I tried to send my Sim on vacation to Twikkii Island. She has no children, but has a kitten who is two days from aging up to an adult cat. When I was making the travel reservations a window popped up saying she'd need to hire a house-sitter, and the nanny was available to do this for $250 plus an hourly fee. Pretty outrageous, but I agreed to it. Then, just as the airport shuttle was about to arrive, the nanny showed up at the house & said she was leaving, as there were no children living there! And she charged $10 to do that! So my Sim had to cancel her vacation. I hope she can take a vacation eventually before she burns herself out.

Another thing about the kitten, he seems not to like dry cat food very much. I've been supplementing his diet with fresh-caught fish & leftover human food, but I still see messages sometimes that the kitten is starving & the Sim should take better care of him. This is the first time I've played a household with a pet in Sims 2.

I have no experience with petsitters for vacationing sims and about that can only suggest that if your game isn't patched, patching would be the first thing to try. Need to be patched, regardless.

As for the kitten not eating pet food, be aware that food bowls are a bit wonky. When a sim picks one up to clean and refill it, they sometimes put it back down "facing" the wrong way. It's a stupid oversight that they made the dish accessible only from the "front", and if that side is facing a wall, or other obstruction, pets can't get to it. Put the food bowl in the middle of the floor and see if that solves the issue.

Kittens shouldn't have a pre-existing preference for a certain type of food (cat food versus human food), but if you've ever had a sim Praise the kitten for eating human food, then he's going to be more likely to want that in the future, and will be reluctant to eat pet food. You can see whether or not this is the case by looking at the learned behaviors in his info panel, and if it is, you'll need to have sims retrain him.

Training can be facilitated by enclosing the kitten in a small space with everything he needs to be content, so he's easy to find and quickly get to when he does something you want to reinforce or discourage. If he's fully trained on human food and won't eat pet food at all, even when close to starvation, you won't have any choice but to put human food down for him then Scold him for eating it. After one Scold, though, he should be willing to eat pet food eventually, at which point he can be Praised for eating pet food. Shouldn't have any more trouble getting him to eat pet food as soon as he's at least halfway trained on it.

I've noticed that too. What you do--when she leaves in a huff, as soon as the shuttle arrives, call her back. Then have your Sim take off before she has a chance to realize there are no children. (At least that worked for me.)

I chalk it up to another EAxis goof.

Either it should be fixed so the nanny doesn't get fussy (I looked at the patch on the EA web site, doesn't even mention this issue), or the pets can be left alone. After all, even puppies and kittens don't require a nanny when everyone is at work/school.

You could probably also work around this...(temporarily) give the pet to another playable, then when your Sim gets back, have the other Sim give the pet back to its original owner.

It's weird to think that you have to purposefully train animals to eat pet food, but as Darby said and as I've seen a few times in my own game; if you don't praise the critters for eating out of the pet food bowl, they sometimes will starve even if you put 10 bowls out on the lawn.

I *think* if you live, or move, to an apartment lot, you can ask a neighbour to watch your kitten... But that requires moving... Just to go on a vacation... Better be a damn good vacation!

Thanx everyone ... I had the Sim praise the kitten for eating pet food & it helped. Now he's an adult cat. I'll try sending her on vacation when she comes up in the rotation again.

It is ok if the nanny leaves after she arrives and realises there are no children. After she leaves a pop-up message saying "Ok, I'll be right over" will appear and by the vacation van had left she would have arrived again