You’ve gotten the scoop on low cost flights through Expedia. You’ve checked out primo restaurants and things to do on Trip Advisor. You’ve booked your hotel through hotels.com or Trivago. Then you look up from the laptop and see the dog looking at you judgementally. She knows you’ve forgotten about her.
Of yeah. What are you going to do with her?
One of the things people don’t tend to think about when they decide to adopt a dog or cat, is what’s going to happen when they want to travel.
Finding a solution to what to do with your dog or cat when you’re away is still one of the biggest stress inducers for pet owners.
Here is a look at the alternatives:
1. Kennels:
I have met many, many people who state unequivocally that they would never use a boarding kennel. They have either had bad experiences themselves or most likely, read horror stories in the news or heard from friends of friends of neighbours’ cousins who recount a nightmare scenario of their dogs dying or getting sick or their cat, who escaped from a kennel and disappeared. Such things do happen. They even occasionally happen in the best kennels.
But I invite you to think about this for a minute. Dogs die at home too [article on bloat], dogs get sick at home, and both cats and dogs escape and run away from home or slip their collars when they are on a walk, and are never found.
No kennel is perfect, but neither is any pet owner. Bad things happen even with committed, intelligent owners. So before you dismiss kennels as an alternative, I urge you to give it second thought.
There are certainly some boarding kennels, and even some general categories of boarding kennels, that I would never use or recommend for any dog or cat, regardless of temperament or breed or size or health. But especially in recent years, new approaches to boarding are being tried in the kennel industry. I have written extensively about this elsewhere.
My advice would be to check out the kennels in your area before dismissing them out of hand. You might be surprised. And do continue to search online every few years, because new kennels are opening up all the time and sometimes they have an approach that might suit your pet.
Pros:
– Kennels are the most widely available type of pet boarding. There is likely to be a selection near you.
– Once you’ve made a booking, there should be no danger of the arrangement falling though. If you can find a kennel where both you and your pet are happy, it will serve you in good stead for the rest of your pet’s life, because friends and family aren’t always there.
– Kennel owners and staff are professionals, so in theory at least, your dog or cat should be well taken care of and any health problems identified and addressed.
– At many kennels your dog can play with other dogs, get scheduled walks and generally have some fun while you are away. There may even be a pool.
Cons:
– The big institutional nature of a lot of kennels means they can be noisy, which means stress for nervous dogs and most cats.
– Kennels will charge you to keep your dog or cat. Be wary of add-on fees for everything from walks to giving treats.
– The space in which individual dogs and cats are confined is often quite small.
– The level of people contact and one-on-one attention varies widely. Too often, it is minimal.
– The best kennels, because they are so rare, will likely have a devoted clientele and fill up months in advance, especially for peak times.
– Zoning by-laws usually mean that kennels will be in the countryside, so you will have to drive a fair distance or arrange transportation
2. Live-in Housesitters:
In this scenario, someone comes and lives in your house while you are away. They undertake to look after both your pets and your house.
They will do specified tasks that you agree on together, such as tending your garden, shovelling snow and/or housecleaning.
Some housesitters charge for their services. However, because the housesitter is also getting free board and doesn’t typically pay for things like electricity and wifi, you may well be able to find someone wiling to housesit for free.
All you need to do is sign up for one or more of the many websites devoted to matching up people who want to live abroad, with people who want to travel outside their own area, like Trusted Husesitters or housecarers.com. If you are looking for a housesitter (as opposed to looking for somewhere to housesit), these sites will likely be free for you to list your requirements on.
I spent a year travelling around the world doing housesitting for free. I visited twelve countries and eighty-eight cities, towns and other places. I looked after people’s dogs and cats, and they let me live in their houses for free. My only costs were food and transportation.
Pros:
– Your pets stay in their own environment. No stressful car rides for the kitty cats. No living in a small space surrounded by strange dogs or cats.
– Your house is not vacant, and is therefore more secure. If your house insurance requires someone to check on the house when you aren’t there, then that’s one less expense you have to add to your action budget.
– You can specify the tasks your housesitter must do, so for example, they might agree to cut your lawn for free. No need to hire someone to water the plants. Your car and driveway won’t be under two feet of snow when you come home.
