- Joined
- Oct 17, 2019
- Messages
- 113
- Purraise
- 107
We adopted an elderly cat 2 1/2 years ago from a shelter, no ideas about her past life. It was pretty rough going...she randomly bit me...hard...for 1 1/2 years before finally calming down. She didn't start becoming affectionate until about 6 months ago but now she's a real lover and sleeps with me nightly.
My husband and I both work from home, so she's used to having us around all the time. We haven't done much traveling at all but want to start again, a little. We went away for Christmas to visit family recently. I thought a lot about what do to with the cats (we also have a bonded brother pair, 18 months old). We've had cats for YEARS and every time we have traveled, we leave them at home with tons of food, water, and extra litter boxes. We had a traumatic incident when a cat sitter accidentally closed one of our cats into a separate room with no food/water and it was so awful, I never want to use one again. Plus, we live way out in the country, so not really close for anyone to just drop in.
This time, since we hadn't left these cats before, we bought cameras to stage all over the house and left a key with a friend in case we saw anything unusual. All doors propped open and secured with door stops. Everything seemed fine. Cats ate, slept, played. We were gone a total of 7 days.
We've been home for about a week, and I've noticed that while our boys are fine, our older girl is definitely upset. Her normal routine is to sleep all day upstairs on her heat mat, but she's been absolutely clinging to my side all day, every day. She's always in my lap and snuggling. I feel just awful that she was clearly so unhappy with us being gone for so long and am giving her as much affection as possible.
But looking forward...well, we want to travel from time to time. Never for more than a week and just a couple times a year. We thought she'd be traumatized by being boarded, as she came from a shelter and clearly didn't like that. She doesn't like people, so I didn't think that she'd benefit from someone stopping in to play with her. How can I make future travel easier for her, or will she just get used to it with time?
My husband and I both work from home, so she's used to having us around all the time. We haven't done much traveling at all but want to start again, a little. We went away for Christmas to visit family recently. I thought a lot about what do to with the cats (we also have a bonded brother pair, 18 months old). We've had cats for YEARS and every time we have traveled, we leave them at home with tons of food, water, and extra litter boxes. We had a traumatic incident when a cat sitter accidentally closed one of our cats into a separate room with no food/water and it was so awful, I never want to use one again. Plus, we live way out in the country, so not really close for anyone to just drop in.
This time, since we hadn't left these cats before, we bought cameras to stage all over the house and left a key with a friend in case we saw anything unusual. All doors propped open and secured with door stops. Everything seemed fine. Cats ate, slept, played. We were gone a total of 7 days.
We've been home for about a week, and I've noticed that while our boys are fine, our older girl is definitely upset. Her normal routine is to sleep all day upstairs on her heat mat, but she's been absolutely clinging to my side all day, every day. She's always in my lap and snuggling. I feel just awful that she was clearly so unhappy with us being gone for so long and am giving her as much affection as possible.
But looking forward...well, we want to travel from time to time. Never for more than a week and just a couple times a year. We thought she'd be traumatized by being boarded, as she came from a shelter and clearly didn't like that. She doesn't like people, so I didn't think that she'd benefit from someone stopping in to play with her. How can I make future travel easier for her, or will she just get used to it with time?