¿Qué pasa cuando TU GATO se queda SOLO EN CASA? 😿🏠| Haz que tu gato esté bien en tu ausencia

When a cat is left home alone, everyone has questions. That's why today we're going to answer many of them. Hi, I'm Carlos and I'm a veterinarian. Welcome to the Happy Pets and Families Channel. One of the biggest concerns for people who live with cats is when they're left home alone. Whether it's for a short time, a few hours, work time, several days, or a vacation. Our cats spend many hours with us, and it's normal for them to feel strange if we're not with them and for you to worry, too. For this reason, there are several things you can do to make the different situations that arise when you're not at home more bearable for your feline companion. This way, you can make sure that your cat is okay and that you have more peace of mind. On Instagram, you've left us lots of suggestions, advice on how to do it, and questions so that our feline companion doesn't miss us so much when we're not at home. And of course, that they're okay during all this time. Okay, since there are so many issues, let's get started. Is there a recommendation for the maximum amount of time a cat can be left at home? Regarding the issue of how long a cat can be left alone at home, there are two possibilities. One, that it would be left alone alone alone, in which case it couldn't be more than 24 or 48 hours at the most. And the second is that someone would always have to come by to check and make sure everything is okay. And in that case, things change a bit because it also depends a bit on the cat and how attached it is to you. I wouldn't recommend it be more than a week and a half, or at most, two weeks. If you're going on vacation for more than two weeks, I recommend that you take it to a relative's house so that the cat at least has company. Leave food, water or safety nets. Well, this idea of food and water makes sense. Mainly if you're only going to leave the cat alone for 24 to 48 hours, because I've already told you that they shouldn't be left unsupervised for longer than that. Obviously, if you're not going to be home for a period of time when the cat needs to eat, then you have to leave enough food for it. How should you leave it all in the bowl? Probably not, because the cat could eat it all at once. Perhaps it's better to use activity feeders that require the cat to be moving around and get full a little sooner or programmable feeders which can also be left. You can also do this if you don't want to spend a lot of money leaving small amounts of food in different areas of the house. Regarding water, well, with the water issue, it's more of the same. You have to leave enough drinking fountains so that it can stay hydrated when you're not home. Obviously, if it's hotter, you have to leave more water for it. And what I recommend is that you leave several drinking fountains around the house, because that way, if one of them falls over, for whatever reason, the cat doesn't like water. Because for whatever reason, it doesn't like the taste left by the drinking fountain. It has other alternatives, and that way it won't get dehydrated while you're away from home. Cats don't drink much and you have to make it easy for them. Breaking the meal schedule Is an automatic feeder worth it? An automatic feeder is one of those things that can be very helpful if you're away from home or if you do it very regularly because you know that your feline companion is only going to eat what it needs. If you leave a lot of food available to your cat, it's normal for it to binge and eat it all in one go. However, automatic feeders help you to dose exactly the amount of food your cat needs. This is something that our cats often don't get used to very well at first. If they see food inside the feeder, they may hit it because they want the food to fall out. That's why these feeders must always be opaque so that the cat doesn't know that there is food inside. There are also some cats that go to the feeder at midnight to wait for their grains of food to fall. So our cats gradually get used to these schedules, and you have a much more orderly way of feeding them than if you simply leave the food scattered around the house. It's something that I recommend as far as possible. When we go on vacation, it's better to leave them at a relative's or friend's house or at home. In these cases, it will depend on your feline companion environment that is unfamiliar to them. This solution is good if you're going away for more or less a week or a week and a half. If you're not going to be away for very long, it's best to leave them at home, especially if your cat adapts well to being at home. On the other hand, if. If you are going to be away for a longer period of Time or your feline companion is not used to being left alone at home. Even if someone comes to check on them from time to time, it would be best to consider staying at a relative's or friend's house so they can spend some time. Ask neighbors or friends to help you. If you live with a cat, it is very important to have a few trustworthy people nearby and these people can be of great help when you are not at home, when you go on vacation, because they can tell you, for example, if your cat is meowing a lot, if it is hoarse from meowing so much because it misses you, or even if there is any strange noise because, for example, you have two cats living with you and they are fighting. Neighbors are the best help for that. If you are going to be away for a few days, you can ask them to come by the house and check on them. But be careful. The check up also includes playing with them a little to give them a