Essential Tips for Cat Care When You Travel and Go Out
Every time a cat owner is both happy and worried whenever they go on a long vacation. Happy to finally be able to go out to relax and worried about their kitties. They try to decide whether they will leave it in a friend’s or family’s care, find a sitter or leave it at home.
Is it foster it or stay at home?
If you foster your cat, you may worry that it will be afraid of unfamiliar surroundings, and the people you left your cat with may be stressed out by it. You might have doubts about the quality of care the people will provide and if you leave it at home, you might not get enough food or water, or no one will scoop the poop.
In the best case, the cat should stay at home in a more familiar environment, that’s our recommendation. The cat can have plenty of food and drinking water, it's not unusual for cats to stay on their own for ten days or half a month.
The point is to be prepared and have things arranged to ensure the cat's home safety and food, drink, and shelter.
I.Check good safety - doors, windows, and appliances are closed
① Close doors and windows: Make sure that the doors and windows of rooms where you don't want the cat to go like kitchens, bathrooms, and other dangerous places. Lock them to ensure that the cat can't open them no matter how much it tosses and turns.
② Keep it neat and tidy: keep all dangerous items like knives, glassware, small objects, etc. make sure these items are kept in a place far away from where the cat has access like a drawer or a cabinet. Keep the area where the cat will be as clean and tidy as you can without any extra home appliances around.
③ Turn off electrical appliances: Except for essential appliances such as refrigerators and cat water fountains, unplug all other electrical appliances, and unplug the drain plug to prevent leakage of electricity and injury to the cat.
II.Sufficient food and water
① Food: put 2 to 3 times the usual amount of food, and let them eat openly. Some families always put large portions of food and the cats are too lazy to eat everything. You can put enough food for a few days and observe how your cat reacts to determine which option you will use. Usually, I’d replace the traditional food bucket with a non-electric automatic feeder, it can be around $20. To prevent accidents, you can just fill the cat feeder with the food before leaving.
② Water: you can also choose an automatic water fountain, the same size as the automatic feeding bucket, and a non-electric one. My family had an electric water fountain before, we usually put enough to drink for a week, before leaving and used a variety of containers. We would use storage boxes, basins, and others to fill with water, and place them in various corners of the house.
However, if the cat food and water are exposed to the air for a long time, the food will easily deteriorate and the water will be very dirty.
Is there a better way?
We recommend the use of automatic water dispensers and automatic feeders. Automatic water dispensers allow cats to drink fresh, clean water at all times.
Automatic feeders, let's say these two [ABRCT Automatic Cat Feeders] have a timed dosing function and can store more than 12 days' worth of food. Cats can eat fresh food regularly.
In addition, [ABRCT Automatic Cat Feeder Video Type] has a video function that allows you to see your beloved cat anytime, anywhere, and talk to and take care of your cat remotely.
III.An adequate amount of cat litter
More cat litter: poop is actually the biggest problem. If you are not used to this, the amount of cat poop can be overwhelming. A week of poop can make the litter compacted so if you don’t want it to be messy, you can choose suitable cardboard boxes, bags, or three litter pots as a backup. Of course, it is more recommended to use an automatic litter box.
Advantages of using an automatic litter box
1. It can avoid the problem of cat excrement contaminating the litter by accumulating in the litter box.
2. The excrement storage box can store more than a week's worth of excrement. Solve the worries of traveling no matter the amount in the litter.
It should be noted here that the automatic litter box is not suitable for kittens under 4 months of age.
IV.Close monitoring
Have more visual access. Is it best to have a monitoring system for the cat at home so that it’s more convenient to keep an eye on it when you are on vacation? Basically, after circling the place where the cat is allowed to go, the surveillance camera can observe the cat's movement in all directions, usually two or three times a day, and playback to see if the environment has changed and if the cat has not made any mess. In case there is anything wrong, you can also immediately call a friend to the home to see the situation.
V.Leave the toys
Basically, do a good job on the first four steps, it is best to make the cat interested in toys to keep them company.
Generally, after a week back when a new cat gets more familiar with the environment, they become tricky. Give them toys to keep them busy to avoid trouble or being stubborn. You can use the toys to distract them and clean their food boxes when they are not looking.
