A first cattery stay changes her routine, her feeding hands, and often her appetite for a few days. Without a recent home weight, nobody can say afterward whether the stay changed her weight at all. With one, the stay becomes measurable: a home figure just before, the cattery's observations during, and a home figure just after.
Take the Pre-Stay Weight Close to Drop-Off
Weigh her within the last few days before the stay and enter it in a running, dated record of her weights, always weighed on identical scales under identical conditions, so anyone can see at a glance which way the trend runs. A weight from two months ago cannot bracket a stay; a weight from this week can, because little else has had time to move the figure in between.
Take it her usual way, at her usual point in the day, and resist the temptation to weigh her repeatedly in the final days and pick a favorite number. One honest entry, clearly dated, is the measuring point. Note beside it that it is the pre-stay weight, so a later reader instantly sees what the next entries should be compared against.
Share the Figure and Settle the Stay in Writing
Give the cattery the recent figure, her weighing method, and her normal feeding amounts together, so the staff can judge her portions against a cat of her actual size and notice if she eats far less than usual. Get the cattery's agreed terms confirmed in writing before the stay, covering the booking dates, the daily rate, drop-off and collection times, and what happens if your return is delayed.
Ask the staff to note how she ate each day and to weigh her only if the stay's own routine already includes it, using a method they describe to you. A cattery weighing on unfamiliar scales is an observation to file beside the list, not an entry in the same-way series, because mixing methods inside the series makes the stay look like a gain or a loss that may never have happened.
Ask the cattery to hand their notes back with her at collection rather than summarizing them from memory at the door: how she ate on the first evening, whether her appetite settled by the second day, and anything the staff watched twice. First stays teach you her boarding pattern, and the next booking gets easier for everyone when this stay's notes are filed with the weights they explain. If she ate poorly throughout rather than only at the start, write that plainly beside the post-stay entry too, because a pattern across two stays is information her vet and the cattery can both act on.
Measure Again at Home and Read the Pair Together
Weigh her the usual way within a day or two of coming home, once she has settled and eaten normally, and enter that figure directly after the pre-stay entry. Read the pair together with the cattery's eating notes: a small dip beside notes about two shy days at the start is a settled story, while a larger shift beside full meals deserves a call to her vet.
Never respond to a post-stay figure by setting a new goal weight yourself; direction over the following weeks, plus her vet's judgment about her body condition, decides whether anything needs to change. Her stay-bracketed weights sit inside Pet Passport as a matched pair, while KinsLe preserves that pair for comparison against her next stay away.