21 Reasons Your Cat Sitter Requires Visits Every Day

We frequently get calls from cat parents requesting that we visit their cat every other day. While we do accommodate such requests, we strongly encourage all of our cat clients to have us visit their cats every single day.

Though cats may seem “self sufficient”, there are many things that can go wrong while a cat is home alone and visits longer than 24 hours apart can make a situation go from bad to tragic.

Rather than just tell you hypothetical situations that could possibly happen, I decided to turn to my fellow pet sitters and ask them to fill me in on some situations that they have actually encountered while taking care of their kitty clients.

Here are 21 reasons why your cat should have visits at least every 24 hours:

1.  I was sitting two kittens 2 times per day and once when I went back for the afternoon visit, I could hear meowing but no kitties. They had shut themselves in a tiny bathroom, no water, food, or litter box. Luckily I was there to visit again that day.
2. Cat liked to sleep on top of the warm water heater. Ended up falling behind it overnight in an upside down position. Such a tight space she couldn’t move at all to right herself. Had to drain the entire water heater to be able to move it just a few inches without breaking the connections pipes, the cat was likely stuck in that position at least 8+ hours
3. Several cats have gone into renal failure and the pet sitters were able to spot it
4. Realtor accidentally shut the cat in a room
5. Cat was locked in the master bedroom closet by owners when they left
6. Cat that always comes and always has, did not but visited the box over and over. Was blocked would have died if I had not gotten him to the Vet that day.
7. Cat was walking on the stove and stepped right on the gas knob and the burner was full blast with blaze
8. The cats had knocked over a lamp and the heat from the lightbulb had started to burn the lamp shade
9. Cat jumped up on top of kitchen cabinets and unbeknownst to anyone (including owners) there was an unfinished area of the wall up there with no drywall. Cat dropped down inside the wall and couldn’t get out. I used a small saw to cut through wall to get her out.
10. Cat gave birth earlier than expected. One day before her mom was coming home but a week before she thought she was due.
11. Owner closed bedroom door and kitty was locked in with no food, water or litter box.
12. A client of mine who never wanted to pay for daily visits for her 2 kitties decided to leave the cats home for the weekend while she left on Friday and planned to return on Sunday, leaving out plenty of food and water. She returned on Sunday, one of the cats was very ill and unfortunately the cat died of UTI in route to the vet. 
13. Sitter was at the house for the evening visit and, while there, noticed that the kitty was a bit on the quiet side (normally, he was very vocal and pushy for attention).  She noted it, check his color and temp and gave him some cuddles which he responded to as usual, but still felt uneasy about it. Her gut told her to check on him again and she came back for an extra visit that night. He was sitting in the middle of the floor, didn’t want to move, wasn’t interested in attention at all. She rushed him to the vet where he was diagnosed with a urinary blockage. Had she not taken immediate action, he wouldn’t have been there the next morning.
14. Found a client’s 20 year old cat had somehow gotten shut up in the bathroom. Had she not been coming over every day, the poor cat would have gone 48 hours without food or water.
15. Cat removed a vent and got stuck in the heating system. Sitter had to hit the pipes to scare him back out.
16. A painter closed the closet door and the cat was stuck in a very hot closet (the roof of the closet was the roof of the house….it was 100 degrees outside!)
17. Sitter arrived to find frail old cat had broken leg.
18. Cat sitter agreed to every other day visits and came in to find the cat had gotten a paralysis tick, and was close to death. If she had visited the day before and found him, the vet bills would have been much cheaper.
19. Cats knocked over the automatic water bowl and were without water for a long length of time
20. Pet sitter arrived to find that the cat had accidentally knocked a potted plant into the sink and turned on the faucet (yes, the cat knew how to turn on the faucet!) and the entire kitchen and part of the living room had been flooded
21. Cat climbed up through the heater vent and the heating/cooling man had to come out to find the cat’s location and get her out

All of these examples are proof that it doesn’t matter if a cat is young or old; energetic or lazy, accidents and health concerns can happen to any cat and the more often you have your cat sitter visit, the less likely it is that an accident will turn into an emergency.