I adopted an adorable kitten two weeks ago. She is nearly 5 months old. I planned the adoption around being away (going to Canada from Connecticut for a wedding) and picked her up afterwards so I wouldn’t have any weekend plans or be away again for many months and could focus on bonding my kitten with my resident cat.
The bonding has been great! She has her own separate room and they did scent swapping and introductions for about a week. Now they are together with doors open whenever I am home. It’s been wonderful (love Jackson Galaxy on YouTube as a resource!)
Sadly, my cousin whose wedding I attended very tragically and suddenly died not long after his wedding and I now have to return to Canada very unexpectedly for his funeral. I am planning to be gone for 48 hours. I have an auto litter and feeder for my resident cat and she is all good, I sometimes get a friend to come in and give her wet food and play (if she will allow them lol). She’s all good. But I’m trying to figure out how to navigate the kitten.
I will keep them separate for the duration I’m away for safety. They’re doing great but not there yet. Kitten is also still too small to be given the entire house to roam around in during the day. She’s doing great when I am at work and I have camera set up to keep an eye on her.
My neighbor has volunteered to check in on them in the past but the issue I’m struggling with is that anyone coming and going has to deal with:
- kitten is in the front room of the house and could technically get out if not paying attention to the door opening and closing (it doesn’t always close properly)
- if they come to play with kitten, they should probably open door to check in on resident cat, but she will likely want to get into kittens room and play, and I don’t trust anyone picking her up and having to move her
- they’re bonding well and I’m not sure if someone else coming in could throw them off
Honestly, because of these reasons I’m leaning towards leaving them with cameras and lots of food and water and their litters .. obviously it’s not ideal and the sudden death in my family has made this all very unexpected and fast. I can absolutely get neighbor or friend to check on them .. I just worry that the door will open and it will be hard to wrangle the cats back to where they belong …
Thoughts?