I board Persia (and my lovebird, Peaches) at Persia's vet.  Naturally she's
not happy with it but they love her and they pay lots of attention to her.
They make sure she gets her special Rx food.  When I bring her home, she has
to check out every room in the apartment to make sure nothing has changed,
but I don't get the "I'm mad at you" treatment, she's just glad to be home.

Peaches doesn't care one way or the other.  They put her in the room with
the vet techs and they talk to her and she chirps back at them :)  They
don't treat birds, they only board them, so it's a novelty when they have a
bird.  They think she's great fun (so do I!)

Jill

Jill

If I were only going to be gone three nights and had inside cats I'd
strongly consider leaving an extra litter box or two, several bowls of water
and plenty of dry food.  Longer than that and I board mine at the vet.  Will
be trying a new kitty boarding place for our next trip.  Ours can be a
problem cause they are used to going out, and I'm quite sure they would
escape and refuse to come back in if we had a catsitter.  Otherwise there
are a couple of catsitters that are recommended by our vet.

Jo

<snip>

I get a friend who lives nearby to come in and take care of them. Mandy is
perfectly happy with anyone who feeds her (especially if they are less
familiar with her 'starving cat' act than I am), but Betsy tends to stay
out of the way of the threatening stranger. One year, she did it so well
my friend ransacked the house looking for her because she thought Betsy
might have been sick or gotten out.

Cheryl

As long as there's more than one, and if none are on essential meds, it
won't hurt to leave them alone for just a few days. Set out multiple litter
boxes and lots of dry food and water, and they will be fine. That's what I
do when I have to leave my group, and they're all fine with it and extra
glad to see me when I get home. If it's for a longer time I have a neighbor
look in on them once a day.

I'm lucky, I guess.

When my ex-wife and I split up, we had four cats (and no children) to deal
with. The father cat, Loomis, and daughter, Isis, went with my wife, while
mother cat, Tinùviel, and son, Teti, stayed with me.

My ex and I now have an agreement, if one of us stays out of town for more
than three days, the other one will watch the cats. It works perfectly, the
cats know who they are dealing with, no strange people coming in to look
after them, only a person they grew up with. As you may understand, my ex
and I never take long vacations at the same time...

This is also good when Teti is going to have a girl friend for a visit. His
mother will not tolerate this, so then it is best to send her off to my ex
to stay there for a while.

So, all in all, no problem for me!

Hans

I am always so surprised when I read this type of post.  Don't people in the
USA take vacations anymore?  Even if it's to pitch a tent in some great
areas of our God-given wilderness?  Anyway...!!!!!

Pet sitter.  `Have had the same one for 8 years now.  It's MUCH cheaper than
boarding at the vet (which would be my second idea).

P.S.  I also have a girlfriend swing by to water my plants.  My four
furbabies know her really well, so they don't freak out as much.  Pooh
doesn't care.  Maui is leary.  Oscar stays hidden for the most part, but
Felix?  He gets up in the rafters of the unfinished basement when someone
comes in.  I rescued him from a cat house 5 years ago.  He's such a happy
cat now, but still skeert of strangers.  (And will prolly always be).  :(

I usually get a friend or hire a cat sitter to take care of them while I'm
gone.  I have a very nice, responsible pet sitter currently who is very fond
of my cats.  It's not cheap, but it does give me peace of mind.  She comes
to feed them, clean out the litter box and give them some love and attention
once a day while I'm gone. I just googled "pet sitters" and my general
region of the country for listings on the internet, and that's how I found
Shawn.

Hope that helps! (I think you should get your mini vacation too, Karen.
You'd regret not going.)
Melissa

Petsitter. She loves them, they love her. :)

In the past, under normal circumstances if I was going to be away for no
more than a weekend, I'd leave extra food and water bowls, and perhaps an
extra litterbox or two as well.

This was for a maximum of two cats. I've never had more than two cats at
any given time in my life, including now.

If, however, I was going away for longer than a weekend, I'd board the
cat(s) at the vet's office.

There was also the weekend that DH and I spent away from home during the
time when Melody was receiving palliative care and was on daily meds. At
that point, even though it was only a weekend, both she and Harmony got
boarded at the vet's office for a couple of days.