little life. Since they will be coming over once a day, or at most once every two days. You can spend about 15 or 20 minutes playing with them so that the cats are also a little more entertained. Although ideally, if you are very close to your neighbor, ask them to stay for 30 minutes. On the other hand, if you are going to take them to the home of acquaintances, it is very important that your cat gets to know the person they are going to stay with beforehand. To make this brief introduction before you go on vacation, spend a couple of days or three so that your cat gets to know the house, the smells and and also knows a little bit about where they are going to stay. The first two days you can take them and leave them in the carrier. You go over, have a coffee and in the meantime your cat stays in the carrier and then you leave. And later, if the cat is gaining confidence and you see that it is comfortable in the carrier, or that it even wants to go out and explore the house where your friend lives, then open the door for it and let it take a look at what is going to be its temporary home. Yes, check that there is nothing dangerous that it can eat or get into and leave food for it. When we are not around, our cats are scheming to see what to do and how they can entertain themselves. Many of them, in fact, do things that seem very strange and that we would never think a cat would do, such as opening a door. In any case, the most important thing when you are not at home is that you have left all things that are dangerous for cats out of their reach. This applies especially to cleaning products. Ah, those little balls that you put in the washing machine to give the clothes a smell. The cat knocks over the can because it is attracted to the noise. And the balls, it can play with them and these can be toxic. It also happens a lot with mothballs that are placed in closets. If the cat gets inside the closet and starts playing with the mothballs, it can get poisoned. As I've told you on the channel before. This also applies to mobile phone chargers, remote controls and headphones or earbuds, those little ones that people put in their ears, which cats can also play with. We have to remove all of these types of things and put them in a place where we can make sure the cat can't reach them. I leave dangerous areas of the house inaccessible to them. I don't know if that's a good idea or not. Of course it is a good idea. If when we are at home, we have certain areas restricted for our cats because they could be dangerous for. For example, we should also restrict their access to the outside. In the face of this, what you have to do is simply close the door where the danger is for the cat, and that's it. It's a different matter, of course, if your cat has dangers all over the house. In that case, you have to think carefully about everything and remove them all. If you are going to leave your cat alone, I try to make sure by closing all the doors. Because a suicidal cat stays in the living room. One thing that some of you do, which is locking your cats in a single room so that they are more controlled when you are not home, is not so positive for me, because it is true that we have more control over the cat. It is true that we can leave that room tidier and we can have removed all the things that could be dangerous for our middle cat. But our companion Felix, is not used to living in the whole house. He is used to coming and going, climbing up somewhere, entering a room and leaving him locked inside a room can cause him a lot of stress at a time when they are a little more sensitive because we are not at at home. In the end, we have to design a house that is designed for cats. If your house is dangerous for your feline companion when you are not home, it can also be dangerous when you are. And the most important thing in these situations is that we learn to cat ify their environments so that there are no elements that could be harmful to them whether you are home or not. Regarding the issue of whether our cats can get depressed if we leave them alone at home, the answer is yes, especially if our feline companion has a very close relationship with us and is very, very attached. There are some cats that do not do well being alone at home. You have to know your cat a little and also know if when you go to work, he feels lonely or not. For example, know if the neighbors tell you that he meows when you are not home. In that case, it could be indicating that your cat is a perfect candidate for you to take him to the home of a relative or friend while you are going to be on vacation so that he does not get depressed or feel bad or get sick from stress. For many cats, being left alone at home may be normal, but for others, this exceptional situation may be causing them a lot of pressure. So, as I always say, keep a good eye on your cat. And this is the question I've been asked the most about leaving our cats at home. Whether we should install some type of security camera or whether we can monitor them in some way without being there. Well, there are lots of options. Cameras sold specifically for cats, webcams that we can have connected to the Internet at home, cameras sold that aren't for cats, but rather for monitoring the home and that we can use with our cats. And also some cameras that are used to monitor small children or babies. I think this is quite interesting, honestly, because there are also many of these devices that incorporate a microphone and that allow us to interact a little with our feline companions. This has some pros and cons because it's true that our cats are a little surprised when they hear