Is leaving the cat at home alone for 3 days okay? (neighbour popping in daily)

[SemperEadem]

My MIL is getting married at the weekend and we are travelling up north on Thursday morning and coming back Sunday afternoon.

I have only left the cat once before and we put her in a cattery for 5 days. She seemed okay with this but there are no places for her this time. DH thinks she will be fine at home, a ton of dry food down and a clean litter tray. One of our enighbours is coming round daily to check her fresh water is topped up, scoop any nasties out of the tray and put a fresh puch down. I don't want to ask them to do it more than once a day as they have just had a baby on Friday.

We don't have a cat flap so she will have to remain indoors when she is normally such an outdoors cat. I am going to leave the radio on as background noise and we have timers on the lights etc. Do you think this will be okay?

It'll be fine. Ours have always routinely been left for the weekend with a clockwork feeder and a big bowl of crunchies

Do you have more than one cat? Its the loneliness/stir craziness I worry about most. I don't want the neighbour to let her out as she sometimes stays out all night and mews at the back door to be in at 3 in the morning and I'm worried that as he won't be here to let her in she may go wandering too far iyswim.

It will be fine. A lot easier to do this with cats then any other animal.

I currently have 3 with a catflap (neighbour has to dispose of carcasses of wildlife when feeding them), but when I only had one and no catflap, he was fine. I think they just sleep when left to their own devices

Thanks all - feel so much better about it now. Though pity your poor neighbour Cmot!

will be fine but perhaps you might consider getting a catflap?

I think mine is glad when we go away, he gets some peace and quiet and the best spot on the sofa.

I would yoga but we can't unfortunately.

I think the cat will be fine - its not like it would be free to roam outside in a cattery so actually it has more room to move around indoors than it woudl in a pen at the cattery

Used to leave our two for about 3 /4 weeks !

We have a very good neighbour I must add !

They have never been in a cattery in their lives , never use a litter tray and roam in and out through cat flap as they wish.

They had each other for company , now that one past away (18 yrs old) I wouldn't consider leaving the other one for such a long time again. But a week or weekend is fine .

ditto ours 2 weeks although one was at the pub when we returned

laughing at the cat at the pub!

We leave our two with cat sitters who come in once a day and we've gone away for 3 weeks with that arrangement. The cats can't get out during that time but seem fine and dandy with that. IME it's better that they're at home and not at a cattery where they always seemed to have a miserable time and come back with some nasty bug/eye infection that meant a trip to the vets.

Also, I wouldn't worry about cats getting lonely really - they're v self-sufficient. We got our second cat (now 5) to keep our first cat (now 9) company - needless to say they can only just about stand the sight of each other and I think my older cat would far rather we hadn't bothered!

Have left ours for a weekend with loads of crunchies and water. Do have a cat flap though.

OP - am sure yours will be fine. I would not botehr ever with a cattery, tbh, I think cats would far prefer to stay in their own home.

polly that int the half of it
two secondary schools, three primary schools and two villages for mini breaks, a cnacer scare, escpe form a milk float, kidnapped by a german woman, lowered the electric windown on dhs car, hten jumped out of it wheil it was moving and was run over and incarecerated in a cage for 6 weeks

he is 1

I regularly leave mine for a week or so, with someone coming in to let her in in the morning and out again at night, and give the food.

cats HATE catteries, they are naturally solitary animals and find the presense of so many other cats really stressful.

god ti slooks WORSE when i write it down

we are thinking of a webpage

She'll be fine. Ours enjoy the peace and quiet of a few days without DS running around!

One of our two is on Facebook. He has 43 friends

(The other isn't so tech-savvy)

We used to leave our cats out rather than in, with neighbours feeding and checking - at my mums there's a car port, so cats had big polystyrene (lidded, with a hole, like an igloo) box with blankets, up on bricks, and neighbours just left food there for them. They were cosy and free to roam.

We live in an army house and we can't add catflaps princess toadstool.

Thata the thing I worry about - keeping her in but don't want her to be out all day as the neighbour can only come once a day to check on her and if she is not there then she will be left out too long.

Can you not make her a cosy home in a shed or something? Ours have never minded being left out for a few days, so long as they have a warm safe place to sleep.

no shed habbibu. We have a garage but its one of those with the doors that you have to lift up and full to the brim of old crap so we wouldn't be able to leave it open iykwim.

Ah, I see. Och, cats have survived worse than being in a cosy house for a few days, god knows. Can neighbours not let her out for the day and then back in at night, or do you think that's asking too much?