A relative who loves you and has never lived with a cat is a wonderful sitter and a risky one: every gap in the brief will be filled with dog logic or guesswork. So write the briefing as a beginner document around one fixed set of contents — vet and emergency contacts and the daily routine; where the cat hides, and how a beginner should behave around them; dangers a first-time cat person would never suspect; the cat flap locked and every door and window kept shut; and feeding in set amounts at set times, with water refreshed and the litter scooped daily — then walk through it together in the house before the stay begins.
Feeding, water and litter: the daily routine in plain numbers
Beginners cannot act on 'feed her as usual', so give amounts and clock times: which food, how much per meal, where the food is stored, what to do with leftovers, and which treats are allowed and how many. State that water gets refreshed daily and where the spare bowls live. Litter needs the same precision: scoop daily, top up as needed, wash hands afterwards, and never move the tray to a tidier corner mid-stay, because a cat who cannot find the tray will improvise. Show them where the carrier lives and how it opens; in an emergency, nobody should be learning carrier mechanics with a sick cat waiting. Leave the routine as a one-page daily checklist they can tick, in the order the day actually runs.
House safety rules a beginner cannot guess
These are the rules dog owners most often break innocently. Doors and windows stay shut, and any cat flap stays locked for the whole stay, even if the cat sits by it looking hopeful. The cat never goes outside 'just for a look' and is never carried around the garden for fresh air. Lilies are lethally poisonous to cats, and many common houseplants are unsafe, so cut flowers stay out of the house entirely during the stay rather than being risk-managed vase by vase. String, elastic bands, hair ties and small objects get put away, because cats swallow linear things that dogs would ignore. Washing machines and tumble dryers get checked before every use and kept closed between loads — a warm drum is a hiding place a beginner would never think to look inside.
Hiding, handling and what normal looks like
Warn your relative plainly: the cat may hide for the first days, eat only at night and ignore them completely, and all of that is normal settling, not illness or ingratitude. List the known hiding places so a daily visual check is possible without a house search, and set the handling rules: never drag the cat out, never corner or grab, let the cat approach, offer a hand to sniff, and keep voices and visitors low-key for the first week. Explain the reassuring signs to log each day — food eaten, water drunk, litter used — because that simple trio tells you from a distance whether the stay is going well. Add what genuinely warrants a call: no food eaten for a full day, straining in the tray, hiding combined with drooling or laboured breathing, or any escape, however brief.
Contacts, permission and the walkthrough
Finish the brief with your mobile number, a second contact, your vet's number, the out-of-hours service, and written permission for your relative to authorise emergency treatment in your name. Then do the ten-minute walkthrough together: they scoop the tray once, measure one meal, find the carrier, lock the cat flap and locate the water shut-off of cat ownership — the hiding places. A beginner who has physically done each task once will not freeze when it matters. When the visit ends, that temporary access in KinsLe closes behind them, leaving your cat's routine, hiding places and emergency contacts recorded under Care Pass rather than scattered across sticky notes.