Food is the obvious part of a boarding kit, and the cattery will ask about it first. What decides whether your cat settles, though, is usually the rest of the bag: the bedding that smells right, the toy she already knows, the paperwork that prevents a midnight phone call, and labels that bring everything home again. Pack the kit as one set, check it against a written list, and hand it over complete rather than in dribs and drabs across the first two days.
Comfort Items That Carry Home With Her
The full kit beyond food is home bedding, a worn item of your clothing as a scent cloth, familiar toys, the records pack, and medication with a margin in labelled packaging, and every belonging labelled. Home bedding means bedding she has actually slept on in the days before the stay, not a freshly washed blanket, because the value is the familiar smell of her own sleeping place. A small blanket or fleece from her usual bed travels best and fits inside a standard pen without swamping it.
The scent cloth works the same way. Wear a soft item of your clothing against your skin for an evening, fold it unwashed into the kit, and tell the cattery to keep it with her bedding rather than laundering it mid-stay. Familiar toys should be toys she genuinely plays with at home, ideally two, so one can be washed while the other stays with her. New toys bought for the occasion carry no comfort, because comfort here is recognition, not novelty.
Records and Medication, Packed to Prevent Phone Calls
The records pack should let a stranger act correctly without ringing you. Include her vaccination record, her microchip details, your vet's name and number, your contact details and a backup contact who can make decisions if you cannot be reached. Add a short written routine: what she eats and when, where she likes to be stroked and where she does not, and any behaviour the staff should expect in the first day or two, such as hiding or refusing a meal on the first evening.
Medication needs the most care. Pack it with a margin beyond the length of the stay, in its labelled packaging, with written instructions covering timing, amount as prescribed by your vet, and what to do if a dose is refused. Never decant medication into an unlabelled pot, because staff caring for many cats cannot safely work from guesswork. If she takes medication hidden in food, say exactly how, so the method that works at home is the method used in the pen.
Labels, Written Terms and a Clean Handover
Label every belonging with her name, including bedding, the scent cloth, toys and her carrier. Catteries handle the belongings of many cats at once, laundry moves in batches, and unlabelled bedding is the item most often lost or swapped. A simple sewn or written label on each piece costs minutes and prevents the quiet muddles that spoil an otherwise good stay.
Because boarding is a paid service, get the provider's agreed terms confirmed in writing before she arrives: the price, what it covers, drop-off and collection times, how illness is handled and charged, and what happens if your return is delayed. Written terms settle questions while everyone is still friendly. At handover, walk the named manager through the kit and the routine once, in order, and leave the written copy behind. That same routine can reach the manager digitally too, because access granted through KinsLe by creating her Care Pass runs only for the dates you set and then ends.