I have a neighbor who goes on vacation and an old friend of his comes once a day to feed his cats and change the water and boxes.
Leaving the cat at home and stopping by every third day to feed and water it would be by far the least stressful option for both cats.
I was thinking of doing this anyways. But I would take the cat to my house for a few days ( she is leaving I think on Wednesday.) and then put the cat back and visit every other day.
I have only laid eyes on this cat possibly twice in the year and a half my mom has had her. She freaks out when someone is at the door and goes off and hides.
If my mom knew that my plan was to put the pussy back and let her be alone in a house, she would never leave to go on a much needed vacation.
WTH? I’ve often left my cats alone three days at a time, with plenty of food, water, and clean litterboxes. I have on occasion left them 5 days but I prefer not to. In every case they were all just fine.
Moreover, I often watch other people’s cats when they are away, and all have agreed that stopping by every 2-3 days is plenty, as long as there are no kitty special needs.
I just don’t see what is so crazy about looking in on the cat every couple of days. The cat will certainly be more comfortable in that arrangement.
ETA: I understand that in this case, the cat owner has some objection to the cat staying home alone (misguided, IMHO). I am speaking as a general matter.
A noted trap for young players. If you’re going to do the lock-the-temp-cat-in-one-bedroom trick, LOCK YOUR CAT IN ANOTHER ROOM WHILE YOU CARRY THE NEW CAT IN.
My father needed 38 stitches to various parts of his torso, arms and legs after falling for this one.
The Rental Pussy is in our master bathroom. After an evening of staying in her carrier, she has ventured out to begin meowing. Since I have a housefull of kids, I thought it prudent to keep her in this room until things settle down.
Our own cat, I am pretty sure, has no idea what is going on.
We had a stray adopt us about 3 years ago. She got along with our other female for about a week. Since then, they’ve fought like cats and cats constantly.
Another vote for keeping them separated.
It’s just as well. If they really did have a Rental Cat business, you just know that the customers would be inappropriately shifting, racing the cats past their proper limits, and returning them with empty tanks. They’d have to make it up by charging ridiculous rates on the Little Friskies to refuel them.
Heh.
Rental cat stays under our bed all day and only ventures out at night. Around midnight she starts an OCD pattern of Jump on bed, trot across our heads/faces, joump off bed, meow at the door ( which is open) go around and jump on bed, trot across our faces…purring the entire time. We are talking she could probably do this all night long. She won’t settle down and if I put her into a football hold to tuck her in and stroke her so I can fall asleep, she gets annoyed.
This goes on until one of us makes a move, then she goes into the bathroom ( where her travel case/litter and food are, and meows.
Either this cat is completely out of her element and some issues are manifesting because of this big change or, I strongly suspect, she is actually a Mental Torture Specialist.
Our cat was not pleased to see the Rental Cat in one of the kids bedrooms. Our room is kosher. Some kind of one-sided hissing and back arching occurred. Rental Cat had the nerve to go in Our Cats Kids’ rooms, which is funny since our cat looks at everyone with complete distain and views us all as Barely Tolerable.
Maybe she wants you to join her in there? Does she have a constant supply of food and water, or do you feed her at certain times?
She has a bowl full of food and water along with her litter in our bathroom. It is hers alone. Our cat has her own in another room. Rental Cat’s appetite is still on the no-interested side, but she has some extra poundage on her from my mom’s chronic overfeeding her.