Keeping cat safe while she's alone for 24 hours

January 23, 2024 9:15 AM

I have to travel from LA to San Diego and stay overnight for two events. The trip will probably be about 24 hours total including travel and sleep. My cat is 10. I do not have anyone to check in on her. If I put out two litter boxes, a few bowls of water, and two plates of her dry food, will she be okay? I know she'll be mad, but like... Will she be okay?
posted by The Adventure Begins to Pets & Animals (34 answers total)

She will be 100% fine. She'll probably sleep 22 out of those 24 hours. Just put out what she needs for a day. You don't multiple bowls of water and food and extra litter. Maybe turn on talk radio to keep her company. She literally won't even notice you're gone. She's a cat.
posted by greta simone at 9:17 AM on January 23 [44 favorites]

She'll be fine. I would put out two bowls of water if you're worried she might knock one over or if they're small bowls and the water might evaporate/she might drink it all. Extra litter box only if she's extremely picky and you clean her litterbox immediately after she goes.

But 24 hours is not that long for a cat to be alone.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:23 AM on January 23 [10 favorites]

I usually leave a radio on when I leave the cat alone.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 9:28 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]

She'll be fine. Extra food and water in case you are delayed. Don't change her environment, I'd even say don't wash the bedding so she has familiar smells.
posted by credulous at 9:33 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]

She will be fine. But I have to say I can view, hear and talk to my cat on my phone through her robotic cat feeder which the pet store does not carry and I had to buy through Amazon.
posted by cda at 9:34 AM on January 23

Response by poster: okay good

but will I be fine
posted by The Adventure Begins at 9:35 AM on January 23 [95 favorites]

I wonder if it might be welcome to run a spaghetti-drip of water from one faucet , just in case, unless it's a concern that that may lead to flooding for some reason.
posted by Night_owl at 9:45 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

She'll be fine, but it if makes *you* feel better, consider getting a ring security camera (or something similar) to leave on near her food bowl or favorite lounging spots so you can check on her whenever you'd like.
posted by lucy.jakobs at 9:47 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]

No worries. I often left my kitty alone for three days when travelling. Clean litter, 2 bowls of water 2 bowls of food, TV on, small light on.
posted by Czjewel at 9:48 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]

If you put water in baking dishes instead of bowls (e.g., loaf pans or 9 x 9), it will be almost impossible for her to knock them over.
posted by FencingGal at 10:05 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]

I don't think anything terrible would happen, but I wouldn't feel great doing that either. Why not find someone via a service like Rover?
posted by wheatlets at 10:07 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

If you have an old phone or tablet you can install Alfred on it and use it like a security camera.

Alfred
posted by girlmightlive at 10:09 AM on January 23 [10 favorites]

I do this regularly. I use big (12" x 10") plastic containers for food and water - very difficult to knock over. Unlike dogs, cats won't scarf down all the food in one go, so you can safely leave out more food than normal and your cat will eat what she needs and leave the rest.

My cat is usually mad at me for a few hours when I get home, but that's only because I've not been around for him to ignore. Your girl will be just fine. And so will you.
posted by essexjan at 10:24 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

Long-time cat person here. We leave our two cats (9 and 14) overnight with extra water and food when needed (most recently when I was in the hospital for surgery last week, when we were gone for about 30 hours). For two nights away we have a service come in and take care of them by changing food, water, and litter.

She will be fine, but will probably be super mad and snub you for a bit when you return, and then come to you for loves. Enjoy your trip!
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:58 AM on January 23

I usually get one meow for every 24 hours I've been away.
posted by credulous at 11:01 AM on January 23 [2 favorites]

Unlike dogs, cats won't scarf down all the food in one go,

Uhhhh. Mine definitely will overeat and then barf everywhere. So don't leave TOO much food out.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:03 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]

but will I be fine

I hear you! You can't know how it's going to go until you see how it goes, and you're worried because you care. But this is actually a great trial run, even if she went the entire time without food she'd be mad but okay. You will likely be fine.

But MeMail me if you change your mind and want a petsitter to drop in, I have a longtime friend with a robust walking-and-sitting business who took care of my pets until we moved. She's in the Hollywood-Burbank area but has a pretty large territory. (unless she's on vacation...I'll check.)

Until my cats were old enough to have health concerns, I had a two-night limit on leaving them without a sitter. I did it pretty often, and aside from occasional knocking-things-over shenanigans I never had an issue.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:15 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]

For a timespan like this, 24 to 36 hours, you don't have to do anything beyond putting out sufficient food and water. But one thing we added that's clearly appreciated is a food bowl on a timer, set to open about halfway. It's quite simple, flipping up the lid over the food after a certain time settable from 2 to 24 hours; more like a kitchen timer than an alarm clock. It can also hold a bit of crushed ice underneath the actual bowl in case your cat is used to wet food.

