Sitter, boarding kennel or a friend: picking the right one

There are two versions of this. In one, the flights were booked in February and by March somebody had met the cat, done a trial weekend, and been handed a page of instructions. In the other, it is four days before departure and a group chat is being asked whether anyone knows a person.

The choice is usually between three arrangements: someone who comes to your home, a boarding facility, or a friend who takes the animal to theirs. These are not tiers of quality. They suit different animals, and the wrong one for a particular animal is worse than any of them is in general.

Cats stay home, nearly always

A cat's sense of security is tied to territory rather than to people, which is why the same cat who tolerates a week alone in a familiar house falls apart in a clean, well-run boarding room with unfamiliar smells and other cats audible through a wall. Drop-in visits are usually the better arrangement, twice a day rather than once.

Twice matters because the visit is not really about food. It is about the litter being scooped, water being fresh, and somebody laying eyes on the animal twice a day. A cat who is hiding on Tuesday afternoon and still hiding on Wednesday morning is information that a once-a-day schedule takes far too long to produce.

The exception is a cat on daily medication, or one who will not let a stranger near. Facilities with staff on site can be the safer answer there, and it is worth asking your own clinic whether they board patients — some do.

For dogs, the dog decides

A boisterous, social dog who genuinely enjoys other dogs often has a better week at a busy boarding place than alone in a quiet house waiting for a visitor. A dog who finds novelty stressful has the opposite week. Kennels are not cruel and sitters are not automatically better; the mismatch is what does the damage.

Checking a sitter out properly

1. Meet at your house, with your animal there, before any money changes hands.
2. Ask the three what-ifs: what they do if the animal gets out, if the animal will not eat, and if the sitter themselves gets the flu on day three.
3. Ask how many other clients they cover in a day, and how far apart those homes are.
4. Ask whether they carry insurance and how they store keys or door codes.
5. Book a trial — a weekend while you are still in town and reachable.

The trial is the part people skip and the part that tells you everything. An animal who is charming for an hour with a stranger can be a different animal at eleven at night on the second day. Better to learn that while you are twenty minutes away.

What to look at on a boarding tour

• Ask to see the run your dog would actually sleep in, not just the reception area. A refusal is the answer.
• Use your nose. A faint smell of dog is normal; ammonia means ventilation or cleaning is not keeping up.
• Ask whether anyone sleeps on site overnight, and if not, what covers the hours between the last check and the first.
• Ask how dogs are grouped for play, and what staff do when two of them fall out.
• Ask what vaccinations they require. A place with no requirements has no standards.
• Ask which clinic they use and who authorizes care when an owner is unreachable.

The page you leave behind

Write it once, print two copies, tape one to a cupboard door and text a photo of it to whoever is covering. It should fit on a single side.

Feeding	Exact amounts and times, where the food is kept, and anything that must never be given
Routine	Walk times, sleeping spot, the doors that stay shut, the noises that frighten them
Medication	Counted out into a labeled box, with the times written on it, exactly as prescribed
Vet	Your clinic's name, address and number, plus the 24-hour emergency clinic and how to get there
Authorization	A signed line giving the sitter permission to seek care, with a limit you are comfortable with
Payment	A card kept on file at the clinic, or a named person who can settle a bill immediately
Contacts	Your number, a second number that works when yours does not, and a local key holder
Identification	Microchip number, registry name, and a current photograph on the same page
Quirks	Bolts through the back gate. Hides in the bath during storms. Will not eat while watched.

The authorization and payment lines are the ones people leave off, and they are the reason a good arrangement occasionally goes wrong at the worst moment. A clinic faced with someone else's animal, no owner on the phone and no way to bill anyone is in an awkward position. Sorting that out in advance takes one sentence and a signature.

The last two days

• Buy the food before you go. Running out on day five turns into an unplanned diet change at the worst time.
• Keep the routine identical. This is the week to change absolutely nothing else.
• Leave more litter, more bags and more of everything than seems necessary.
• Leave a worn t-shirt on the bed. It costs nothing and some animals clearly settle on it.
• Do not deep clean and rearrange the house on your way out the door.

Coming home, keep it quiet. The instinct is a loud, emotional reunion, and what most animals want is dinner at the usual time and a normal evening. The trip that went well is the one where, by the following morning, there is no evidence anything happened at all.