Cats do not board like dogs, and a cattery that forgets it shows

The room comes first

A cattery run as an afterthought inside a dog kennel usually gives the game away in the first thirty seconds: you can hear dogs from the doorway. A cat cannot tell you it minds, but it shows you, usually by refusing to eat. Cats board in a separate room here, on the quiet side of the building, with its own door and its own air, and no dog passes through it at any point in the day. That single fact, more than anything else on a rate card, is what decides whether a cat settles.

Height is not decoration

The three things that actually decide whether a cat eats on the second day are height, silence and its own food, in roughly that order. A cat that can get up high is a cat that settles, which is why every one of the fourteen condos here has three levels and a shelf at window height rather than one level and more floor space. A cat forced to stay at floor level in an unfamiliar room is a cat that stays alert, and an alert cat is a cat that is not eating.

Silence, not just distance

It is not enough for the cat room to be down the hall from the dogs; a dog barking two rooms away is still a dog barking as far as a cat's hearing is concerned. What actually matters is the cat's own room having its own air handling and its own door kept shut, so the room is quiet on its own terms rather than merely far from the noise. Ask any kennel that boards both species whether the cat room has its own door, and whether it is a genuine boundary or a curtain.

The same food, again

Cats are, if anything, less forgiving of a changed diet than dogs are. A dog that goes off its food for a day in a new place is common and rarely serious; a cat that goes off its food for a day is a cat a kennel should already be worried about, because cats can develop a genuinely serious liver problem from not eating for even a short stretch. That is the practical reason behind the plainest piece of advice in this whole set of articles: bring your cat's own food, the exact brand and flavour, and its own litter if you can manage it.

One cat to a condo, and what a household actually gets

Two from one household share a double condo at the household rate. Three or more and we take the end pair and open both hatches.

What to ask a cattery, specifically

The six questions worth asking any kennel still apply, but a cattery earns three more of its own. Does the cat room have its own door and its own air, or is it a corner of the dog kennel with the volume turned down. How many levels does each unit actually have, and is there somewhere at window height rather than only at floor level. And what happens if a cat stops eating: is there a plan, a point at which somebody telephones you, or is a quiet cat simply assumed to be a settled one. A cattery that has a specific answer to the third question has almost certainly had a cat go off its food before and has thought about what to do next time.

What is different and what is not

Cats need proof of a current rabies vaccination, the same as every animal boarded here, because that requirement covers every species under the Health Code rather than dogs specifically. FVRCP is this lodge's own policy on top of that rather than a City rule, and it is said to be so rather than left to sit in a list and look like law. What is not different is the basic courtesy: litter changed twice a day, a cat's own food kept separate and labelled, and a cat handled by somebody who is not also the person who was just in the dog yards.