Unfortunately it still doesn't answer my question. Typically I have my Sims take about a five day to six day vacation depending on if I add a day or not since my Sim families always have an avid collector in their midst. I decided to try out camping with the family cat. 'Brought its personal litter box and claw toy and though I thought there was already a cat bowl in one of my Sims' inventory, I had to purchase one. The guilt was considerable because it was in an anxious mood the majority of the time and then had the sad mood - likely home sickness. It also wound up sick and needed to go to the vet, but to my fortune, the family had wellness treats in their inventory. (I think cats and dogs should be allowed to enter tents!)
In the end, I wonder if it would have been best if we had left the cat at home, but again, I fear the vacation term may very well result in returning to a cat that is in the red zone of a lot of its needs, particularly the attention and affection area... I figure the food would remain safe as would the litter box since those sorts of things seem to go into freeze mode whenever a Sim is away for a long period of time and other Sims are still doing things autonomously. There is the chance of the cat not going into autonomous mode and just sort of has a time freeze with their Sim family away... but I still don't know if I want to take experiment in that to find the former is the ultimate result and the cat has fled from the horrible neglect. >.O... as it goes, if the vacation was just one or two days, that would be one thing.
So, I continue to wonder if anyone here has played with their Sims on a prolonged vacation, but have left their pets at home and what the result was...