Cat-Villa — Local services in Encinitas

We boarded our two cats here for 13 nights (was supposed to be 12 but we had a flight cancellation). On dropoff, we had them in their harnesses for transport and were able to remove one harness, but the other cat was very frightened at the new environment and we couldn't remove hers. Lance assured us that he would remove her harness later that day, so we left her wearing it.

We picked up our cats this morning and found that the one cat's harness had NOT been removed for the entire two weeks and had tangled around her, tying her front legs together. She has lost a lot of weight and appeared to have been unable to move due to the tangled harness. Her legs and chest have been rubbed raw and bleeding in several places by the harness because of the way it was tangled and her chewing at it to try to get it off. When we emailed Lance to notify him of our flight cancellation, he confirmed with us that our cats were okay, but the one cat was shy and hadn't come out of her condo much - which we now realize is probably because she couldn't move enough to jump down without causing further pain.

We have made an appointment with our vet to check out both of our cats after this ordeal and have the one cat's injuries treated. The vet informed us that harnesses and collars are one of the first and most frequently checked things for any animal because of the danger they can pose. Admittedly, we should have removed our cat's harness when we dropped her off, but we trusted Lance to be capable of doing this once she had calmed down.

It seems minor after all this, but the one item we left with our cats - a fuzzy blanket that they love to sleep on - was removed from their "condo" at some point during their stay, and they were left with a smaller and unfamiliar blanket. We didn't ask about this at the time (we were too concerned with the cat having been tangled up for two weeks) but it seems like such a strange thing that must have made their already stressful stay just a little bit worse.

We will never be taking our cats back to this facility and we urge anyone to be cautious about boarding your cats here.

Edit in response to the business owner: As stated in the review, we were assured by Lance that the harness would be removed. We received NO updates throughout our cats' stay aside from when we had to email to notify of our later pickup, so we were entirely unaware of any issues. Every cat boarding facility I have used before has employed different tactics to handle aggressive cats - which I will add, Eowyn is not, as our vet and everyone else has been able to handle her easily - everywhere from a calmer approach to using oven mitts for protection. We have the reasonable expectation that the owners of a cat boarding facility are able to handle cats, and should know the dangers of leaving a harness on for such an extended period. We are shocked at the treatment of Eowyn and stand by our review. We strongly suggest that you take your cats elsewhere...

Cash and Lance at The Cat Villa have taken care of our sweet boy, Darius, for at least a dozen times. If you care about your cat and want them to be in a loving and fun environment while you are away, this is the place. I have never seen cats that don't know each other get along so well and I can only attribute it to how Cash and Lance are with them and the beautiful space they provide. Each cat has their own kitty condo that they can retreat to if they want and plenty of hidden nooks to take a snooze. Our cat has gotten to the point where he no longer minds being put in his kitty carrier as he knows he has a short car ride to visit his friends over at the Cat Villa. On our cat's last visit, we received a call that our cat had some swelling and needed to be seen by a Vet. Long story short, Cash and Lance were amazing every step of the way - keeping in contact with us and making sure we knew how our cat was doing. We are so grateful that they were with him and able to get him the care he needed (surgery) before things got worse and that he was well on his way to feeling back to his old self by the time we got back in town and picked him up. What more could we ever ask for? This place is fantastic -...

My cats stayed for almost 3 weeks over the holidays but I didn't receive many updates at all--sometimes waiting more than 24 hours for a response after asking how they were doing. My cats were healthy and fully vaccinated per the requirements but as soon as I arrived to pick them up, I noticed that one of them was breathing very heavily and sneezing constantly with visible eye discharge. Unfortunately both of my cats contracted an upper respiratory virus from their stay at the Cat-Villa and when I texted Lance to notify him about their illness, I never received a response.

It was stressful to have two sick cats immediately upon returning from international travel with no acknowledgment from the boarding facility. One of my cats developed a viral infection in his eye as a result which took nearly 5 months to clear up. It cost me lots of time and money to have my cats fully recover, which was surprising considering they are both young and healthy with no previous illnesses.

I really appreciated that the cats had an interactive space with the outdoors but given my experience, it wasn't worth trying another stay at...