Cattery or stay home?

[beachygirl]

I have a 4 year old cat that I am planning to leave to go on a 5 day mini-break. Ideally I would leave her at home with neighbours feeding and the cat flap open so she can come and go as she pleases. But she is a manic mouser and I can't expect my neighbours to deal with dead/alive rodents in the house. Would I be better to book her into a cattery, though she is a nervous little thing, and terrified of other cats, or shut her in her own home with the neighbours popping 2/3 times a day? Which means cleaning the litter tray. I just want to minimise stress for humans and my Dcat. Advice welcomed.

I was in this position recently. Never left the cat before apart from three days when she was much younger. She’s very nervous too. I looked at several catteries and thought she would hate it there. We don’t know the neighbours and they don’t seem animal people.
I found someone to come in and feed her through a pet sitting agency. Absolutely lovely person. She sent me photos every day in WhatsApp and when we returned after a week she Was fine! She could go in her own garden through the cat flap . The sitter came once a day and spent half an hour with her each time. She doesn’t use a cat littler so it was easy money for the sitter. I think the cat would have hated being in a cattery and been much more stressed.
Our previous cat was much more laid back. He was fine in a cattery or with neighbours feeding him.

'That sounds ideal. But what if the cat is bringing in mice, 1 or 2 per day, through the cat flap? We live rurally and she is a little killing machine!

they tend to be a lot more settled at home. We have a local pet sitter that comes in twice a day and is used to sorting out mice etc

I use Trustedhousitters and all the sitters I’ve had over the past few years have been great.

Ah tricky, I can see the benefits for your neighbour in using a cattery!
I’ve not used a pet sitter but that would be a good option by the sounds of other posters experiences.
Fwiw, I used to use a cattery which had proper, sound proof walls between each pen, each cat had their own enclosed outdoor space, a split level indoors area, heating, tv and radio. It was hotel level for cats. My two didn’t want to leave…very pricey though. But might be something like that an option?

A cat sitter who can handle the rodents seems to be the ideal solution!

It's strange, and may only be a foible of our cat (he has many!), but we've left him at home, with the run of the garden and woods we back on to, in the care of neighbours/friends 4 or 5 times when we've been away for a week, or even two, and we've never come back to any little rodent or avian corpses, or had reports of any being discovered. This, despite him normally being a voracious killer. Maybe when we're away he doesn't feel the need to bring 'gifts'?

Is it possible to confine your cat to one area/room of the house, so that there wouldn't be the opportunity for anything to escape, if he did bring something in, and a professional cat sitter would be able to dispose of any bodies, I would have thought.

@beachygirl

'That sounds ideal. But what if the cat is bringing in mice, 1 or 2 per day, through the cat flap? We live rurally and she is a little killing machine!

Our cat is a killer too and I warned the sitter that there may be corpses to deal with. I don’t think that happened though. It was a fair trade off for not having to clean out a litter tray.

I used a cattery. I always worried he’d get hurt and wouldn’t be checked on till it was too late.

Also he would’ve got very stressed on his own for long periods of time.

We get a cat sitter to come x2 a day. They are used to all things cat. My boys wouldn't cope being in a cattery. I think car sitters are the way to go 100%

Cat sitter or cattery.

My older boy does not like being left for long, so decided on cattery. They advised against saying too stressful for a cat his age not used to it. Dilema solved when kind family member offered to stay at mine for the week otherwise would have got a live in sitter..