our voice and see that we're not there. But hey, hey, we can call them to come closer to the camera because many times they come and we see and everything is fine. Regarding these cameras, that is very important. They are not a substitute for someone coming to our house to watch our feline companions. Obviously, there has to be someone who goes to change their food, refresh their water, clean their litter box. With the camera, we can watch them during the times when no one is there with them to make sure that everything is okay, to make sure that they have not been locked in a room, or simply to entertain ourselves by watching our cats. Because we miss them too, of course. But in general, it seems to me that they are one of those devices that are useful for our cats. Not useful in these cases. I think cameras are a great help, advice on what things to leave them with so that they are stimulated and do not get bored. That's precisely one of the keys when we're not going to be with our cats and we can't give them all the play they deserve, the most important thing is that they stay stimulated all that time. That way they be coming up with ways to do something mischievous and mischief in inverted commas. Uh, our cats aren't bad. It's important that your cat has different options, because, as we know, our feline companions end up getting bored if they always have the same activity. For that, I always recommend that you rotate toys. You can leave a box with all the toys ready and have the person in charge of keeping an eye on your cat change them from time to time. But if no one is going to be in the house for 24 or 48 hours, you should still leave them toys that they find stimulating. For these cases, autonomous toys are very interesting, which, for example, are activated when the cat is nearby and thus encourage them to play with them. For example, those that are suspended, you can hang them from the ceiling. You can hang them from the leg of a table or from a doorknob. Cats play a lot with these toys because they move very randomly. It's a bit like a feather duster, but you don't have to be in front of the cat playing with it. Something very important is that they have some visual activity to do. For example, little beds on the windows, which I mention a lot in the videos, but they are very cool for cats. They usually like them a lot. It is important that you choose a good bed, because some are not sturdy enough. And if the bed is unstable, the cat will not want to climb on it because it will not feel safe. It has to be a bed that is well anchored and that does not move when the cat jumps on it. Some people also have aquariums, aquariums that are well sealed so that the cat cannot hunt. The fish can also help us a lot because the fish are moving inside and our cat is watching them from outside. You can also enrich the environment with a toy that reflects the light from the street and creates shapes and colors in the house. This way the cat can be entertained for a while. And of course, since our cats are won over through their stomachs, those toys that occasionally release treats will help them a lot to stay on top of them all day long. You can buy them or make them at home, which is super easy. All you need to do is have a plastic bottle on hand. We can also leave our cat its best friend. What is its best friend? A box. Well, in this case, my friend, boxes help them have hiding places and to go in and out. For example, if they are living with another cat, one could chase it and hide, or it could stalk it from inside the box and play with the other cat. In short, there are a world of possibilities. Another option that you can do to keep your cat entertained during the day is to leave small amounts of food throughout the house. These small amounts of food will encourage your cat to explore. It's important that you take into account where you've left the food so that there are no ants or flies in case the cat doesn't finish eating it. Of course, there should be areas with heights. You can remove some books from the shelves so that it can climb up there. You can consider taking a log or a branch from a tree to create an area for it to scratch. Scratching posts throughout the house. Can you provide them with a cat tree so that they can climb up and down on raised beds? It's a matter of using a little imagination and cat ifying the environment without humans in the way. It has to be a bit of an extreme cat ification because your cat needs to have lots of activities. Obviously, when you return home, you're going to remove some of those activities, but in exchange, you'll be with your feline companion, giving it some playtime at least once a day. And if you can think of other ways to keep your cat entertained when you're not home, leave me a comment. Hi, My partner gets really anxious about leaving them alone and wants to see if it helps. Well, obviously leaving our feline companion home alone is not a pleasant experience for anyone. We all like having them close by, and we all miss them when we're not with them, which is completely normal. There are two possible situations in which someone might have a hard time leaving their feline companion home alone. One, if it's for a short time, like you're going to work and you think that your cat won't be okay because you're not around, in which case your cat will be fine. It's a very short period of time. It won't get dehydrated. It will be able to eat. In short, the cat will be fine when you get back home. If you're a little more anxious about leaving them home alone when you go on vacation, there are several things we can do. The first of these is to