rare occurrence and it is cleaned out as soon as they do.
Wheresmybiscuit3 · 03/08/2021 11:45

I would personally decline their ‘help.’

onebeauplace · 03/08/2021 11:47

Mine doesn't smell unless they shit in it and that is a rare occurrence and it is cleaned out as soon as they do.

Cue someone posting to say every single house with cats smells of cat shit and piss and you are deluded if you think it doesn't

LST · 03/08/2021 11:50

@onebeauplace

Mine doesn't smell unless they shit in it and that is a rare occurrence and it is cleaned out as soon as they do.

Cue someone posting to say every single house with cats smells of cat shit and piss and you are deluded if you think it doesn't

Oh I'm waiting for it. I have a dog too. I don't know why we don't just walk round with gas masks on
onebeauplace · 03/08/2021 11:51

Oh I'm waiting for it. I have a dog too. I don't know why we don't just walk round with gas masks on

Oh your house and your clothes must definitely smell of dog AT ALL TIMES and everyone can DEFINITELY SMELL IT and they're just too polite to tell you.

LST · 03/08/2021 11:51

@onebeauplace

Oh I'm waiting for it. I have a dog too. I don't know why we don't just walk round with gas masks on

Oh your house and your clothes must definitely smell of dog AT ALL TIMES and everyone can DEFINITELY SMELL IT and they're just too polite to tell you.

I make clothes out of all the hair lying about the place.
onebeauplace · 03/08/2021 11:52

Maybe the dog smell cancels out the cat smell and vice versa.

I know someone who astroturfed her entire back garden so she could steam clean it due to the neighbourhood cats that walked over it. I honestly think the human race is pretty much doomed when I hear stories like that!