Ottawa cat parents can pick from vet-clinic kennels, large catteries, home-based boarding, and everything between. Each model suits different cats — and the questions below will serve you at any door.
Vet-clinic boarding. Kennel-style, clinical, with medical staff on hand. The right choice — genuinely — for cats who need medication, insulin, or close medical monitoring. The trade-off is a cage environment with clinic sounds and smells, which healthy cats find stressful.
Dedicated catteries / large facilities. Purpose-built, often with individual condos. Capacity is the strength and the weakness: professional setups, but many unfamiliar cats within earshot and smell — the single biggest boarding stressor for most cats.
Home-based boarding. A small number of guests in someone's actual home — quieter, cage-free, personal. The trade-off: no medical staff, so responsible homes decline cats with medical needs, and quality varies with the host. Which is why the questions below exist.
Still weighing boarding against a sitter visiting your house? That's a different fork — take our honest comparison first, then come back.
1 · "How many cats do you host at once?" There's no perfect number, but the answer should be immediate and specific. "A few families at a time" with separate territories reads very differently from a shrug.
2 · "Will my cat share space with cats from other homes?" For most cats — especially shy ones — the answer you want is no. Unfamiliar-cat contact is stress and a disease vector in one.
3 · "Do you check vaccination records?" In Ontario, rabies vaccination is legally required for cats over three months (Regulation 567) — a host who doesn't ask for certificates isn't relaxed, they're careless about every cat in the house, including yours.
4 · "Who is actually in the house, and how often?" "Staff check in twice a day" and "we live here" are different products. Ask who does drop-off, who does the 9pm feeding, who notices the 2pm vomit.
5 · "How do you track eating and litter habits?" The first 48 hours of appetite are the health signal in boarding. A good answer mentions specifics — bowls weighed or watched, litter checked — not vibes. See what settling should look like.
6 · "What updates will I get, and do I have to ask?" Daily, unprompted, with photos is the standard worth holding out for — it's also the host's incentive to keep every day photo-worthy. An honest host sends the unglamorous day-one hiding shot too.
7 · "What's your emergency plan?" Nearest emergency vet named, your vet on file, a threshold agreed for calling you. Speed and specificity of this answer tell you everything.
8 · "What cats do you turn away?" Trick question: the best hosts have a real answer. "Cats needing medication or injections — we're not vet staff" is the honest shape. A host who takes everything is optimizing occupancy, not welfare.
9 · "What does it cost, exactly, all-in?" You want an itemized number before you commit — per-day rate, any peak-date surcharges, multi-cat discounts, what's included. Published pricing and an exact quote up front are good signs; vague pricing precedes surprise invoices.
10 · "Can I see where my cat will actually stay?" Photos or a visit — of the real space, not a showroom. While you're at it, read recent Google reviews for the words "update", "photos", "honest", "emergency": reviewers volunteer what a host is actually like.
Book early for school holidays, December, and summer long weekends — small hosts fill fastest precisely because they cap their guest lists. Winter matters here too: ask whether someone is home during cold snaps (an empty building with a failed furnace is a bigger Ottawa risk than most people price in — heating with people living next to it is the boring, correct answer). And location: a host near your side of the city makes drop-off calmer for the cat and easier to tour in person beforehand.
Cage-free, a deliberately tiny guest list, published pricing, daily photo updates, and honest answers about who we're not the right fit for. Ask us anything on WhatsApp, or get your exact price online.
Check dates & get an instant priceRelated guides: Boarding vs a cat sitter · First-time checklist · Reduce boarding stress · Anxious & senior cats