A handover written for one cat, then duplicated for a second, misses the entire point of what makes multi-cat households different. Cats sharing a home aren't just two separate pets who happen to live together — there's a whole layer of resource management and social dynamics invisible to anyone who's only ever had one cat, and it's exactly the layer a sitter needs to know about.
The short answer
The single biggest thing to get right in a multi-cat household is resource count and placement — litter boxes, food, and water — because most conflict between cats comes down to competition over these, not personality clashes. Get the resources right and a lot of the rest resolves itself.
The litter box rule that changes everything
Vets and behaviourists consistently recommend the "n+1" rule: one litter box per cat, plus one extra. Two cats need three boxes, not two. This isn't arbitrary — cats are naturally territorial about elimination, and even cats who get along well generally still want their own space for this specifically.
- Boxes need to be spread out, not clustered. Two boxes side by side function as one box in a cat's perception — put them in separate rooms or at least separate corners
- One per floor, if your home has more than one level — a set of stairs can function as a real barrier, especially for an older or less confident cat
- Watch for quiet guarding. A more confident cat can block a shyer one from a box just by loitering nearby, without any obvious aggression — this often goes unnoticed by owners and is worth specifically flagging to a sitter as something to watch for
- A cat suddenly avoiding the litter box — especially with straining, crying, or blood — is a potential medical emergency, not just a behavioural issue, and shouldn't be assumed to be resource competition without ruling that out
Feeding
- Separate stations, not one shared bowl — even bonded cats often prefer not to eat side by side, and a faster eater will otherwise finish a slower cat's portion
- Whether any cat needs portion control or a special diet, and how you currently prevent the others from getting into it
- If tension shows up specifically at mealtimes, say so — some households need cats fed in different rooms entirely to avoid guarding or conflict
The quiet dynamics worth naming
This is the part that's genuinely invisible to someone meeting your cats for the first time:
- The established pecking order, if there is one — who eats first, who gets greeted first, who tends to get out of the way when the other approaches
- Which pairing needs supervision, if any — not every multi-cat household has tension, but if yours does, say specifically when and where it shows up
- A cat who's recently changed behaviour — increased hiding, new spraying, avoiding a housemate — since this is often the first visible sign of a resource or health issue rather than "just personality"
What tends to go wrong without this
A sitter treating multiple cats as separate, identical tasks — feed cat A, feed cat B, scoop the box — will miss exactly the parts that only matter because they're sharing a space. That's how one cat quietly stops using the litter box because a housemate's been blocking it, weeks before anyone notices the mess.
Why this deserves its own section, not a duplicated profile
Two complete, separate cat profiles tell a sitter about each cat individually but nothing about how they relate — which is often the actual determinant of whether a stay goes smoothly. The household-level picture is a different kind of information to per-cat details, and it needs its own place, not to be inferred.
Quirks & All keeps each cat's profile complete and separate, with the household dynamics — resource layout, pecking order, anything to watch — sitting alongside them, so a sitter looking after multiple cats sees the whole picture, not three unrelated to-do lists.