If you’re going to be away from your pet, boarding may be necessary. But how do you find a good boarding facility?
Ask your friends, family and veterinarian for recommendations. Then take the time to visit facilities that you’re considering. This will help you gauge cleanliness and safety. You’ll also want to learn more about how the facility is run.
Safety
A good boarding facility should be proactive in disease prevention. It should have cleaning logs for each kennel and use the safest chemicals possible to avoid the transmission of illness among cats.
Some cat hotels offer individual rooms rather than cages for their boarding guests. These rooms often include features like cat condos, scratching mats and windows that can help to calm a nervous feline. They also may allow bonded cats to stay together if they are used to being with each other.
When choosing a cat lodging facility, look for cleanliness, safety and a professional and friendly staff. It’s important to ask how much playtime and daily contact the staff will provide your pet with during their stay. You can even leave a t-shirt or blanket with your pet’s scent to help comfort them while you are away. This can be a great way to make your cat feel at home while you’re gone!
Cleanliness
A cat hotel or shelter facility must follow stringent cleaning protocols to keep cats and staff healthy. High-contact spaces like meet and greet areas, animal play areas, and kennel enclosures require regular sanitization to prevent the spread of illness.
Spaces that only see the same type of animals may not need to be disinfected as often. This is especially important for spaces where young animals or immunocompromised (ill, elderly, or pregnant) pets live alongside healthy adult animals.
Boarding kennels, however, should be fully sanitized between each pet stay. This is particularly important if the facility allows for outdoor time, as cats can be exposed to external parasites (fleas) and internal parasites (giardia or tapeworms). Some humans in a shelter environment can develop flu-like symptoms or contagious coughs that aren’t prevented by sanitation measures alone, but the right cleaning procedures can help minimize transmission of these diseases. Ask the shelter how they clean their kennels, and what cleaning chemicals they use.
Staff
Many pet owners are not comfortable leaving their feline friends at home, and a quality cat hotel may be just what you need. These facilities are much like kennels, except they only take cats and often offer special features such as aquariums, window perches, and cat furniture to promote a calming environment for their guests.
Look for a facility that places the health and safety of their guests first. Ask about staff to pet ratios, and make sure they adhere to a standard of one member of staff for every 10 or 15 pets.
Make sure all members of the team have a good understanding of each pet’s needs, personality, and medical history. Encourage regular communication between teams, whether via informal conversation, memos or a scheduled huddle, to ensure each pet is receiving the best possible care.
Activity
Cat hotels provide a safe and comfortable environment for cats to stay while their owners are away. They also give the pets socializing time with other felines to relieve anxiety and stress that can occur when a cat is left alone for long periods of time.
Felines are territorial, so if they get stressed and scared in their cages and feel threatened by other cats, this can lead to aggression. In order to prevent this, the facility should have solid frosted barriers between cages that separates each cat from other cats.
In addition, the boarding hotel should have plenty of play areas for cats to use. Cats require a lot of space to feel comfortable in their surroundings and like to climb. They also need lots of tall complex furniture that they can hide or climb on, so the boarding facilities should have ample room for this. Also, the rooms should be clean and well maintained.
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