Pets

[Zina2008]

Look around your area for Wags Hotel. They are open 24 hours and provide great service. The dogs get private rooms- not like a kennel. These have carpet, piped in music or a plasma tv. Play time with other

dogs and you can even have a web cam that will allow you to see you pet while you are away. It is a little expensive, but if you don't have someone you trust to watch your dog, this is great.

[MDSue]

We have lots of cats, some are adopted ferals that we could never bring to a kennel because we can barely get them to the vet in a hav-a-heart or even to stay in at night. So...the entire family can't travel together because someone has to stay with the cats. I don't trust having a sitter stay in my house. Luckily my mom now lives in a house attached to the back of our house so we take turns.. I watch her cats when she is on vacation and she watches mine when I go away with my son and husband.

A trusted petsitter that came to your house is not going to mind if the cats were feral as long as they aren't dangerous. The only household that I turned down had a very large pig that lived in their basement along with a boatload of other animals. That was too much for me. I know it can be hard to find the right person but it's so worth it if you do.

[Ponchatoula Mayberry]

If you have someone responsible and reliable to keep you new found pet, do that. My daughter who is in college still lives at home. She will take good care of my "farm" of 2 dogs, 1 cat, 3 turtles and one bird. Oh...I forgot the Partridge in the pear tree.:D

 

If you do not have someone to take care of them, check with your vet. Most vets have boarding. Good luck and enjoy your cruise and pet.

[winjos]

When deciding on care for your animals, make sure to check out all options:

1) Relatives: Usually the cheapest and hopefully reliable

2) Friends/neighbors: The next cheapest, but you need to make sure that they have the time to give your dog attention a couple times a day.

3) Pet sitter: The prices vary, the services vary, and the reliability can be great or only o.k. There are some great ones out there.

4) Kennels: The prices vary. When checking these out, make sure to inquire about the amount of time outside of their run. This varies greatly. You could pay $15 a night, but they are only let out to go to the restroom 2 times a day for 10 minutes each.

5) Daycare/boarding facilities: The prices are usually more expensive, but you get what you pay for. Your dog is active all day with both people and dogs (all dogs screened). They get a lot of attention, love, and play.

 

Make sure and check out all options. Dogs need at least two visits per day to get some exercise and to go to the bathroom. Plus, a dog at home all day will get bored and some things may become play toys.

 

Best of luck.

[gerif]

I have an amazing cat sitter. She has a regular day job, but comes over as soon as she is off work and spends several hours with them. Sometimes, if we have babies (we breed Persians), she will even take the litter home with her to watch. She's worth her weight in gold.

[CruisesOnMyMind]

My fur baby is 17 yrs old. We have a couple of great neigbors that come in twice a day to feed and pet him. While we were on our last TA 14 nights, we happenned to have our home up for sale too. I would check our email periodicaly just incase. Well our agent left me an email a week into our cruise "Your Kitty is so lonesome, he comes out to talk to anyone around" Talk about break my heart. I was so upset, but knew I could do nothing about it. Got home and of course kitty was fine. This still tugs at me since we are leaving for another longer cruise shortly. At least our home is no longer listed to get an unsettling email.

I feel it is better to leave him home then try and board him. He does not like getting into a cage or vehicle.

[ladycaveat]

We recently attained a little Chihuahua about 3 weeks ago. She is very good dog that is relaxed and doesn't bark at all (unless you are new to her I suppose). She loves to go wherever we go, and we often find her whimpering if she can't. We leave her at home alone for sometime and come home and she gives little whimpers, but she didn't do that yesterday, instead she was just really excited.

 

My question is, what do most of you do with your pets when you leave on vacation? I don't really want to leave her here alone, she loves attention and loves to be held and rubbed.

 

We were never dog people, and swore not to get a dog, until we tried her out because she wasn't getting the care she should where she was at.

