Cattery or ten days indoors with a pet sitter?

[Bogburglar99]

We have a holiday booked in August, going abroad for ten days and leaving Precious First Cat (PFC?) for the first time.

PFC is a one year old Siberian who has free access to outside for the daytime and comes in (most reluctantly) for the night. He loves climbing our apple tree, leaping onto the neighbours roof, harassing their chickens, going to visit the cat next door, etc.

I don't think letting him go in and out while we are away is really an option. Feels too risky that he might do something daft or have an accident - he is fit and hardy but etill young and wasn't raised to be a street tough. The kids would be utterly devastated if something happened to him.

We went to see a cattery which was nice enough but would involve a small indoor and largish outdoor pen. There is also a pet sitting service that could come in twice daily if we left him shut in our house.

So - cattery where he can have some outside access but is shut into a small space and away from the familiar? Or shut into his own house wondering why he isn't allowed out to improve the lives of all those chickens and butterflies just the other side of the glass doors? Can we trust the pet sitter not to let him escape?

I may be worrying more about this than about choosing DDs nursery

Cattery but don't hang around because the best ones get booked up very quickly for school holidays.

In order of preference, we do this:

1. Family member stays at our house and cat sit for us... This is by far the best because they're at home and we know they're being well looked after. But it's not always an option, depends if family can do it, and we don't like to ask too often.
2. Cattery... It's a good one with indoor/outdoor pens overlooking a garden. Woman who runs it is a total crazy cat lady, looks after them well and they are always fine afterwards. But it does get booked up.
3. Leave them at home with a neighbour or friend popping in twice a day to feed and check on them... I would only do this if we're away for a night or two, no longer. Would be too worried about them otherwise!

We also keep ours in at night but I wouldn't lock them in day and night without us being there. They would probably hate it and might make a mess or do some damage out of boredom or protest.

The last cattery I used for PFC (indoor cat) was run by a crazy cat lady :) lovely lady.

PFC was spoilt rotten! we had to provide a list of her cat food and biscuits we had to take her brand of cat treats and then the spoilt little fur bomb was given treats of fish/mince or chicken once a day + cuddles

She also looked after my house rabbit at the time, I came back to find the woman had taken him into her home and he was asleep on her bed :) as he was too cute to leave in the hutch area with the other small pets. She charged next to nothing too, was just very lonely I think and loved her "guests" I actually almost felt guilty taking my bunny home as she clearly had become very attached to him. Had to book early!

I need to find one in my new area but they have a lot to live up too!

Definetly suggest cattery for anything more than a few days, because they can get into a lot of mischief :) and in my case they leave fluff everywhere ;) the one time I left them got four days with a family member it was literally like a fur bomb had gone off :) hence them now being collectively known as the "fur bombs" but do have three :)