Sitter or cattery?
For most cats, most of the time, a sitter visiting your home wins. Cats are attached to territory far more than to routine company, and removing a cat from its own space is a bigger disruption than leaving it alone in familiar surroundings with someone coming in. It is also usually cheaper.
A cattery earns its place in specific cases: a cat on twice-daily insulin or subcutaneous fluids, a cat with a condition that could turn quickly, a very long trip, or a home that simply cannot be accessed reliably. Staffed premises beat a twice-daily visitor when the cat needs actual monitoring rather than feeding.
How many visits a day
Once a day is the common default and it is not enough for anything beyond a long weekend. The argument for twice daily is not really about food — a cat can be left with food. It is about the interval at which a problem gets noticed.
A urinary blockage is the standard example: highly survivable if caught within hours, frequently fatal if not. On once-daily visits, a cat that blocks an hour after the sitter leaves has up to twenty-three hours before anyone sees it. On twice-daily, that halves. For a trip of more than about three days, twice daily is the sensible floor.
For two cats in a house with a settled routine, twice daily is comfortably adequate. For a kitten, an elderly cat, or any cat on medication, the calculation is different and worth discussing with your vet rather than your sitter.
Questions worth asking
Most of what matters is unglamorous. These are the questions that actually separate a professional from someone who likes cats.
- Are you insured and bonded?
- A professional will answer immediately and be able to show you. This covers both damage and, more importantly, the fact they take the work seriously.
- Who else has a key?
- You are asking whether keys are labeled with your address, where they are kept, and how many people in the business could get into your house.
- What happens if you're ill?
- The single most important question, and the one an informal arrangement usually fails. There must be a named backup with access, not a vague assurance.
- What's your vet protocol?
- If they find the cat unwell, what do they do, in what order, and what is their spending limit before they need to reach you? Agree this before you leave, not from an airport.
- Will you do a meet-and-greet?
- Non-negotiable, and it should be free. You are watching whether your cat comes out for them — a sitter your cat hides from all week is not doing the job you're paying for.
- Do you send updates?
- A photo per visit is standard and worth more than people expect. It is also your evidence that visits are happening.
What to leave, and where
Write it down. However thoroughly you explain it at the meet-and-greet, the sitter will be there on their own on day four having done six other houses.
- Feeding: brand, amount, times. Where the food is, and where the spare is when that runs out.
- Medication: what, when, how, and what happens if the cat spits it out.
- Litter: where the trays are, where the spare litter and bags live.
- Hiding places: the two or three spots your cat actually goes. This saves a sitter a panicked hour.
- Your vet: practice name, address, phone, and who covers them out of hours — these are often different.
- Your emergency contact: someone local who can get in if you cannot be reached.
- The stopcock and the fuse box. Sitters are the people who discover the leak.
Neighbors and friends
The informal arrangement is how most cats are covered and there is nothing wrong with it. It fails in exactly one way: there is no backup. If your person gets flu on day two of a ten-day trip, there is often no second name and no second key.
If you are going informal, fix that specific gap. Two people with keys, both of whom know the routine and know about each other. It costs nothing and removes the only failure mode that actually matters.
Red flags
- Won't do a meet-and-greet, or wants to do it on the day you leave.
- No insurance, and defensive about the question.
- No backup person. This is disqualifying for any trip longer than a weekend.
- Vague about visit times — "I'll pop in daily" is not a schedule.
- Cash only, no contract, no written record of what was agreed.
- Says they'll take the cat to their own house. That is boarding, not sitting, and it needs a license in many places.
Once you have found someone good, keep them. A sitter who has been coming for three years knows what your cat looks like when something is off, which is a genuinely valuable thing and not something you get from a booking platform. Cat sitters and drop-in visits near you is a starting point for finding candidates — the meet-and-greet is what actually decides it.