include them in our plans. Look for a rural house where the cat is accepted. A place that is, well, cat friendly, where it can't escape, for example. Or take them to the home of a relative we trust and with whom the cat gets along. Maybe we don't choose to take them on vacation because they don't have a good time in the car or on the journey we're going to take. We don't decide to take them to a pet hotel because we know that our cat won't adapt very well. In the end, we're always opting for the best option for the cat's well being. There are many people who worry excessively and who stop making plans in their life because they fear that the cat will have a really bad time. And your cat is an independent being. If its needs are met, it's clear that it will miss you, but it won't be so bad. You're probably worrying excessively and for your cat it's not so serious, really. This is somewhat related to toxic relationships, relationships in which we think that our cat is helpless and will always need us to be there. For all these cases in which a person has a really, really bad time when they are not with their cat, a professional, a psychologist can help them face this fear. Because after all, it is a kind of more or less irrational fear that we can probably overcome with hell. Are they aware of the time we spend away? Well, you may find it strange, but it is true that they can be aware of the time we spend away. They do not keep track of every day. They do not mark the days that you are away from home on the wall with their claws. But it is true that they feel that they do not see you for a certain amount of time, which for them may seem excessive. Cats also have a perception of time. In fact, when you don't go to work, because I don't know, it's the weekend and you don't get up, he comes to look for you in your room. He may not wake you up, but he looks at you and says, hey, it's time for you to start moving, because I'm hungry here. How can cats know that? Because they also have a series of cycles called circadian cycles, because they repeat themselves throughout the day. They're their internal clock and they tell them that time is passing. Your feline companion also knows when you get home from work. In any case, this is a small example so that you realize that cats are also aware of the passage of time. They don't know how many days you've been away from home. They're not going to tell you, hey, you left a week and three days ago. But they do know that it's been a long time since they've seen you. It hurts me more and more. To go on trips because my little one becomes horse or diphonic or whatever you want to say. Well, there are some cats that can't stand it when we leave the house, that can't stand it when we're not with them all the time. These cats have developed something called separation anxiety, and it has to do with very, very close relationships that develop between the cat and the person, which is sometimes even caused by us humans. Our feline companion has a hard time when we leave the house because they feel like we're not coming back. They feel like they're going to be left there alone and abandoned forever. And what we have to do is work on overcoming this separation anxiety. How do we do this? Well, it's quite complex because we have to teach our cat little by little that we leave, but we'll come back and we have to do it in small, everyday acts day by day, so that they see that it's okay, that maybe we went out to buy bread and now we'll come back and we can give them a little food when we get back. We'll also have to break the rituals that we do before leaving the house. If you always grab your keys before leaving the house and then leave immediately after, you might need to grab your keys a little earlier so that the jingling of your keys doesn't trigger the cat to say, oh my gosh, I'm going to be all alone. You shouldn't say goodbye to your feline companion either, because if the last thing you do before leaving is say goodbye to him, he already knows that that's when he's going to be alone. Or if you, for example, are going to work eight or 10 hours a day, take short trips so that your cat sees that you can come back at any time and that you'll be back soon. Well, if we've previously worked a little on this separation anxiety in our daily lives, our feline companion will cope better during the holidays. But perhaps a cat that meows a lot and has a really bad time and we haven't been able to overcome this problem is not the best candidate to be left home alone. Separation anxiety is quite serious. It's a very stressful situation for our cat, which also leads it to do things that particularly bother you. Then you might scold it and our cat might feel even worse. For example, there are many cats that scratch at doors. They do this simply because they are stressed and they take out the stress they are feeling. There photos of you all over the house. And if you leave the TV on Videos of you so it can see you. Well, I found this quite striking. Well, I don't think it's necessary for your cat to have a photo of you so it can see you, nor for you to show it videos on the screen to begin with, because the photos are not life size and so your cat knows perfectly well that the image is not of you in any case, even if you left it life size. Although in some cases of separation anxiety in dogs, it may have helped improve the dog's behavior, it is something that is not as useful as we might think with the issue of videos. Well, more of the same. In addition, the cat will be listening to you the whole time, and it is possible that this will also unsettle them, because unlike when you