A sitter rarely fails for lack of care. They fail because the sheet had 3 lines: feed twice, scoop the box, call if worried. Nine written fields, one 30-minute walkthrough, and a photo message by 20:00 daily keep a cat's week within about 10 percent of normal.
Write the sheet on 1 page, print 2 copies, and leave 1 on the kitchen counter. A document on your phone is a document the sitter cannot read with a cat in one arm.
The 9 fields, in the order they get used
| Field | Write exactly this | Minutes to hand over |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Food | Grams per meal, 2 meals at 07:30 and 19:00, wet to dry ratio | 5 min |
| 2 Water | 2 bowls plus 1 fountain, fountain rinsed every 3 days | 3 min |
| 3 Litter | 2 scoops a day, bag location, full change day 6 of 14 | 4 min |
| 4 Medication | Label copy, times, and the missed-dose rule: call, never double | 6 min |
| 5 Behavior baseline | Hides 2 hours a day, plays 2 rounds of 10 minutes | 4 min |
| 6 Red flags | 12 hours no urine, 24 hours no stool, 38.1 to 39.2 C | 5 min |
| 7 Access | Key, alarm code, wifi, carrier shelf, 2 light switches | 3 min |
| 8 Authority | Clinic, 24-hour hospital, spend ceiling 300 USD, policy number | 5 min |
| 9 Reporting | 2 photos plus 1 message by 20:00 daily, call every 2 days | 2 min |
The 9 fields total 37 minutes of your time, and they remove the 11 p.m. message you cannot answer from another city.
Field 1: food in grams, not scoops
Scoops are the most common failure. A level scoop of one kibble weighs 55 g and the same scoop of another weighs 80 g, so a cat on 45 g per meal can end up 70 percent over a week. Write grams per meal, the number of meals, and the wet to dry split. If the cat eats 85 g of wet at 07:30 and 40 g of dry at 19:00, write that with the brand and flavor; a cat that refuses food for 48 hours is a vet call, not a preference.
Leave 3 days extra of the same food. A sitter who runs out on day 4 will buy the nearest bag, and a sudden diet change plus a strange week is how a 3-day hunger strike starts.
Fields 2 and 3: water and litter
Water: 2 bowls in different rooms plus a fountain if the cat uses one. A fountain needs the pump rinsed every 3 days and the whole unit cleaned every 2 weeks, or it becomes a biofilm tray. Most cats drink 150 to 250 ml a day; a sitter does not need to measure that, but they do need to know that a bowl which stays full for 24 hours is a signal, not a success. Background on whether the fountain earns its cleaning time is in the fountain comparison.
Litter: 2 scoops a day, a full change on a named day inside the 14-day cycle, and the spare bag's location written down. If the sitter must do a full change, the litter type stays the same; a new substrate in an unfamiliar week is the fastest route to a box strike. The seasonal timing that changes how often a tray needs a full change is laid out in the care calendar.
Field 4: medication without improvisation
Photograph the label, write the times, and write 1 rule in capitals: if a dose is missed, call the owner, never give 2 at once. Write where the cat is caught, how it is held, and what it gets afterwards. A sitter who has never pilled a cat will lose 20 minutes and the cat's trust on day 1 without a 3-sentence note.
Fields 5 and 6: baseline and red flags
The baseline is what stops a sitter panicking at normal behavior and missing abnormal behavior. Two hours hiding under the bed per day is normal for a strange week; 8 hours is a flag. Two play rounds of 10 minutes, at roughly the same hours, keep appetite and litter habits steady.
The red flags are numbers, not adjectives: 12 hours with no urine, 24 hours with no stool, a temperature outside 38.1 to 39.2 C, breathing over 40 per minute at rest, not eating for 48 hours, or any open-mouth breathing. Any 1 of those means the clinic, not a wait-and-see.
Fields 7 and 8: access and authority
Access includes the boring parts: which key opens the deadbolt, the alarm code and the 30-second window to enter it, the wifi name, where the carrier lives, and which of the 2 light switches is the hallway. Access also includes the rule that the door stays shut for 5 seconds longer than feels natural, because a cat that slips out on day 2 is the emergency this whole sheet exists to prevent.
Authority means a named clinic, a 24-hour hospital with an address, a spend ceiling the sitter may approve without calling, and the insurance policy number. Put 300 USD as the ceiling for a first visit; anything above that is a phone call. The arithmetic behind that number, and what a sitter's visits normally cost per week, is in the cost breakdown.
The 24-hour flow
Day minus 7: a 45-minute meeting with the cat present, so the cat sees the sitter in your company. Day minus 2: send the finished sheet plus 2 photos of the normal setup, one of the litter box and one of the food station. Day 1, 08:00: first visit, 25 to 35 minutes, food, water, litter, 1 photo. Day 1, 19:00: second visit, same order, plus 10 minutes of play. Day 1, 20:00: message with 2 photos and 4 data points, food eaten, urine, stool, behavior. Day 3: a 3-minute call rather than a text, because tone carries what a message hides.
Two visits a day is the floor for a healthy adult cat. A cat on medication, a kitten under 6 months, or a cat over 15 needs 3 visits, and the third one belongs in the middle of the day rather than stacked at night.
What the returning owner checks first
In the first 10 minutes home: the litter box count against the sitter's log, the water bowl level, the food bag weight, and the cat's weight on a kitchen scale. A drop of 100 to 200 g over a week is common and recovers; 300 g or more needs a vet visit within 48 hours. Photograph the log before you throw it away, because it is the only record of the week.
Five things to do before you leave
- Print the 9-field sheet and tape 1 copy inside a kitchen cupboard.
- Walk the sitter through food, water and litter in that order, timer on.
- Write the spend ceiling and the clinic number in the same box.
- Set a 20:00 alarm on the sitter's phone for the daily report.
- Leave 3 days of spare food and 1 spare bag of the same litter.
Frequently asked
How many visits a day does a cat actually need?
Two visits of 25 to 35 minutes is the floor for a healthy adult cat, spaced roughly 10 to 12 hours apart so food, water and the box stay on schedule. A cat on medication, a kitten under 6 months or a cat over 15 needs a third midday visit, because the gaps matter more than the total time.
What should the emergency spend ceiling be?
A common starting point is 300 USD per incident, which covers an exam, basic bloodwork and pain relief at most general practices. Anything above that, including surgery or a 24-hour hospital stay, should require a phone call, and the policy number belongs on the same page as the ceiling.
Is a 1-page sheet enough for a 2-week trip?
One page covers the routine, but a 2-week trip needs a second page for the mid-trip check: a call on day 7, a weight check if the cat will sit on a scale, and a note about which behaviours count as a change from the first week rather than from normal.
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