# Feeding wet and vacations



## scubamom (Jul 4, 2011)

We recently adopted two rescues and I am in the process of switching both them and my older cat to wet food. My only concern is how to handle vacations. We usually take a vacation of a 2 or 3 week duration once per year. I have a wonderful cat sitter who previously worked at my vets office. Previously, since our older cats (14 and 15 yrs. old) were on dry food, she came over every other day to check food, water, and litter boxes and provide some play time. She can increase that to once per day, but twice a day is difficult for her. 

Any suggestions on how to handle two wet food feedings per day with our cat sitter if she can only come once per day? Should I keep some dry food in their current diet so that we could haver her give one wet feeding per day and leave out some dry? I'm afraid if we left out measured quantities of dry, one cat would eat it all and the other two would get none, but I am also afraid if we left it out in large quantities, they would overeat the dry. Is there a way to manage two wet feedings with only one visit without the food being left out and getting nasty?

I'd love all the suggestions I can get.


----------



## yingying (Jul 19, 2011)

> Should I keep some dry food in their current diet so that we could haver her give one wet feeding per day and leave out some dry?


That's exactly what I asked my cat sitter to do when my family was on vacation one month ago. She gave them some canned food when arrived, and free fed them on dry food. I don't think giving measured quantity of dry food is a good idea. One of your cat may got starved, which is more unhealthy than overweight, and others become overweight.

Yes, my cats do get fat when we came back. But then we put them on diet, give little less food each day, and now they are perfectly fit


----------



## SpellQ (Dec 12, 2010)

My two are wet fed, but get about 1/4 cup of Orijen dry to share daily. It usually lasts a 2nd day unless Apple is particularly active and hungry. They don't get dry on Friday nor Saturday as Saturday is raw chicken winglet day and I don't want them to have any hint of dry in their systems with the raw.

I've not left these two overnight yet, but will be in September. I also occasionally go away for 2-3 nights over Thanksgiving weekend in October (I'm in Canada!) which is also a weekend anyone who would normally be willing to help out would be away. And that is typical of the weekends I tend to go away so I need for them to be willing to at least accept 1-2 meals of dry carefully placed in hiding spots around our home to make it sort of fun too.

As well, while not ideal I usually don't bother having someone come on the morning I'm headed home. I just made sure they put out an extra water dish the night before. With Zoe she used to get really mad at me when I would leave her, but if my first interaction with her when I arrived home was to feed her then things generally went much better!

That's what I've done so far. HTH


----------



## saitenyo (Nov 28, 2010)

I tried keeping dry in my cats' diets for a while for this very reason, but eventually concluded it wasn't worth it (one cat reacted badly to dry food, the other was chubby because of it, and their poo smelled pretty bad).

What I ended up doing when I went on vacation a few weeks ago was buy an auto-feeder. The friend I had check on them nightly would put their dinner down, and then put their breakfast in the auto-feeder and set the time for morning. They have trays and you can put an ice pack under them to keep wet food cold. It won't go bad sitting in there for a few hours.


----------



## SpellQ (Dec 12, 2010)

Hmmm this is a great idea, Saitenyo. I might consider it for my September trip since I'm only going overnight.


----------



## saitenyo (Nov 28, 2010)

Oh yeah, overnight is easy with an autofeeder. I'm gone overnight on occasion and just set up the autofeeder before I leave.


----------



## applesparks (May 5, 2010)

You can use something like this to have a second wet meal feeding:

PetSafe 2-Meal Auto Feeder By Radio Systems - Cat - Free Ship - PetSmart


----------