And with our 3 cats it so happens that the one that always gets to it first eats the least, then comes the one who eats a bit more but still not all of it and the last one cleans the plate. With one cat you won't have that problem anyway.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:28 AM on January 23

If you have the funds, you can hire someone on Rover to check on her!
posted by amaire at 11:31 AM on January 23

but will I be fine

I was really anxious the first time went out of town, leaving my cats alone. I wound up buying several Eufy cameras -- the model I have has a very wide field of view, such that if I mount it in a corner, it'll see the whole room. I wound up mounting two cameras for full-room views, and two pointed-at-favorite-hangout views, and had all the cat footage I could want to assure me that they're OK. They have a slick interface for uploading video to the cloud with reasonable storage costs, as well as motion detecting algorithms with the option to get video snippets on your phone every time a furball moves.

Nowadays, I rarely look at it, but I still like knowing that I can check in on them.
posted by Metasyntactic at 12:15 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]

yes she will be fine, she's a cat.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:28 PM on January 23

Yes, 2nding the cameras if you think that will help you feel better. I use Wyze. They aren't that expensive. I used an SD card so that I could get storage and could go back through the footage without having to pay for cloud storage.
posted by litera scripta manet at 1:08 PM on January 23

Do you know if she will go in a "dirty" litter box or will she find an alternative location to do her business?
posted by oceano at 1:58 PM on January 23

Simon is fine when we leave him for that long. We are also dubious he would not eat his food pile immediately so we have a timer which pops open at his regular feeding time while we are away.
posted by biffa at 2:23 PM on January 23

n-ing that she will be fine.

Honestly?
For (typical) cats, 2-3 days in not-brutally hot or cold weather, so long as cat(s) have lots of dry food available, water they can't spill (we always did multiple on floor, counter, or table, then a BIG one or two in sink/bathtub), is not at all a big deal.

They're almost certainly not going to really care that you're gone, but they will guilt-trip the absolute daylights out of you when you get back. (Typically by first ignoring you, then by lovebombing you. Often followed by another round of ignoring and/or walking on absolutely everything.)

In other words, if cat is a solo cat and loves drama, cat will act like it was murder/torture and you were gone for eons... but cat probably acts the same way or close to it when you're gone for ten minutes. Despite having spent the entire time contemplating when to start their next bath and/or nap.
posted by stormyteal at 2:57 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]

I have left my cat a few times for 2 days and just put out extra food and if he eats it all on day one that’s on him.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:17 PM on January 23 [3 favorites]

Cat will be fine; the important parts of cat’s routine are food and snoozing, and those aren’t going away.

You’ll be fine, but you’ll find yourself wishing you could text your cat. Then you’ll imagine what your cat would text you back and you’ll laugh and laugh.
posted by kapers at 5:21 PM on January 23 [4 favorites]

your baby will be extremely fine and you guys will have so much to talk about when you get back
posted by crime online at 6:05 PM on January 23 [4 favorites]

For your peace of mind, hide a house key somewhere (in your desk at work?) so that if you were to, say, have car trouble, you know that you can call someone and ask them to stop by. It probably won’t be needed, but for me it feels good to know that if I absolutely had to, I could give someone access to my house and pet.
posted by Knowyournuts at 8:45 PM on January 23 [4 favorites]

I think your cat will be totally fine! Speaking from experience here - I leave my cat alone for 24 hours by himself often enough (1-2 days a week). Leave out enough food and water and it will be fine. I don't think you need an extra litter box. (I wouldn't, but if it makes you feel better, then do it.)

Sounds like you take really good care of your kitty and she is lucky to have you :) She'll be ok when you're gone and happy when you're back.
posted by I_carried_a_watermelon at 8:49 PM on January 23

She'll be fine, and if she's anything like my cats, she won't even be mad, since I sometimes suspect that my cats secretly have guests over while no one is home (sometimes for 36 hours) and look over at us quite nonchalantly when we return.
posted by holborne at 10:04 AM on January 24

Response by poster: I feel much better, thanks you guys. I haven't gone on a trip in like 6 years so this is foreign and stressful
posted by The Adventure Begins at 2:20 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]

We once left our two (sadly now deceased) cats alone over New Years weekend. Left a bit of food & water and they were more than fine. So fine that when we walked through the door they were proudly sitting waiting for us with the front half of the freshly killed black snake between them. So freshly killed that the back half, in the kitchen, was still twitching.

Happy New Year, indeed.
posted by jeporter99 at 7:24 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]

I also think your cat will be fine, although definitely give someone a spare key. I also strongly recommend a Feliway plug in - it’s calming cat pheromones and will reduce the chances of anxious cat behaviors.
posted by ec2y at 9:10 PM on January 30