Cat Boarding

Cats staying at the UCVC Kitty Hotel must, by Colorado regulation, have a valid veterinarian/client/patient relationship (VCPR) with a veterinarian at UCVC. As a veterinary practice offering cat boarding, we are held to a higher standard of care should any problems occur during your cat's stay; consequently, we must have a good understanding of your cat's health status and an established relationship with you. This requires that your cat must have been seen and evaluated at least once by our veterinarians before the boarding stay. This does not require that you make us your primary care veterinarian.

Hotel stays are charged by the night.

• Rooms are available starting at $42 per night.
• Check-in time begins as early as 8 a.m., and check-out time is no later than 4 p.m. We are happy to extend these hours for you if space is available; please contact us to make arrangements.
  We prefer to offer extended check-in and check-out times as a convenience wherever possible; however, an additional fee may apply depending on the situation.

Due to limited space and high demand, during the holidays (New Year, Easter/Spring Break, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) we require a 50% deposit to hold the reservation. We will refund the deposit if the reservation is canceled two weeks before the first day of the reservation.

Additional hotel rooms are available for an additional fee, depending on availability. Please call early; we will do our best to accommodate your requests and needs.

Spa services are available upon request. Please ask to see a fee schedule.

Administration of routine medications to patients with a known, stable medical condition is available for a small additional fee. You must provide medication, or we will charge for dispensing.

Patients with medical conditions necessitating additional medical care during their stay will require Medical Boarding, available for an additional fee (details below).

If possible, it is always best to feed your cat's normal diet during the hotel stay. Guests are fed two times a day. Extra feedings can be added for a small fee. Please bring a sufficient supply of your cat's usual food for the stay.

If you prefer not to bring your cat's regular food, we stock and feed canned Weruva Paw Lickin' Chicken as our default food. We can purchase other special foods for your cat at your request for an additional fee.

Please note, that a hotel stay is NOT a good time to attempt a medically prescribed diet change.

In the event of the onset of a medical problem, we may change your cat's diet during the stay as part of a course of therapy.

We encourage you to bring any personal items that will provide comfort and security to your cat during the hotel stay. We will do our best to maintain each item in the condition in which it was brought to us. We cannot, however, be held responsible for property damage that may occur, even with the best of care, so we also encourage you to carefully choose the items you bring. Priceless family heirlooms are probably a bad idea.

We ask if possible that you leave your cat carrier with us during your kitty's stay.

It is strongly recommended that hotel guests have adequate immunity to Feline Panleukopenia, Rhinovirus, Calicivirus, and Rabies. "Adequate immunity" can be demonstrated with a record of current vaccinations or with diagnostic test evidence of immunity (i.e.: antibody titer). Cats who cannot demonstrate adequate immunity and whose state of health makes vaccination medically undesirable may still be accommodated at the hotel at the parent's risk.

• Documented current status of Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV)
• Current rabies vaccination, current rabies exemption certificate, or current rabies titer test results

Cat parents should be aware that there are many contagious diseases for which there is no vaccine, and that vaccines may not always provide complete immunity; that many cats who are carrying contagious diseases can be asymptomatic and still infectious; and that keeping cats in close quarters carries a risk of contagion. Though we do our best to prevent the spread of disease, it is impossible to guard against it entirely.

External Parasites

All hotel guests must be free of external parasites when staying at the hotel. If external parasites are found on any guest, we will treat that cat to remove the parasites, and we will charge the treatment to your bill.

FIV + Guests

FIV-positive cats are accepted at the Kitty Hotel. FIV is extremely difficult to pass to another cat without a bite wound, so FIV + guests do not present a threat to other guests. Parents of FIV-positive cats should, however, be aware that any FIV-positive cat may be or become actively immunosuppressed at any time; and would then be more susceptible to contagious disease and opportunistic infection than other guests. Since we have no way of knowing the immune status of an FIV + guest, we make every effort to avoid exposure to contagious diseases, but this is not always possible.

Boarding in an isolation unit may be an option for FIV + guests if there are no current occupants of the isolation unit.

Medical cat boarding service is available for cats who require veterinary monitoring (or services above cleaning, feeding, and social contact) during their stay. Examples would include a diabetic cat who might need blood sugar monitoring; a cat with renal insufficiency who may require fluid therapy or electrolyte monitoring; a hypertensive cat who might need blood pressure checks; and an arthritic cat for whom additional pain relief may be indicated during a stay.

Routine administration of established medications, alone, does not require medical boarding. Daily medications in stable patients can be given in non-medical boarding for a small additional fee.

Any cat boarding with a medical condition may be moved into medical boarding should the condition worsen during the stay. In such a case, we will contact you as soon as possible to update you and discuss options.

Medical boarding is a premium service available for an additional fee, and all veterinary services rendered are charged individually. All expected necessary individual services will be estimated and discussed with you before your cat's stay.

In the unlikely event of a medical emergency arising in your absence, we will give priority to administering urgent medical care, and then contact you as soon as possible.

In the unlikely event of a non-medical emergency, such as a building fire or the like, we will take all possible steps to ensure your cat's safety, to the extent that we can do so without putting human life in danger. Once the danger is past, we will contact you as soon as possible.

DNR (Do Not Resuscitate Order)

Parents of very elderly or very ill cats who desire to board with us may want to consider whether a Do Not Resuscitate order may be prudent. We will always respect your wishes; we can do that best if we are very clear on what those wishes are. If you wish to discuss such concerns before your cat's stay, please let us know.

UCVC is regularly staffed during our normal business hours.

UCVC staff is scheduled as needed to meet the needs of our patients during non-business hours. If there are any patients in the hospital or guests in the hotel, staff will be scheduled to meet their needs and will be present at least twice a day for routine feeding, cleaning, and other care. Additional staff hours will be scheduled for patients needing more frequent care intervals. This may incur an additional fee depending on the situation.

UCVC does not conduct business on Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Independence Day, or Thanksgiving; and has limited business hours on some other days, including, but not limited to, New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve, and Staff Continuing Education Days. Regardless, staff hours are scheduled as needed to care for hospitalized patients and hotel guests during those days.

A veterinarian is always on call during non-business hours if there are guests in the hotel; and a veterinarian will attend regularly as needed for medical boarding guests, even when the hospital is not open for business.

Nonetheless, hotel guests will be unattended in the facility overnight as a regular rule. If a situation develops in which a hotel guest requires round-the-clock care, we will transfer that guest to a Boulder 24-hour emergency and critical care facility of your choice.