How to take care of someone else’s cat

There are times when humans decide to leave their cat at home when they go on vacation or when they are going to be away for work-related reasons. The truth is that it’s not a bad idea, given that on leaving us at home, we don’t have any reason to change our routine or leave what we consider to be our own territory, as a result of which this should generally let us be more calm and collected. The important thing in these cases is for the person you leave to keep an eye on us to also be someone we trust and we are familiar with beforehand.

Yes, humans, if you have been asked to perform the crucial task of taking care of someone else’s cat, you should always bear in mind that we should get to know you before our owners leave home for a few days. It’s important to us to listen to your voice, recognize how you smell and also know that we can count on you for having food, water and a clean litterbox.

Before you take charge of our care, you should have a number of things clear in your mind so that time our favorite humans are away will go as smooth as silk. I’ve already mentioned the first thing, which is it being very important to us to meet you beforehand so that the time our humans are away will be less stressful for us.

It’s of prime importance for you to know our feeding times and what food we like best.  It wouldn’t be good for us to stop eating and get sick due to the mere fact of your not having paid attention to our basic needs. Ah, and don’t forget either that we have to drink, and most of our humans leave more than one water dish for us around the house.

Now, about the litterbox, please learn to clean it the way we like. We get very fussy about any unannounced change in our toilet, and we don’t like to feel uncomfortable either on not being able to do our business as comfortably as usual.

Play with us. We’ll understand that you’re not always going to have time enough to play, but, whenever you have a chance, please play a few little games with us. Ask our humans what our favorite toys are and get down on the floor and roll around playing with us for a little while. You’ll keep us much happier that you can imagine if you share a little of your time with us like that.

Concerning medications, our humans will surely leave that all in order before leaving, but if need be, please make certain that you know how and when to give us the medicine we need. Practice with our humans and us before they leave us with you. You’ll see that it’s much easier than you might think … we’re always good and we love to feel good, but we do need a bit of help here and there from time to time.

Last of all, you should ask our humans to make sure that that we’re properly identified with a chip and have our shots up to date. At one time or another we get the urge to get out of the house and roam, and if we get lost and aren’t identified, it could be quite a challenging job finding us … besides our getting really scared.

Ah, although our humans have left our welfare in good hands, the fact of our not having any news about them while they are away will most likely make us touchy and, although seeing you taking care of us makes us feel secure, we most likely won’t be overly excited to see you. Please don’t be put off by that, we’re just a tad persnickety at times!