Cats drank toilet bowl dry because pet sitter didn’t turn up

“If you use a pet sitting service during your absence, telephone them early on to check that all is well….” – Michael

Danielle Green went on holiday for two weeks. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada. She made arrangements with a pet sitting business to look after her cats over the period August 16 to September 2.

During her holiday, Danielle did not have access to a cell phone. When she landed in Toronto she phoned the business to find out how her cats had got on while she was away.

She was told that there’d been an error and that her cats, Louis and Nemo, had been left alone the entire time. The cat sitter who Danielle had spoken to at her home had not, apparently, logged the booking on the business’s system. It was a grave error.

When Danielle heard about this she became very worried because she didn’t know what she was going to come home to after leaving her cats alone for 16 days. She was horrified at the thought that they did not have access to water or food for the entire time.

As it happens and in a testament to the domestic cat’s resilience, they found water in the toilet bowl. We are not sure whether the toilet seat cover was down or up but perhaps even if it was down they would still find the water in the bowl. They had found it and had drunk the entire toilet bowl dry. It would appear that they did not have access to any food over that period except for what was down at the time of Danielle’s departure.

She believes that this is a cautionary tale for pet owners to ensure that they check-in with any pet sitting service that they employ. I suppose the moral is that if you do book a pet sitting service then you should take your mobile phone with you on holiday (regrettably) so that you can phone the pet sitting service perhaps after a day or certainly early on to ensure that all is well. In this instance it would have avoided any potential harm coming to her cats. Although, personally, I would agree in not taking a phone with me on holiday.

The owner of the pet sitting business, Danielle Guetter, is devastated at the error. She is genuinely remorseful and has admitted that there was a communication breakdown which did not reflect their normal standards of service.

She is working very hard to improve the business’s booking system to prevent it happening again. The cats are doing well after three days back to normal.

The story comes from CBC’s online newspaper in Canada.