call them through a security camera that reproduces your voice, you are calling them to come and check that everything is okay with the tv. You are not calling them, you are not interacting directly with them, you are simply broadcasting pre recorded content. And that is why I do not see any use for it in this case. The weather channel already plays calming music and they like it. A solution that can be very practical when you are going to leave your feline companions at home alone for a few hours is to let them have some noise that they can assimilate as there being people in the house, that there is noise, that the house is not so quiet. And for this you can play relaxing music, classical music which some cats really appreciate, or there are specific types of music that help relax our feline companions. This helps especially if your cat suffers from separation anxiety. If you want to know what music can scientifically help relax your cat, I'll leave a link in the description box that might help you. Don't worry when we get back. Sometimes they're not effusive. I would expect them to get really excited afterwards. It's normal that when you get home, your cat isn't waiting for you to start because they don't know you're coming back because you've been away for several days and they've already done their routines. In fact, it's also very common for this question to mention that they feel a bit subdued, a bit apathetic when we come home, and they don't get very excited when they see us. This has to do a bit with everything that has happened to our feline companion when we're not with them. They feel a bit lonely, a bit abandoned, and it's very likely that the first few days after you arrive, they'll still be a bit strange. This may have to do a bit with post holiday depression. Well, it could be because they really haven't felt comfortable being so far away from you, even if someone has come to keep them company. But it's not you. Don't worry, because with time things will start to normalize and what you can do is speed things up a bit if you want, by paying a little more attention to your feline companion on those days, playing with them a little more, giving them a treat that they like, and in that way they'll say, look, my humans have arrived and now my life is back to the same as before. If it's nighttime, is it advisable to leave a light on? Sure, there are some people who leave their feline companions alone at night because who knows, they work or have shifts at the hospital, who knows? Then we always wonder if we should leave a light on for them, like when small children are afraid of the dark. And this makes practically no sense to cats because our feline companions can see very well at night. In addition, you have to consider what your routine is at home. If you don't leave any lights on for your feline companion when you're sleeping because you're home and you understand that your cat is also sleeping, why would you leave any lights on when you're not home? That would be a way of breaking routines that may throw your cat off and that's why it wouldn't be advisable to leave them on. However, I know that many of you leave them on and that it works well for you. But anyway, since you're asking me, here are my thoughts. Anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed all this advice and all these questions that we've answered and that they've served to inspire you in the event that you have to leave your cat home alone. If you can think of anything else that I didn't mention in the video, or if you have any questions, leave me a comment. By the way, I hope you really enjoyed this outdoor blog style video which we haven't recorded outdoors for a long time. Like the video, if you enjoyed it so that we and YouTube can find out if you're new to the channel, subscribe and hit the bell so that YouTube can notify you when we upload a new video. Also, you may not know that we have a secondary channel called Questions and Answers from a Veterinarian. Go over and check it out. Today we meet Salim, who greets us by showing us his little spot on his belly and who lives with Daniela in La Paz, Bolivia and These funny little faces belong to Lunita, who lives with Yasmin Sanchez in Mexico. She tells us that they would be very excited to appear at the end of the videos. Well, here we have Lunita, and we start with a black kitten, and we also end with another one. We say goodbye with Lena M. Moncada's feline companion. Greetings to both of you. Thank you very much for following the channel. Happy pets and families, and we'll see you in the next video. Bye. Go back. Okay, cool. Let's get to the point. Are you recording? No. Stop. At least. Okay, wait, you're not. You've lowered the camera. In the summer. I'm burning up. It's very important that your cat knows beforehand. Well, a little bit here. Well, a little bit here. Your imagination. There has to be someone who's going to refresh its food. There has to be someone who's going to refresh it anyway. Your imagination is the limit here. Well, your imagination is the limit here. And if you. And if you. And if you're. Okay. Are simply to entertain us watching. Are. Are simply to entertain us watching. And if you come up with new ways. And if you come up with new ways. And if. Like that. Ah. However, I know that many people let it. And that it works well for. Oh, my goodness. It's something that doesn't have so much. So. So. So. So it's something that doesn't have so much. And it's not seeing you in the house. And it's not seeing you. And it's not seeing you. How can they entertain themselves? I mean. No, this is not the recording anymore. Yeah.