Why Your Cat Comes Home From Boarding Weirdly Polite

The Day My Cat Came Home “Formal”

I picked Cino up from the cattery and immediately thought something had gone wrong.

He wasn’t being himself. No mischief. No boundary-testing. No goblin mode.

Instead, he spent the entire day acting like a tiny, well-mannered Victorian gentleman: affectionate, cuddly, oddly composed—like he’d signed a contract to behave.

If you’ve ever brought a cat home from boarding and gotten a version of them that feels… too polite, this is what’s going on.

The Cattery Hangover Is Real

Even when a cattery is clean and well-run, it’s still a lot for most cats.

A cat’s whole thing is territory: familiar smells, predictable routes, control over distance, control over hiding places, control over when interaction happens. Boarding strips away a good chunk of that.

A cattery tends to mean:

unfamiliar smells layered on unfamiliar smells
other cats nearby (even if they can’t touch)
disrupted routine (food timing, sounds, sleep rhythms)
constant low-level vigilance: What is that noise? Who is that? Where am I?

Cats often don’t “act out” right after stress. They compress.

They go into a contained, careful mode.

And then—once they’re home—they decompress.

Why “Extra Affectionate” Can Be a Recovery Sign

Cino’s sudden sweetness wasn’t a mystery malfunction. It was a reset.

That “formal and affectionate” vibe usually comes from a few things happening at once:

1) Relief

Home smells like home. The walls, the furniture, the corners—all his.

Closeness becomes a kind of sigh.

2) Attachment rebound

After separation, some cats temporarily latch on. Not in a dramatic way. More like:
“I’m just going to stay near you and make sure reality is stable again.”

It can look like compliance, but it’s really re-bonding.

3) Nervous system decompression

In a cattery, a cat may sleep, but not deeply. There’s too much to monitor.

Once they’re back, the body finally drops out of alert mode. That can mean more stillness, more cuddling, more “don’t make me do anything” energy.

The Trap: Mistaking Calm for “He’s Fine to Do Stuff”

This is where humans get tricked.

A calm, cuddly cat looks like a cat who’s ready to resume normal programming. But sometimes that calmness is exactly the fragile window where they’re rebuilding their baseline.

Which brings me to the next question I asked immediately:

Should I Take Him to My Parents’ House Tomorrow Like Usual?

No. Not tomorrow.

Even if your cat normally does fine visiting another house, stacking stressors back-to-back is how you turn a temporary wobble into a longer one.

Your parents’ place—even if he’s been there a dozen times—is still:

another territory
another set of smells
another transport
another reset of vigilance

Right after boarding, your cat is basically saying:
“I’m home. Please don’t move the floor again.”

Skipping one dinner is boring. That’s the point.

What “Let Him Recover” Actually Looks Like

Recovery isn’t a dramatic intervention. It’s just… stability.

For a couple days, the goal is:

keep routines predictable (food, lights, noise, bedtime)
let him choose where to sleep
keep play gentle and optional (wand toys over wrestling)
don’t introduce new environments, new people, or big changes

In other words: don’t “cheer him up.” Don’t “get him back to normal.” Let normal return on its own.

When Mischief Returns, It’s Usually a Good Sign

The funny part is that the return of mild chaos is often the real green flag.

When you start seeing:

curiosity
confident exploring
playful swats
light boundary-testing

…that’s your cat’s system saying, Okay, I’m back in my body. I’m back in my house. I’m running the usual software again.

The “formal gentleman” phase tends to be short—often a day or three for confident cats, sometimes longer for sensitive ones.

And then, inevitably, the gremlin stirs.

Which is honestly reassuring.