My wife and I have heard about the concept of 'cageless' boarding over the past few years. However, with our many years of experience as owners of The Cats Meow, we feel quite strongly that such a concept is a very inappropriate situation for boarding cats. One of the main reasons for this is hygiene. In some ways, running a cageless facility would certainly simplify our lives considering the number of hours we would save in not having to wash and sterilize just litter boxes alone. Though having common litters in a family of cats is quite acceptable it is quite unhygienic when used in a multiple cat family situation. It is like having one bathroom and toilet for a dozen hotel rooms.

With dog boarding, the only real concern is kennel cough. With cats, there are a wide variety of feline diseases that spread primarily through direct contact with other cats, or are transmitted through fecal material. If cats are housed together, using common litters, we feel it is simply an accident waiting to happen. Not only do we wash and sterilize every litter pan after each cat leaves, but we also wash and sterilize each scoop after every use, because we feel it is of the utmost importance to practice the highest levels of hygiene. This is why we also totally clean and disinfect every boarding unit between visitors, as well as the food and water dishes. We would not go to all of these lengths if we did not think that high standards of hygiene were essential to the health of our feline boarders. If cats are housed in a communal setting, not only are they exposed to illnesses by fecal material, but there is also the possibility of contamination from saliva or even biting or scratching each other. Feline AIDS and feline leukemia are serious illnesses that, once contracted, are virtually untreatable. These diseases are both extremely infectious, and are transmitted through biting and scratching.

Perhaps one of the most important jobs in our role as cat boarders is monitoring both food intake and litter use. Probably the most common feline health complications we see in our job as cat boarders, are urinary tract infection or blockage due to urinary crystals. Cageless boarding with shared food and common litters not only compromises hygiene and increases health risks, but makes it virtually impossible to properly monitor each individual cat’s food intake and urinary and fecal output. Only by such monitoring can steps be taken to correct urinary or bowel problems that can be very serious and painful for a cat and costly for its owner. It seems not only of great importance to us, but our feedback from veterinarians confirms our thoughts on this. The great majority of veterinarians will not recommend facilities where cats from separate households are allowed to freely interact with one another.

Of course even worm or flea problems are far more likely when cats are housed in common. Recently, one of the veterinarians who uses our boarding services arrived to deliver her three cats. On arrival one of her cats threw up a hairball that had in it a round worm. Quite correctly she said that she would have to de-worm all of her pets including her dogs, because most likely they would all have round worm since naturally they live together. It is very common for cats to throw up hair balls etc, and only by keeping them separated is it possible to keep all the other cats from sniffing (or ingesting) what another cat has left behind.

Also, with cats mingling fleas are hard to detect and can easily be transferred. In our facilities everything is white so we can quickly see from flea tailings if a cat has arrived with fleas or not. We can then easily treat the problem. Because the cats are separated it is far less likely that the fleas will migrate before the host cat is treated, and we will also be able to know which cats might be close enough to treat as well.

With ten years of experience looking after many hundreds of cats we are very happy that we did our homework and decided from the outset to board cats individually with the highest standards of hygiene. Our clients are happy too.