– You negotiate the terms of the housesit, so you can even ask your housesitter to pay some of the house costs while you are away, like water or electricity. I wouldn’t agree to that, since these people are getting my services as a housesitter for free, but I see these types of ads all the time, and they do seem to get people to respond.
Cons:
– You will be leaving your pets and your house with a stranger. Yes, you can check references. But still, this requires a level of trust that is beyond some people. And by ‘some people’, I mean The General. There are undoubtedly privacy issues.
– Your negotiating power, or even your success in finding a housesitter, will depend on the desirability of your housesit.
If you have a gorgeous apartment on Central Park in New York, or a pied-à-terre in the heart of Paris and only one pampered cat to look after, you will be snowed under with applicants and can probably set whatever terms you want. If you are in Des Moines, Iowa, or Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and you have goats you want them to milk as well as look after three dogs, then you may be lucky to get any applicants at all.
On the other hand, you may be surprised who wants to come to your neck of the woods. I housesat in some places where the home owner told me they didn’t think they would get a housesitter, because no one would want to go to Newcastle in the north of England. They though their city was rather boring. I spent a month there and loved it.
– Because there is generally an overlap between the time your housesitter arrives and the time you leave, you will have to share your space (and possibly a meal or two) with this stranger for some period of time.
3. Daily House and Pet Minders/Dog Walkers:
You can usually find some local person to come in on a daily basis to feed your cat (and/or dog), scoop the litter box, walk the dog and take a look around your house to make sure everything is secure. This solution works best for cats and things like fish or turtles who don’t require a lot of human interaction, but people have done it with dogs.
Pros:
– Your pets stay in their own house.
– If your insurance requires regular checks when your house is empty, this serves that purpose as well.
– The house minder may also take on other tasks, like lawn mowing or plant watering.
– The person doing the job comes and goes each day, so privacy concerns may be less than with a live-in housesitter. At least you won’t have them there overnight while you are still in the house, or when you come home.
Cons:
– You will pay for this service. The more visits per day or per week you want, the more you will pay. The more tasks you want performed beyond the basics, the more you will pay.
If you are trying to arrange this for a dog, you may well have to pay a dog walker as well, so your dog can get sufficient walks and bathroom breaks each day.
– Your pets are in their own home, but they are more or less unsupervised. If one of them develops a health problem, they are on their own until the housesitter arrives.
– If your pets are human oriented, they may be very lonely and bored. Dogs especially, being pack animals, may find this more stressful than being in a kennel where there are people and other dogs around all the time.
4. Boarding in Another Person’s Home:
While not as widely available as traditional boarding kennels, you may be able to find a business operating in your area which will place your dog or cat in the home of someone willing to let your pet live with them in their house and take care of them as one of their family. The person boarding your dog or cat in their house will hopefully be a pet lover and happy to make some money having someone else’s pet stay at their home.
I have known people who had both good and bad experiences with this.
We ended up boarding a pair of Newfoundland dogs who had previously been booked at someone’s house through this kind of arrangement. The owner had warned the caregiver that one of her dogs had been attacked by a German Shepherd and would lunge if he passed one while walking. Of course, these are Newfs we’re talking about, so they ran out of steam pretty quickly. The caregiver walked the dogs, and sure enough, there had been a lunging incident.
The owner was called and told she had to come back from her vacation to pick up her dogs.
No one could really understand why ruining the owner’s vacation couldn’t have been avoided by the caregiver simply stopping the dog walks. For the balance of time, he could have just let them in his fenced yard.
It was both expensive and devastating to the owners to have to cancel the rest of their vacation and return home.
As with kennels, you will want to check out the people who are offering to take in your dog or cat, satisfy yourself as to their experience and reliability, and assure yourself that your pet is in good hands. You will want to ask what happens if things don’t work out.
Pros:
– Your pet will be in a home environment, although not his or her own house.
– Your pet gets one-on-one care from the householder. You can specify a house with no other pets if you wish.
Cons:
– These arrangements tend to be more expensive than traditional kennels or housesitters. The business is a middle man and thus takes a commission on top of what the people actually doing the boarding get. That makes the price go up.
– you’re putting your trust in a stranger who is not a pet care professional. They may have extensive experience or none.
– there are more than the usual questions of liability. What happens if your dog chews up their furniture or craps on their white rug?
– As the story of the Newfs shows, these private arrangements may not be as dependable as a professional kennel.
