Afraid Cat Won't Eat When We Go on Vacation

[moogle]

Hi! I'm not sure whether this belongs in this section or the Health section.

I have two cats, one 3 to 4 year old female and a 1.5 year old male. We are set to go to on vacation for two weeks in May. This is our first vacation since getting the little guy. A friend and her daughter are going to stop by twice a day every day to take care of them. 

They have stopped by twice now beforehand to meet the cats and so we could go over what they needed to do. I'm not worried about the older cat. She loves people and has eaten in front of the cat sitters, happily gotten treats, pets, and played with them. 

I'm worried about the little one (Latke). He has ran and hidden in the couch both times. (We have this weird couch with a storage compartment underneath that he can get into.) He is pretty scared of other people in general so this is not wholly atypical behavior for him. Both times, however, he has stayed there for 5 or 6 hours after they left and has only come out with lengthy coaxing from me. He has also been afraid to eat afterwards. Treats did not work even though he usually LOVES treats. Toys did not work even though he usually LOVES playing.

I am afraid that without me there to coax him out, he will stay there the entire vacation without eating. We have tried a Feliway diffuser before without much success. We are planning on trying again, though. 

I don't know whether it would help to pull the couch out from the wall and place a food and water bowl back there behind it in a safe place, or if having them go back there and encroach on his safe area will frighten him more and make him less likely to eat. 

We could try to block off access to the couch, but I think he would spend the better part of the day trying to get back there, and probably would succeed pretty early on. He has figured out how to open all the doors in the house except the front door which I think is too heavy for him.

Since he is out of sight in the couch even if we pull it out from the wall, I don't know how to have them make sure that he's okay.

I'm not sure what to do... Just want to make sure he's safe. 

Any suggestions, comments, etc. are greatly, greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[txcatmom]

I've thought through the same thing with my shyest cat, Emily.  I know she would hide when a pet sitter came and I don't know how they would know if she was eating or whether she was okay.  It's one of the reasons I've gone with a pet hotel over pet sitter.  I do like some of the advantages of having them stay in their own home and have a pet sitter.  The solution I thought of, if we ever try a pet sitter, is to have Emily in her own room.  That way, if her food disappeared, the pet sitter would know she was eating.  I think it is quite a dilemma since a cat going without eating can be dangerous.  I hope you come up with a solution that works for your shy little guy.

 

[moogle]

Thanks so much for your reply!

I definitely thought about isolating him in another room. The problem is is that he does know how to open doors, and one of them (there are two that go into our main room) does not have a lock. The only other place to put him would be the bathroom which has no windows and is too small for him to be in for two weeks.

I really don't want to board them because I think that would make him more anxious. Although he would have someone watching over him and judging whether he eats. Pet hotels, for us, are also a bit cost prohibitive.

 

[mimosa]

Maybe you could let them feed him somewhere close to his safe area. My experience with shy foster cats is that they become active when the house has gone silent, especially at night. The sitters won't be there all the time so there is a big chance he will come out at some point.

Feeding him some extra tasty and very smelly food will probably increase the chance he'll come out of hiding.

You could start feeding him in his new, more secure feeding location a while before you leave so that it is part of his normal routine for him.

I have a cat that doesn't eat very well when we're away because he misses us, food and attention are very closely linked for him and he doesn't really care much about food. When we're away he will eat little for the first couple of days but there always is a point where he get really hungry and resumes his normal schedule. So I always worry a lot but in the end he's always allright.