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In today’s article we are answering the question ‘how long can Bengal cats be left alone?’
There are various reasons why you might want to leave your Bengal cat alone for a period of time.
For example, you might need to go out and do chores or go to work for the day (this is generally the most common reason why owners want to know how long they can leave their Bengal cats alone for).
So, how long can Bengal cats be left alone safely?
This is a bit of a “how long is a piece of string” question.
Ultimately, it’s best to leave your Bengal alone for as short of a period as possible. However, life gets in the way and ultimately this is not particularly realistic – you’re going to need to go out and do things with your life (unless you are currently under Coronavirus lock down like we are at the time of writing this article!!!)
Leaving your Bengal cat for a work day (even an extended one, e.g. say 12 hours) is not going to be a problem, provided you have supplied sufficient food, water and clean litter.
Many owners will also be happy to leave their Bengal cat for a night if they have to go away for a short business trip, out of town visit etc. We would recommend you minimise leaving your Bengal alone for the night where possible, but provided you leave sufficient food, water and clean litter, then it isn’t going to be a problem.
Most veterinary experts agree that you can leave a cat home alone safely for up to 24 hours. Anything over that is pushing it for a number of reasons, namely:
1. Your cat may eat all of his/her food and be left with nothing to eat. Although your Bengal isn’t going to starve to death in say 48 hours. it still isn’t ideal for then.
2. Your cat may drink all of his/her water and risk dehydration (this is the biggest issue – dehydration can quickly be fatal for your cat).
3. Your cat’s litter tray may get dirty and this causes a lot of distress, and can lead to nasty accidents happening in your house.
4. If your cat was somehow injured or became sick, you are going to have a big delay before you can get them to the vet for treatment.
Therefore, we strongly recommend you avoid leaving your Bengal cat home alone for anything longer than 24 hours. The absolute max you could probably consider (and you would need to provide multiple food and water sources and litter boxes) would be 48hrs … but this is to be avoided unless it’s a “life or death” reason you need to leave basically.
How long can Bengal cats be left alone? Probably up to 24 hours is okay, but anything longer than that is really pushing it.
However long you do leave your Bengal cat home alone for, it’s important that he/she has access to plenty of food, fresh water and a litter box.
To help you out here we recommend you check out our guide to:
- Best automatic feeders for Bengal cats (automated feeders allow you to literally “drip feed” your cat with set meal times etc).
- Best water fountains for your Bengal cat – one of these can help ensure access to clean, fresh water and also encourage more water drinking which is important for avoiding dehydration.
- Best litter boxes for Bengal cats – it is CRUCIAL your Bengal has access to clean litter. A good litter box will help here … you may even need to invest in two (read our guide here to whether or not your Bengal needs more than one litter box).
There’s not nearly enough facts or science behind why they can’t be left alone aside from your claiming that they’re active and just “shouldn’t” be left alone. where’s the data to support that.
Hi Jollian,
As far as I’m aware, there are no specific studies or hard data about how long you should leave a Bengal cat alone – so the advice is based on what I’ve been able to gather from experts such as vets.
How long would you feel comfortable leaving one alone?