Severe guilt over travel

This may seem silly, but I feel so bad about leaving my 2 year old male cat for a week in Nov to go on a long awaited family vacation. My cat is an "only" and totally used to having someone home 24/7. The first and only time he has ever been alone my neighbor came in to fed him and she said he sat at the top of the stairs and wouldn't come down


This time:


He will be alone on the two weekends with a neighbor coming in to give him wet food twice a day.

During the week, my niece will stay at my house which will help. My kitty is pretty attached to me but I feel better knowing there will be a human in the house for him to see.

I know people leave cats home alone all the time but it still makes me feel bad...

I know exactly how you feel. I only ever left my two, when my mother in law stayed with them in the house, when she died, I never had another holiday for 14 years!!! I did go away for one night and a friend called in the evening to feed them but I never felt that that was enough so I couldnt enjoy going away. My brother was exactly the same with his cats.

My final cat passed away in February this year and we are having our first holiday in Spain next month. I think I deserve it!!

Is there someone you can get to actually stay in the house while you are away, that is the only time I would have felt comfortable enough to have enjoyed the holiday. I actually came back from a holiday early going back 30 years because I had put my Monty in a cattery and I didnt feel comfortble about the place he was staying!

Don't feel guilty! That sounds like an excellent plan. Your cat will probably miss you a little bit, but he will be fine. Don't worry about it!

How social is your cat? My first cat was very anti-social and didn't care much for people, and she did fine with a sitter who came to feed her and clean the box. However, I never left her for more than 4 days at a time. When she was very old, I began taking longer vacations (a week to 10 days), and then I always had someone stay in the house full time with her. They reported that she didn't like them much, so she might have been better off with sitters only.

My current cat is incredibly social and loves people, so when I go away for the first time in November, I have someone who will live in my house, but since she works full time, I also have a teen who will come over daily after school to play with him. I'm doing this because I'm retired now and home 24/7, and he's used to that attention.

It's always tough for me to leave my cat, but I always have a plan in place (i.e., sitters) because I live alone and I may have to leave involuntarily--e.g., hospital stay or death in family--and I want to know that my cat is cared for.

I know what you mean, I hate leaving my cats alone as well, but they are three so it's much easier. What breed is your cat? He sounds very social... Maybe you should consider adopting another cat, that way your beloved cat will have a friend when you are gone. Is it not an option at all to take him with you? Because it sounds that you love your cat very much, and maybe this vacation won't be a vacation if you worry all the time.

I think it is a good idea to have your neice stay at the house. So if he wants to be social he can.

It is normal to feel guilty. I have 3 and it is not easy leaving them. But the first time is the hardest. Once you come home and realize that they could have cared less it is a sobering reminder that they are cats and have short attention spans.

Well, we are going on a cruise so he definitely can't come!

My cat really prefers me over anyone and is shy of strangers. That is why I feel bad even when someone checks on him because he won't let anyone approach him.

I know how you feel! I feel guilty and I'm only leaving for 2days!

As long as he gets food, water, shelter and a (relatively) clean litterbox, he'll be OK. He may miss you, but he'll be that much happier to see you.

One thing I'm considering that you might be interested in. When I adopted my 5-year-old male about ten weeks ago, I was worried about spraying because he was neutered by the shelter only days before I picked him up. I got Feliway diffusers and had them going throughout the house when he came home.

I'll be leaving him for the first time in November for a week-long cruise, and I plan to get Feliway refills because they are supposed to have a calming effect.

We didn't have any spraying, but that could have just been a coincidence. I don't know if the Feliway actually calmed him, but I want to take every precaution when I leave in November because he's very, very attached.

I know just how you feel ... I'm away on holiday for two weeks (15 days to be precise!) Lily's only 5 months old and I don't think it's right to leave her on her own in the house. My friend offered to take her, but she recently got a new flatmate that has a dog ... so I thought maybe it's best to put her in a cattery. I've been to see it and the man that runs it is lovely. But she will basically be in a tall cage with a branch between lower and upper shelf thing and her basket up top ...

Am I being cruel? Is it better for her to face the dog? Or even to leave her home and have someone come round once a day? Help me please because I really feel awful about this and it's likely to ruin my holiday! I need to ask fellow cat lovers because everyone else just goes 'ah, she'll be fine' which I know she will, she'll be well fed, have other cat pals next door (which worries me too - she is scared of other cats!!) and a nice little old man that will feed her, but we all know she needs a lot more than that.

Wow, I'm overwhelmed with all your words of advice guys cheers!