Who Takes Care Of Your Pets While You Are Cruising

[bookworm0911]

Liat - my cruisecritic nickname.

She is a Tonkinese cat, and Liat was the

Tonkinese sweetheart of Ensign Joe Cable in James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific".

LOL. The minute I saw your username I was wondering if that was where it was from. Very clever. :D

[Ziggy7]

Our daughter takes care of our 2 red ear slider turtles, skooter and skeeter. They live in a 20 gal fish tank in our livingroom, they are quite spoiled, hubby hand feeds them too!

[cruisinjudy]

Mistyand Patches do not like going to kennels or the vet, so we have a senior, usually a couple, come in and stay. We pay $55 a day plus food for the sitters. Our pets cost us a fortune!

[bobpatj]

We have no pets, but a friend waters my houseplants and checks on our house, while we're away.

[sologrip]

Cash, the Verandah Dog goes with me.

Ollie the cat goes to the vet

Penny and Carrie dogs are tended to by two neighbors who trade off, depending on how long I'll be gone.

[Santa Fe Jim]

I have, at various times, various numbers of cats -- usually only 1 or 2, though. I must spoil them -- there is a pet-sitting service near me that I've used for almost 20 years. I have them come twice a day -- I think the rate now is $12.50/visit. They play with the cats, water the plants, take in the mail and papers, open & close the drapes when appropriate. I've occasionally had health problems with some of the cats, so I want someone who I trust to take them to the vet if necessary.

 

SFJ

[Appgrad]

Luckily, my parents live close by and they take care of our babies.

[tankerjo2]

Our aging dog (nearly 15 years old) now stays with her Vet because of medical problems when we travel which has really limited our travel over the past few years. We will be leaving her in December for 10 days and this time it will be very difficult. Never thought we could have ever become as attached as we are to that scruffy little pound puppy. After having her by our sides 24/7 for so many years it's hard to leave her behind.

[lka1012]

I use one of three options.

 

For short periods, my old roomie comes over and often brings his dog (my dogs "cousin")

 

For longer periods (such as a cruise) I either use my vet or a sitting service. As the number of my dogs has increased, this gets expensive.

 

I have a friend who has a rescue group. As a fund raiser, she comes over two times a day, plays with my crew, brings in mail, etc. This is a little cheaper than the vet and also plays for medical care for homeless puppies.

 

I recently lost one of my to cancer, but still have three dogs -- all rescues.

 

For those looking for pet care, contact some of your local rescue groups, they may do this a fund raiser also.

[HeatherInFlorida]

When we decided to "adopt" Molly (i.e. spend a fortune for her;) ), it was with the understanding that my best friend would watch over her and love her when we're away. Heaven help us if she ever moves away because I somehow doubt we could ever leave her behind with anyone else.

 

Our kitty, Sammie, manages quite nicely with my friend coming in every day to watch over her. The hardest part of vacationing for us is leaving our "hearts" behind:( .

[jazzsea]

Our neighbor across the street has a little pet service. She takes care of cats when owners travel. We have only one cat now, 17 year old Murphy. He gets lonesome when we are gone but seems to know after all of these years that we will come back.

 

Before we moved out here five years ago, we had a lady who came in and stayed over night. She also took care of our salt water aquarium. Sadly, we lost our whole fish tank during the power outage from hurricane Frances.

 

After the storm we evacuated to Orlando and took our Murphy with us. Two weeks later he went with us to Naples, Florida when we evacuated from Jeanne.

[RaffinOrganGrinders]

Our baby, Novalee Nation, travels with us in our RV and is very intelligent and loving. She really loves her mouse and even sleeps with it on occasion. Best solution is for our Daughter to watch her while we cruise. ;)

 

George

[Allis154]

My best friend stays at our house while we are away and looks after our five cats and 1 dog. We leave gifts around the house for her while she is there, normally with cards from each 'pet'.

 

A real thankyou comes in two years time when she and I are off to a girls-only vacation!

[Judyb]

I used to take my dog to the kennel whenever we went away, however each time we came back we had to visit the vet. After three trips the vet suggested that we get an in house sitter. This has been the best option for us so far. The dog is in it's own environment, not stressed by other dogs and strange people and not cooped up in a crate for hours on end.

 

Judy

[JohnQ]

Like many others, we relied on our two sons/wives or their friends to stay at house or come in and feed our 18 yr old dog.(the boys left there when they moved out) This used to work great, since someone who lived at home would rather stay at the house. As they all get older and have their own homes, dogs, animals, wives, big screen tv's an state of the are stereos, they aren't so eager to stay at house anymore. We hired our first in house sitter for our two week trip to Alaska and it worked out fine. He didn't like and probably didn't get up two or three times per nite to let the dog out and had to dedal with the consequences. We would do again. $15 per day, plus junk food, pizza and cokes. Our dog doesn't like kennels, vet or cages. Still has a cough from 6 mos ago at vets!

