Options
What do you do with your pets when you go on holiday?
![[Deleted User]](https://w3.vanillicon.com/v2/3e92690f543e43d30aefbbf3681b8ec9.svg)
[Deleted User]
Posts: 4,890 Forum Member
✭✭✭
Just wondering what everybody else does.
For a few years, we put our cat in the cattery each year for two weeks at a time but I hated doing it. I came away in tears every time and felt so guilty.
Fortunately now I have enough family members that usually I can rope somebody else into helping out. My parents look after the dog and cat at my boyfriend's house when he and I go away with his family. My boyfriend and I look after my parents pets when they go away. My brother is given my rabbit any time I go away, he doesn't really get a choice about it. I also regularly look after my cousins guinea pigs.
Do you use catterys or kennels or do you get family members to help out? Do you ever have to look after somebody elses pets and is it a lot of hassle? Or do you avoid holidays because you dont want to leave the pets alone?
For a few years, we put our cat in the cattery each year for two weeks at a time but I hated doing it. I came away in tears every time and felt so guilty.
Fortunately now I have enough family members that usually I can rope somebody else into helping out. My parents look after the dog and cat at my boyfriend's house when he and I go away with his family. My boyfriend and I look after my parents pets when they go away. My brother is given my rabbit any time I go away, he doesn't really get a choice about it. I also regularly look after my cousins guinea pigs.
Do you use catterys or kennels or do you get family members to help out? Do you ever have to look after somebody elses pets and is it a lot of hassle? Or do you avoid holidays because you dont want to leave the pets alone?
0
Comments
We don't even leave him in the house alone.
One time her pen was being used by a cat who had given birth so she got the run of the house and had a lovely time.
I returned to find that they had a more luxurious few days in the cattery than i did in the hotel i was staying in.....
In future i will send the cats away on business and stay in the cattery myself.
Having said that, I haven't kennelled my dog for some time as she's very old and I wouldn't like to leave her without someone who can give her proper attention and who would know her ways.
The cats seem happier in a cattery - they get a bit freaked out by 'guests'.
I have friends who have a dog which they leave with me when they go away, and I often look after the cat next door.
I'm still not entirely comfortable about leaving him but the cattery owners seem to know their stuff and have promised to keep me updated with how he's getting on. Our other cat will be staying with them too, but he's happy anywhere as long as he has food!
One horror story of late, comes from a customer of my mother's. The woman went to pick her 8 yr old standard poodle up a day late as she didn't get home in enough time to pick him up on the agreed day. When she arrived, she was met at the gates by some of the staff, who told her her dog had died the previous night. The daft woman was more concerned with how upset the staff appeared to be. She did not have a post-mortem carried out on the dog either. I bet that cheered the kennel staff up.
I dont understand what the complaint is?
I have had my dogs for 6yrs now, i havent been away once. We are thinking next year that we might go on a caravan holiday, so they can come with us.
Im not sure how my dogs would cope in a kennels as we havent been parted once and they are very spoilt. So - i wouldn't take the chance on them being unhappy.
When i had cats i once left them for 3 days in a cattery, and they didn't eat once in 3 days. I never did that again. When i went abroad after that my Mum and Dad looked after them. They cats loved it as they were spoilt rotten. It was a home from home to them.
Our cats are always MUCH happier when left in their own house. The cattery wasn't so bad when we had two cats so they had each other but then one of our cats died and the other one would get really withdrawn and miserable alone in the cattery. When we go away and leave him in the house (with somebody coming in several times a day) he might get a bit lonely but always seems happier than he does in the cattery. Our cat REALLY hates the cattery and when we get him back, he always seems to take some time to recover from it too. The cattery seems fine though, has great reviews from other people, and all the other animals there seem happy enough but our cat just doesn't like being taken away from home.
She's my baby.
Sorry, I should have expained it a bit better. The kennels in question don't have a good reputation anyway. The dog was a healthy 8 yr old which begs the question how did it die in their care? It is also suspicious that the owners were told it died the evening they were supposed to pick it up yet were not informed until they arrived to pick it up the next morning.
Snake is perfectly happy to be let alone for a week or two as long as she's fed and water bowl filled up before we go
He comes camping with me maybe 10 or 12 times a year (usually 2 to 4 days at a time) - and when my wife and myself go away for a longer period, we hire a place which allows dogs.
We've not been out of the UK in the 3 yrs since we got him as a puppy, but if we do intend to go somewhere abroad, I'll check out the feasibility of pet-passports.
When I returned, he'd lost weight (hadn't eaten that well). Neighbours said they'd heard him crying of an evening (for attention / to be let out / who knows)? I decided that unless I could get someone to properly "live in", I wouldn't leave him on his own again.
We're away for a long weekend soon and will just get my Mum (or OH's Mum) to pop in once or twice to top up Amber's food and water.
I'd never put her in a cattery so I guess next time we have a proper holiday someone will have to nip in every other day to check on cat etc...