The 5 Questions Every Cat-Friendly Booking Flow Should Ask (and When to Flag or Block)

An online booking form does two jobs at once: it collects the information you need, and it shows the owner how well you know cats. A form that asks a cat owner about walks and kennel cough fails both. Here's what a cat-literate booking flow should ask — and the harder question of what to do with the answers.

The 5 questions that earn their place

• Is your male cat neutered? Unneutered toms spray, call and stress in confinement — and are the most common source of mid-stay surprises. You want to know before arrival, not after.
• Has your cat ever tested positive for FeLV or FIV? Not to reject — to plan monitoring and have the conversation early.
• Is your cat at least four months old? The kitten rule, enforced by a checkbox instead of an awkward phone call.
• Is your cat free from fleas, ticks and worms? A parasite declaration protects every other animal in the building.
• Does your cat have ongoing medical needs? Elderly cats and cats on medication aren't a problem — they're a care plan you want time to prepare.

Flag or block: the operational decision

The subtle design question isn't what to ask — it's what an answer does. There are two healthy options. Flag means the booking request goes through, but the answer is highlighted for you to review before you confirm — right for questions where you decide case by case. Block means the booking can't be submitted with that answer — right for hard policies you never make exceptions to. Block too much and you lose bookings you'd actually have taken; flag everything and the screening does nothing. Most catteries land on blocking only their true red lines and flagging the rest.

Ask once, remember forever

The final mark of a well-designed flow: answers should attach to the cat, not the booking. Whether a cat is neutered or has tested FeLV-positive is a fact about the animal — making a returning customer re-declare it on every booking says you weren't listening the first time.

How The Kennel Manager does it

The online booking flow ships with a catalogue of screening questions, each scoped to a species — cat questions never appear for dogs, dog questions never appear for cats, and a cat-only business never sees the dog set at all. For each question you choose off, flag or block for your own booking page. Flagged answers are surfaced on the request for your review before you confirm; blocked answers stop the submission with your policy stated plainly. And the answers persist to the cat's profile, so the form gets shorter for the customers you see most.