[SHayesShip]

You do not have kennels as an option. Our dog goes to a ranch that is in the countryside with indoor kennels that lead to an outside fenced play area. She gets to go to the doggie spa and get nicely trimmed and bathed. This is her vacation when we go on vacation. She loves the people there.

Steve Hayes

[bepsf]

[b]My Ex takes care of himself these days...[/b]

;)

[ColoradoJuli]

Our girls (cats) go with us when we go to our cabin in the mountains. They are excellent little travelers. When we go on our cruises we have a neighbor come over and check on them once a day. We do a trade with the neighbors when they go on vacation so neither one of us pays the other. One of our girls does scare the neighbor because she goes into hiding while we are gone. Sue Ann always worries that something has happen to Dealey. We try to tell her to not worry about Dealey, but it never works. Diamond, on the other hand, is always looking for attention. So she greets Sue Ann each time she comes over. The girls don't seem to be too upset when we come home. They are too happy to see us to be mad at us. My girls actually leave the suitcases alone. It is when I pull them out and start packing that Diamond will curl up in the suitcase as if to say, "I am going with you aren't I?"

[ron46936]

Our cat seems to do quite well on her own for up to 2 weeks. She does get so lonesome that she is affectionate for 10-15 minutes when we get home. Then she ignores us as usual.

[bkreader]

For many years we have limited our vacations because of our 2 Bichons (Glowy & Jasmine). We only went places we could take them with us because we couldn't bear to leave them in a strange place, and didn't have anyone nearby we trusted to stay in our house.

This year is different. Our son is now a freshman in college and has a long Christmas break, so he has willingly agreed to stay home with the "babies" while the DH and I go sailing off to Nassau in January. One of the great perks of having the kid grow up!:) :D

He is a pretty responsible kid so I THINK we'll still have a house when we return....

[kent4489]

My elderly friend and her "gentleman friend" move into our house to spoil our Kit while we are away. We would never dream of putting her in a kennel as she is an only child and doesn't like other children. I pay my friend $30 a day and leave the pantry and bar well stocked. I also bring her a gift from our trip. About 2 years ago, DH and I both decided we didn't like leaving Kit, so we bought a vacation home in FL...now she's a frequent flyer and easily adjusts going between homes. She's happy as long as she's with her Mom and Dad. We still occasionally take other vacations and my friend still babysits, but for the most part, Kit now goes with us to FL.

[beckers]

We take our Brodie a brittany spaniel to Canine Country Club kennel. It is hard to leave him and I try to think of it as his vacation while we are on vacation. They take him outside 6 times a day. They have a fenced in area for him to run in. His inside cage also has a run. He ignores us for a couple days when we come home.

[Golfgrl1911]

Angus the Old English Sheepdog has his own personal sitter who he refers to as his "girlfriend". She is known by us as Meg and is a lifesaver! Meg is always happy to come and live with Angus while we travel. She has told us many times that if she could find a human man as affectionate and cuddly as Angus that she'd be in 7th heaven!

[hogwildcruzers]

[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=darkorchid]We had the same dilemma with our two "children", a 2-year-old lab mix, Lady Bug, and our 3 month old "white" lab, Baby Boy Aspen. After much research and asking everyone we knew, we happened upon "Sirius Spa" doggie daycare and boarding. We of course, as any good parents would, made a surprise visit to the premises. We were pleasantly surprised as how unique the place was, having two rooms, one for big dogs, and one for small dogs. There were no "cages", only cubbies, open spaces, and actual children's junior beds, one of which was occupied by a huge blood-hound name Otis! We weren't sure how this would work, thinking maybe there would be a huge dog fight or something, but the "guests" are carefully screened, and are all neutered or spayed, and are from good homes. Our dogs seemed to have increased their socialization skills, and seemed happy when we picked them up. We will use Sirius Spa again for sure!!!! :p [/color][/size][/font]

[MonandDave]

We have a nine year old Staffie Bull Terrier,he has never been sent away when we go away. Our son usually comes, and dog and house sits for us.
This year I went to Portugal to dog sit for friends who were touring Usa for a month,but SO had to stay at home with Dyson (SBT) as our son had moved to Cyprus for the summer. SO had lots of rain,I had lots of sun, but we both had a dog to pet.