We have a male cat, aged 1 year and 6 months roughly. He is not a complete indoor cat. He can go in and out of our house as his will.
He usually spends half his time indoors and half outdoors. The problem is that even though he does spend a lot of time outside, the outside environment is not in any way habitable for him.
He cannot fight (in India there are stray cats everywhere, so many male cats starts to fight with him); he is extremely calm (he rarely gives a bite). And obviously being almost a pet, he also cannot eat food from outside. So basically, whenever he is outside, our house and our family is the backbone of him.
The catch is that, even though he has many problems outside, if we don't let him go, then he sort of just loses his mind.
My question is:
If we go for a trip, then who will take care of our cat? If our cat was an indoor cat, then we could leave him in the care of our neighbours. If he was an outdoor cat, well, I don't think I have to elaborate on that.
If he mostly stayed indoors and sometimes went outdoors then there would be no problem, because then our neighbours would have the time to feed him and take care.
If he was good at being outdoors without getting hurt and managing to gather food, then it would be no problem, because he would manage to gather food regardless of our existence.
But he is none of the above. His behaviour is extremely chaotic. If we just leave our cat in our neighbours' care, then our cat and our neighbour both would have the worst time. Our neighbours wouldn't even get the chance to take care of him. Our cat returns whenever it is his will, mostly not at the right time.
I think I don't need to elaborate more. You get the point. What to do if we go on a trip?