Should you leave your cat at home when you go on Vacation?

We have left our cat home alone many times before. If it is to be more than 3 days, I have someone come in and check on him and give fresh water. We leave plenty of water, food and an extra litter box for him. We tried ONE time boarding him....never again!!! It really freaked him out, he came home with fleas, and he wasn't himself for weeks! (complete with peeing in the house and sparying!) Now we leave him in his own surroundings and he is much happier!

We have never had a reason to leave ours alone until now. In a few weeks we are going to Disney for 5 days. We are leaving our little ones at home by themselves. They have a fountain which keeps their water fresh and goes about a week without need a refill, we are getting an autofeeder for their dry food, an extra litter box (one of those throw away ones) and my aunt is going to check in on them once.

I never leave my pet cat, mimi alone at home with sufficient food and water with it when I’m going on a long vacation. Normally I will send the cat to my sister and ask her to take care of it. My nephew likes mimi very much and he used to play with her whenever he come to visit me.

Depends on how long you'll be gone. If it's two weeks I'd say forget it - get someone to take care of the cat, but a weekend should be fine.

I'm not sure if i can trust a cat to stay still and not roam around the house for the duration of my vacation. Food wise i'm sure a lot of food and water in many bowls would ensure there's enough food and water for the cat. House wise...don't think it's advisable. Having said that, we did actually leave our pet canary for 10 days with lots of food and water in a huge cage. He was still alright when we got back home from our snorkelling trip. Then again, a pet bird is different from a pet cat. - Lyn

We used to leave them alone for 1 week, once/month and one time was 2 weeks. They were fine but the apartmnet smelled pretty bad until we got it aired out. I was the one that had a hard time. I missed them soooo much.

It's okay to do over night, and that's it. You need to take him, bored him, or ask a neighbor to come in. The litter must be cleaned daily, the food and water needs to be fresh not stale, and he needs companionship. Would you leave your child alone with food? Please, don't do it more than over night.

We've never left our cat alone for more than just several hours. We don't ever go anywhere for just a weekend, though. When we go somewhere, we will either be back the same day, or we will be gone over a week. When we go to see our parents, we either take our cat with us, or we get someone to watch her. We always take the dogs with us, so it wouldn't be a big deal to take the cat, too, except that she hates riding in the car, and it's nearly impossible to get her out from under the bed at the hotel for our second day in the car.

I live mine alone all the time. If I'm gone for only 2-3 days I will just leave them enough water and food. If I'm gone for longer than that I will have some one come in and feed them and check on them. It's really ok.

I have noticed owning cats or dogs that cats are much more resilient to being left alone. They fend for themselves as long as there is plenty of fresh water and food. Also depending on how long we will be gone, determines if a sitter comes by or not. Our three cats would miss us but like I said, they entertain themselves and not at the expense of breaking things in the house or scratching stuff they know is a no-no !

I do. But thats because my cat tries to escape whenever we take him somewhere, and he gets carsick. He would absolutely have a heart attack if we left him someone where people would try to take care of him.

I have, we just leave gobs of food and water, clean box and I always leave the radio on in the bedroom so they can hear voices.

I would think it would depend on how long you are going to be gone. I have left my two cats home alone for a weekend. I don't think I would want to leave them alone for longer than that unless I had someone who would come check on them. We use the automatic waterers and feeders when we leave them alone for more than a few hours.