Cat on thyroid medication - can I take a holiday?

[LeakyPipes]

Hi all,

My cat is on thyroid medication twice daily.

I'm hoping to get away for 2-3 nights at Easter to visit family.

I'll obviously try to arrange for somebody to come in and give him his medication while I'm away, but I worry that he might not take it from a stranger.

I'm assuming that it could be quite damaging for him not to have his medication properly for three days. Is that correct?

(If I can't make an arrangement that I can trust then I won't go away. I'm just checking as he only started the medication recently and so I've not been in this position before.)

Our cat was on so much medication by the end that we gave up trying to have a holiday. "The end" went on for several years however. If you could find a cat sitter who was also a vet nurse or experienced with medication it might work... they often charge extra per pill administered though and this was totally unaffordable for us.

Yeah, we had a cat lady come to the house who was a veterinary nurse and would do medication.

Look around for someone who has experience (we have an ex-vet nurse who now runs a business looking after animals when owners are on holiday) although be prepared that the cat may need to stay with them in a cattery rather than have the free run of your home. Otherwise you can ask your vet surgery whether they will have your cat for the duration (FIL has done this with his diabetic cat before but I doubt it’s normal practice).

My cat took her medicine like an angel for cat sitters and the cattery. She was pretty good about it anyway. But I'd have to chase her to give it her. Other people had absolutely no issues with it. You might find he takes it without fuss from someone else.

I would put your cat in a cattery rather than relying on a sitter.

Not because the sitter can't be trusted, but because in a house, there are way more hiding places for a cat to run off to, whereas in a cattery they're kind of "stuck" in one place and can't bolt off anywhere.

I say all of this as a cat sitter myself, who also has cats who require daily medication. They used to stay home while we went away, but now they would go into a cattery so I knew they were getting all the medication as needed.

I'd trust our sitter to be able to bribe them and would be perfectly happy to administer the pills to somebody else's cat, as I had a cat who needed thyroid meds long term and have given meds to friends' pets before now, even when they aren't happily convinced by a blob of chicken liver pate that it's worth the sacrifice.

I'd be less confident about an animal in a kennel, which is already more stressful than being at home, receiving their meds.

I do think a lot of it depends on the cat.

One of mine is confident and would probably take his medication off anyone, but the other is incredibly wary of strangers and would bolt and hide as soon as they came through the door. He's also the one who needs three tablets a day.

I wouldn't want to put all that pressure on a solo sitter who likely has lots of other jobs to get to, whereas catteries (generally) have more staff and more time to try and get the medication down. The scaredy cat also wouldn't be able to bolt off and hide at the back of our wardrobe if he was in a cattery

Whilst I can squirt our cat's medicine directly into her mouth the cat sitter isn't confident.
Instead they put it in a small amount of tuna or sardines and watch her eat it.

Our cat sitter came round to meet and get to know our cat and try giving her medication before we went ahead.

Cat accepted medication from them and all was well

Very many thanks for all the suggestions. Fortunately he has liquid meds in Lickylix, so no pills involved. I'm sure he wouldn't be able to cope with leaving home but fortunately I do have a really good friend who would come in, I think. I'll speak to her to see whether she'd be willing to do it 👍