With the current pair of cats, Captain and Stanley, we haven't had an
overnight-or-longer trip away from home yet. But these boys are SO active
and into everything, I'd seriously consider boarding them even if it was
just a weekend trip. Sometimes even overnight, they play so much that they
leave a trail of knocked-over and spilled things in their wake. I can just
imagine what might be left of the house if they spent an entire weekend
with nothing to do but play with one another. ;o)

Donna, Captain, and Stanley

Well, coming up at the end of July I'm going to have to board ALL my
animals.  I'm going home to visit my family and my roommate is going
camping with her church friends.  We didn't really plan it, it just
turned out this way, and I'm going to have to board all three cats, AND
both my parakeets too, I just realized.

I completely forgot about the birdies, but someone will to need to take
care of them.  I don't really have any friends in this area that could
come in and check on them.  Besides, once when Kristen and I were both
away on different trips, Kristen was only able to look in only once and
even though they had plenty of food and water, they made  a mess of the
litter box.  I distinctly remember Imp pulling a scarf out to the
middle of the floor and purposefully peeing on it.  That's why a friend
or a petsitter wouldn't work.  A person coming in once/twice a day
wouldn't work, they'd get really lonely.  It would work for the
birdies, but not for the cats.  In the past my neighbor looked after
the birds, but she moved away.

I'm not sure how much it will cost me, but five animals for five days,
even with my employee discount isn't going to be cheap.  Normally it's
$16 a night per cat, and I get a 35% discount I think, but it's for
three cats for five nights.  But of course, i know that they will be in
excellent care.

What I'll do is when I go into work tomorrow try to figure out how much
they will charge for the birdies...

Boy, it will be just FUN getting all three cats into carriers (I'll
have to buy a third carrier or maybe borrow one from work) and into the
car, PLUS a birdcage with two parakeets.

Kristi

Well, Vino has his own maid that comes in and feeds him.
But how long is it? 3 days and 2 nights would be ok to just leave them
on their own for, IMO.  Just leave lots of food out and clean
litterboxes.  And clear out any stuff that they could get in trouble
with in the house.
--
Britta
"There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." -- Unknown
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album

Sometimes I have a family friend come over twice a day to do feeds &
litterbox. Sometimes they go into a boarding cattery. Either way works for
my three.

Cheers, helen s

(snippage)

We always board them at TED; they don't like it, but I know they're
safe.  I hate to ask family or friends to have to be responsible for
them; this was especially true with RB Mike, who could occasionally get
by DH and me and out the door.  Someone who was less of an expert
cat-wrangler would never have stood a chance, and if someone let
something happen to one of our kitties, our wrath would be terrible.
;-)

------
Krista

I have 5 cats. We go away for 2 weeks at least 1-2 times per year. They have
several large water barrels, and several feeders, and alot of litter pans.
They stay in the garage when we are gone. I have a neighbor stick their head
in about one time a week to ensure they have enough food and water. They
always do though. The cats are good together, and none worse for the wear by
the time we get home. I usually give them lots of love, and some good cat
nip and kitty treats. Been doing this for over 11 years.

We have friends come to feed them.  

They were not really happy the first time.  They didn't really know
the friends well and the friends didn't know we stir the wet food
before we put it on the cat plates.  The first thing that happened was
Trouble tried to hide by diving behind the TV which sits diagonally in
a corner of the kitchen.  Then she realized she couldn't get out again
and started wailing until she was rescued.  They each got a wedge of
canned food the first time, and it looked funny to the cats so they
just sat looking at the plates, then looking at the friends, and back
to the plates again as if to say "What the devil is this stuff".  Our
friends called us on the phone.  The friends, who give their cat the
same brand of food, just give him the whole can-shaped patty and he
dives right in, so they were alarmed when our three just stared at it
like it was something from another planet.  We told them to just give
the cats their portions of crunchy food and leave the other out
because it would get eaten, and it was.  

The next day went better.  

Next vacation we asked the same friends and the cats acted like it was
all just normal routine feedings and such.  
Debra in VA