When Dagmar Nord had to be hospitalized for six weeks, unlike other pet owners, she did not take her three cats to the animal boarding facility.

Instead, a total of twelve cat sitters looked after her furry darlings: one in the morning, the other in the evening and in each of the following weeks two other people came to her house to look after the cats.

Nord is honorary chairwoman of the cat sitter club in Frankfurt.

This has existed since 1991 and the concept is as simple as it is ingenious: when the owner is absent, cats are cared for by other club members on the principle of reciprocity.

So if you want to travel or if you can't take care of your own animal for other reasons, you can look for suitable care in the club's list of members.

The whole thing is virtually free;

only a membership fee of ten euros per year is due.

Thousands of care cases have already taken place in thirty years.

“We are all professionals”

The honorary chairman makes it clear: "Reliability is the most important thing in the club." The idea came about after the founder had his cat looked after in an animal shelter while on vacation.

He picked the animal up in the worst possible condition and then decided that he wanted to spare his cat and other cats from this experience in the future.

Since then the club has grown significantly and now has almost 400 members with their 500 cats.

They can use four lists - divided into the north, east, south and west of the city - to look for supervisors in their own residential area.

Prerequisite for membership are current vaccinations of the animals to be cared for against cat epidemic and cat flu, which must be proven by presenting the vaccination certificate.

A meeting with the cat sitter should be arranged at least one week before the owner's departure.

In this way, he learns everything important about caring for the cat and also gets to know the owner's apartment in the process.

"If you're lucky, the cats will come out," says Nord.

In addition, in the event of a longer absence, there is the possibility that the cats to be cared for will move into the sitter's apartment for a while.

According to Nord, the great advantage of the club is that all members are cat experts.

“We are all professionals.

The cat sitter knows what to do if the cat just looks askance,” says the retired occupational therapist.

Julia Shirtliff, who has been a member of the club for over ten years, has found exactly the right solution for herself and her cat with the cat sitter club.

She had to learn the hard way how stress-prone cats are: Shirtliff got her first tomcat from a farm quite unplanned.

However, the vacation was already planned and so Shirtliff brought the cat Fernando to a boarding kennel for the time of their absence.

When she picked up the cat after the vacation, he was completely traumatized.

Stress in animal boarding

He stopped eating because he was kept in a room with many other cats.

"We were constantly at the vet's, he was really miserable," says Shirtliff.

Several veterinarians suggested that it could be the feline congenital disease FIP, which was triggered by the stress in the kennel.

"I would never do that to my cat again," says Shirtliff.

However, she emphasizes that she also knows many owners who have had good experiences with animal boarding facilities.

General meetings are held every two years and a regulars’ table takes place every two months.

The members who are registered in the lists are written to or called and informed of the place and date of the meeting.

Shirtliff oversees the regulars' table for the southern part of the city.

There are now more than 60 households that she writes to regularly.

"I'm happy when new people join," says Shirtliff.

Nevertheless, there is also a core group that takes part in the regulars' tables.

You can often find your two or three permanent cat sitters via the lists and the regulars’ table.

Shirtliff even got to know her neighbors who live only a few houses away through the membership lists.

"It's a very nice side effect of the club," she says.

Prepare for emergencies

The occasional rounds of talks are also suitable for passing on the expertise of years of being a cat owner to other members.

Veterinarians are therefore almost always a topic at the meetings.

Friendships can also develop among the members through the regulars' table.

Relationships of trust are essential for this type of care.

Because you hand over not only your own cat to the cat sitter, but also your own apartment.

However, the fact that the relationship of trust is not broken is "an unwritten law" in the cat sitter club, says member Gabi von Pollandt.

While many make regular use of the cat care service, there are also members who look after other cats exclusively.

"I sit for the situation if I have to go to the hospital or something similar and then need care," says von Pollandt.

She likes to take care of the other members' cats and regularly goes to the regulars' table.

However, she takes her cat with her on vacation, which is why she is not dependent on care.

No matter why you are active in the club - whether it is cat care or rather the search for community - you will find like-minded people with whom you know your cat is in good hands.

Ultimately, it is "the love of cats that unites everyone in the club," von Pollandt puts it in a nutshell.