Vacation time can mean leaving a pet at home, which for some feels stressful and adds a degree of worry to your trip. Plenty of owners spend the first evening away checking a camera app instead of eating dinner.
The guilt isn't entirely misplaced. Research found around 65% of cats are securely attached to their person, almost exactly the figure for human infants. They notice your absence, and some do mind.
In our [last post we looked at taking your pet with you. Here we walk through what to do when they stay behind, starting with why feelings of guilt are usually misplaced.
Don't feel guilty about leaving them
For many, taking your pets with you feels like a kinder option. However, this is most often not the case, especially for cats. International Cat Care describes most cats as unhappy travelers, bonded to their own territory and exposed anywhere else.
A pet in their own house, own bed, with someone reliable coming and going, is often getting the better deal. Cats Protection makes the point that a pet used to being left tends to cope, while a pet whose routine suddenly changed is the one struggling.
Sitter, kennel or drop-ins
Which one works comes down to your particular animal rather than any general rule.
Boarding suits a confident, sociable dog who's crate-trained, already does daycare, and handles new places well. A sitter staying at your house suits a dog who's anxious, noise-sensitive, elderly, or built around routine. Drop-in visits, where someone comes by once or twice a day, sit in between.
Boarding
A good kennel gives you trained staff, a structured day and someone on hand if anything goes wrong. For a sociable dog who already enjoys daycare, a week of company and activity can genuinely beat a week of quiet at home.
It works considerably less well for cats, who tend to find an unfamiliar building stressful rather than stimulating.
If boarding is your only option for a cat, find somewhere that keeps cats entirely away from dogs, since a week next door to a barking kennel is its own problem. Pack their own bed and their usual food either way, so something in the room smells right.
A sitter at home
The advantage is obvious. Your animal stays in their own territory, on their own schedule, with their own bed and their own smells, and the only thing that changes is who's feeding them.
One caveat though. Having someone in the house only helps if your dog is genuinely comfortable with a stranger in his territory, and if he isn't, it can be harder on him than boarding would have been.
Worth an honest assessment of how he handles visitors before you book anyone.
Drop-in visits
Someone coming by once or twice a day works well for a cat who's settled and used to being on their own. Keep the visits regular and scheduled rather than whenever suits, since predictability is what makes them useful. And ask whoever's coming to stay a while and play a little, rather than topping up the bowl and leaving.
Cats Protection puts the maximum time a cat should be left at around twelve hours, and says even that shouldn't become regular. Past a day or so, and for any kitten, older cat or animal on medication, you want someone properly present rather than someone passing through.
Vetting whoever you choose
Start with referrals from your vet, your groomer, or pet-owning friends.
The AKC recommends asking how the facility handles animals with health conditions, whether there's a vet on staff, and which local practice they use in an emergency. Most kennels require proof of vaccination, and one that doesn't ask is telling you something.
Ask what happens at two in the morning. Listen for whether they've thought about it before.
Book kennels earlier than feels necessary. Summer fills first.
Write the routine down
If you're using a sitter or drop-ins, make sure you give them details on what your pet needs, and what they like.
Feeding times and amounts, walks, medication and how it's given, the commands they know, what frightens them, where they sleep. And what normal looks like, so whoever's caring for them can spot when something's off.
Predictability settles an animal. A sitter who knows the shape of the day can hold it steady.
Do a trial run if you can. One night before the real trip tells you more than any amount of planning.
Leave your smell behind
Gets missed constantly, and it costs nothing.
A pet's sense of who belongs in a house is built largely out of scent, and yours starts fading the day you leave. The PDSA suggests rotating bedding through the wash rather than doing it all at once, and the same applies before a trip.
Leave a worn t-shirt on their bed. Don't strip the sheets and wash everything the day before you fly, because a clean sweep takes you out of the house before you've gone.
Where the Pets Pad comes in
All of it comes down to keeping their world steady while yours moves.
The Hapbee Pets Pad is a soft, portable pad using gentle, natural frequency signals to support calm, with nothing to wear and nothing to swallow. Set it up in the spot they already settle in, so the place they go when the house feels different is working for them.
Their spot stays their spot, even when you're the one who left. You can leave the pad with your kennel or sitter, or ask your drop-in to switch it on. Just make sure they have the app and understand how the pad works.
Shop Hapbee Pets Pad Here.
When you get back
Expect a reaction, but don't read too much into it.
Some cats will ignore you for a day, which is worth taking as normal rather than personal. Some dogs won't leave your side for a week.
If you've got more than one pet and one of them has been boarded, they may hiss or square up at each other, because the one who left has come back smelling like somewhere else. Give it a couple of days and it usually resolves on its own.
Slide back into the normal routine as quickly as you can. The faster things look like they did before you left, the faster they settle.
One last thing
A pet who stays in their own house with someone reliable, a similar routine and something on the bed that still smells like you, is having a perfectly good week.
You are allowed to have one too.
The Pets Pad is a wellness tool for rest and relaxation, not a treatment, and not a substitute for veterinary care. If your pet's distress is severe or appears suddenly, speak to a vet or a certified veterinary behaviorist.
