Kitty boarding

Now and then being a cat lady becomes valuable to those who know you. This kitty needed a place to stay for four days. The couple who looks after the Owl House cats while I travel for work wanted to do some travel of their own. They were in fact keeping this kitty for a friend, so he came to stay with me for the week.

What a sweetie. Neat as a pin. No litter out of the box; no bits of crunchy dry food on the floor. No knocking things over. I wish my own cats had such manners!

However, I will use this post to get on one soapbox, and I hope I don't peeve my caretakers. When they texted me about bringing the cat, I texted back "Do you have a crate to bring him in?" I have a zillion crates here and can lend them out. They texted back a "yes," and it didn't occur to me to add "Because if you hand-carry that cat here, I will kill you."

Well, their own little kitten, and the kittens from the litter she came from, were headed off to be spay/neutered at the Tompkins County SPCA that same week. So they had lent their crates to the person who was getting those kittens and the mom fixed.

Needless to say, when they arrived, they were hand-carrying the cat. I did not flip out, because I didn't want to scare the cat, but I very nearly did.

The saddest, most devastating stories I have heard of beloved cats lost and killed, have been when a friend/pet-sitter takes their friend's cat to a third party to watch. The cat gets lost---someone opens a door, the cat is being carried and bolts--the cat is far from home, and is never found. The cat of a couple I knew was being watched by a woman. The woman's mother died, and the woman took my friends' cat to another person's house. The cat walked up to the door, and a visitor, thinking the cat was allowed out, just opened the door and let her go. Weeks, and countless heartbreaking hours of searching later, the SPCA reported they had found the cat, starved and skinny, dead alongside a country road.

I cannot emphasize ENOUGH that a cat, if not happily leash trained (and I mean happily) should always be in a crate while traveling. And a good crate. I never go to rabies clinics any longer, because someone was always losing a cat, and I was always searching for it and ending up sick to my stomach for weeks when the cat was never found.

When this cute guy went home, I sent him with a crate. He's a small little guy, and people are always giving me small crates that their cats outgrew, so I didn't need it back.

But please, for the sake your cat, or your friend's cat, always transport the cat in a crate, no matter how much he or she seems to hate it.

I will now commend my cat caretakers for adopting a kitten from someone who was getting the entire family fixed, and for getting their kitten fixed as well. They could not adopt from me, because I don't allow my adopted cats to go outdoors because most of the cats in my care are quite shy.

And I quite enjoyed having this black kitty as a visitor!