Cattery vs live in pet sitter for five months - PLEASE HELP!

Hi all,

Apologies think I posted in the wrong forum previously.

I have a five year old cat, the love of my life and we have an incredible bond. 

I have to go away for five months to work.  I have never spent more than two weeks away from him.  I also don't have much choice, for various reasons about going away.  He can't come with as its overseas.

I am torturing myself.  He went missing for two days and nights last year and although this sounds ridiculous, I thought my world was coming to an end. When the little bugger got home I was beyond relieved and he has not gone very far since, think he got a bit of a fright too.

I must mention, he is an outdoor cat, ie he spends most of the day lazing outside but spends a fair amount of time inside too with me.  Sleeps all day mostly and then all night :-)

The choices I have are:  someone to live in my home and leave him here to be in his familiar surroundings - he does not know the person however I believe she will take good care of him.  BUT - if he went missing, I could never forgive myself.  And what would happen if he started wandering around looking for me as I have effectively abandoned him?

Cattery - amazing one, I trust them, inside and outside space, but still, I am uprooting him from all he knows and putting him in a cattery for 5 months. I know then I come back to my cat.

I have major cat mommy guilt going on here.  Everyone has a different opinion.  All I know is this.  I could not bare if anything happened to him because I left him with someone he does not know to look after him.

Please can anyone who has been in any sort of similar situation give me advise - anyone who has left their cat for a period of time in either a cattery or at home.  Any cat experts out there.  I would value your help immensely.

Michele 

Hmmmm.  I was almost in a similar situation some years back.  I was assigned to a 12 month project in the Netherlands.  I planned to bring my cat with me since it was such a long assignment.  Depending on where overseas you are heading, it can be relatively easy or difficult to enter the country with a cat.  Returning to the US with a pet also presents a few challenges.  But none that can't be overcome.  At the last minute, the assignment fell thru.  Whew.

Five months is a long time.  If you can't travel with your cat, I think I would go with the pet sitter.  I realize that the Cattery might be "safer" but uprooting a cat for five months might be stressful for him.  Have you thought about keeping your cat indoors with the cat sitter?  That might be the safest and least stressful approach.  You could start keeping him indoors now to make the transition to indoor kitty easier.

I wish you the best of luck.  I know it is a difficult decision.

You don't sound ridiculous at all. When I had to put my feline-soul mate to sleep in November, saying that it felt like my world was coming to an end would be a huge understatement. But I honestly think if I thought I lost him (without knowing what happened) I would have been even more devastated. So no, you are in good company here

I've never had to leave my cats for that long, and if I did I have my mom here. But if I was, I think I'd list out all the pros and cons of both. But just thinking about it, I'm leaning more toward a cat sitter as well. The main problem I would have with a cattery is that, even if it was the absolute best one in the world, it still opens up a bigger possibility of disease. Of course that also happens with him going out, but yeah, I think he's less likely to get that with a cattery.

Good luck in your decision making, I'd be pretty gutted leaving my babies for that long also.

Is there enough time before you leave that you could possibly get the sitter acquainted with him a bit more? I think that would be your best bet if so.