5. Friends/family:
A lot of people prevail upon relatives or friends to keep their dog or cat. With the cat, they may ask the person to come into their own house to feed the cat and change his litter.
Pros:
– Your pet may be able to remain in their own environment.
– No charge, unless you count the emotional blackmail.
Cons:
– Your friends and family may know very little about taking care of cats and dogs.
We had people bring us a Siberian Husky to board for the weekend they were getting married. A friend was to pick the dog up and take her home for the additional two weeks the happy couple was away on their honeymoon.
We later found out that the friend had left the dog tied up outside in the hot sun and she had suffered heat stroke. [ Link to article on Heat Stoke in Dogs]
They weren’t neglectful or cruel. They had just never owned a big-coated dog and didn’t realize that could happen.
– Friends and family are not always available or reliable.
What happens when Mom and Dad get too old to deal with that rambunctious Lab, or all your family and friends are going to the same wedding or the same funeral? Do you have a backup plan when the friend who offered to keep your dog over Christmas gets sick herself or has a family emergency on December 24th?
We got lots of calls from people in that situation and the sad truth was, they were just SOL. Any reputable kennel of boarding organization is going to be fully booked over Christmas, well in advance.
– Your pet may end up at a kennel anyway, when they get too old or sick to impose on a friend. It’s particularly sad when this happens to an older pet. Asking them to get accustomed to boarding kennel at the age of 12 or 13 is cruel.
– It can damage the relationship. Your pet minding relative may feel under-appreciated and imposed upon and you may feel resentful when you come back to find that Rover has been suffering an ear infection for a week, and your relative didn’t spot it or do anything about it.
If Spot chews up Aunt Minnie’s prized doll collection, you can pretty much forget the Christmas gift. Which might be a good thing?
– Your dog may not get the stimulation he is used to
A friend may agree to take your dog, but it doesn’t mean she’s agreed to skip after-work drinks on Friday night to rush home and give him supper, or take him for walks when it’s cold or rainy.
6. Take them with you:
More and more hotels are becoming pet friendly. It’s getting easier and easier to find them too, with sites like Trip Advisor and hotels.com offering to let you check ‘Pet Friendly” as a search criteria under “Amenities”. There are sites like Official Pet Hotels or Bring Fido that let your search the world for pet friendly hotels.
There are considerations other than just where will our pet stay overnight though.
Pros:
– Your pet comes with you, so you don’t have the stress and anxiety of leaving her behind.
– You can choose a vacation that suits both you and your dog. For example, you could camp at a dog friendly site, or book an excursion where you are encouraged to bring your dog along.
Cons:
– The hotel you book may allow your pet, but there may be an additional charge and/or you may have to pay a deposit.
– Your movements will probably be restricted. Some hotels will let you bring a dog, but won’t let you leave it alone in the room. If you are going to a wedding, what are you going to do with Fido while attending?
– If you are traveling with a dog or cat in summer, you will have to be concerned about leaving them in a hot car while you go into a restaurant or stop for a bathroom break.
– Your dog or cat may find it pretty boring.
7. Don’t go
Many people simply can’t stand the stress and guilt of leaving their dog or cat. They choose to stay home.
Do I really need to set out the pros and cons of this option?
Remember though that while you absolutely need to consider the welfare of your dog and cat, you don’t owe them a perfect life.
Maybe your cat will be a little stressed at being stuck in a carrier and having to take a car ride to the cattery.
But if you choose well, they should be able to pursue their agenda of sleeping 16 to 20 hours per day without undue hardship, leaving you free to enjoy yourself in your own way.
Your young active dog may be uncertain when he first arrives at the pet resort, but once he settles in, he may actually have the time of his life playing with other dogs of suitable size and play styles.
There were dogs at our Pet Resort who pulled their owners in the door, and had to be physically carried out to the car at the end of their stay, because they didn’t want to go.
Your little dog may not take to strangers at first. But if you choose the right housesitter, within a day or two your little dog may discover he actually loves having another warm lap to sit on.
There are no perfect answers, even from Auntie Awesome.
You need to diligently consider the options available in your circumstances, and choose a solution based on what best suits your dog or cat’s personality and needs. You may use a variety of options for different trips of differing durations.
But the acceptable answer is most likely out there waiting for you to find it.