 

Ah . . . a new puppy dog . . . congratulations! I'll never forget the first time I left Tiki (my Westie) for a weekend. She was only nine weeks old and I must have called the kennel at least a dozen times to see how she was doing. I so wish I would have had a friend or relative to leave her with but we had just moved here to Virginia and didn't know a soul. When we picked her up she was all smiles and wiggles and so happy to see us. Over the years, she's seems to be more excited to go to the kennel and loves it there (she even spent three months there in 2006 when we lived in temporary housing waiting for our new house to be built). Tiki is now ten and still loves the kennel which is a good thing . . . between my work and vacations (and being single again), she spends a lot of time there. If you can find a really good kennel with really fantastic people . . . it's worth it's weight in gold.

[GeekyMom]

We have a Cockapoo and a couple of the kids in our neighborhood have a dog walking business so we give them the garage door opener and they come by twice a day, walk her, check her food and all is well. I do have a sign in sheet for them to log their visits.

 

I do lock the door to the house and their mom is involved with some supervision as well as my neighbor directly across the street.

 

Works well for us as well as gives the kids a lil job, and it doesn't cost a fortune.

[CowPrincess]

I always had a house-sitter stay at my place. Luckily, I lived near a college and never had any problem finding a responsible student, recommended by the college, who stayed at my place, fed the cats, took in the mail, etc. Most of them loved the opportunity to have a quiet place to themselves for awhile.....

 

I never had any problems at all....like partying, bringing friends in, etc., nor did I ever have anything stolen or destroyed. The sitter had free run of the house except the telephone. In addition, I paid her 10.00 a day for her services. It worked fine for years.

 

Of course, there is always a boarding kennel but I never had the heart. My "girls" were happy to stay home in their own surroundings, with their own toys, special sleeping places and someones lap to curl up on...

 

That 10.00 a day was in the late 90's, early 2000......might be higher by now.

 

I had a petsitting business, and if you choose to have someone you don't know living in your house, I would still STRONGLY advise having a professional pet sitter come in daily. You would not believe some of the cr*p that "house sitters" pull. These are just a FEW things I found:

 

* 28 empty and partially full beer cans strewn around the living room of a multi-million-dollar house, and the dog had not rec'd his medications

 

* housesitter leaving early, with ZERO concern about the pets who'd be left alone for days

 

* a dog left alone in his own excrement, dried/hardened so not fresh -- the house sitter could NOT have missed it

 

* house sitters calling people after they've left and saying "you need to pay me more"

 

* house sitters not showing up AT ALL so the pets are left alone until I arrive

 

If you've had good luck with people you don't know, who house sit on the side, good for you. But there are other people who've not had good luck, even with friends of friends.

 

As for boarding, if that's the route you decide to go, take you pet in for a few "practice" boardings, starting with just a couple of hours, and working up to a full overnight. That way, your pet gets reassurance a number of times that you ARE coming back for them.

 

Same with a professional petsitter if you've never had one for your pets -- have a petsitter for one or two days, then come home. So your pets can figure out that you leave, the petsitter comes, eventually you return. It is VERY hard on pets if you leave for 3 weeks, without any practice.

 

JMHO/YMMV

 

As for the rates quoted in this thread, IME they are VERY low overall. Around here, one dog is boarded for $40/day. A petsitter charges between $18 and $20/visit. House sitters are $50-$100/day. To have your dog in someone else's home is $25 - $35/day.

 

Celestial Traveller, I'm so sorry about your dog. That's heartbreaking :(

[Sea Hag]

We have a 14 year old Siamese. Couldn't leave her by herself if I wanted to - which I don't because she's a real people cat - because she's diabetic and needs injections twice daily. We board her at her vet's office, and they take really good care of her. Most vets do boarding as well, and I think that's a good place to board a pet. If you trust your vet to take care of your pet's health, it's not much of a stretch to trust them to take care of your pet when you're away.

[fabuloso]

We take our husky/malamute mix to his "Disneyland Dad". My boyfriend's boss. It works out great as he takes him on the weekends the boyfriend has to work and he's known him since he was a puppy. Spoils him worse than we do! We are lucky in that if he can't do it, we have a standing list of people more than happy to watch him. People we've known for a long time and trust with our four legged, furry "son".

 

I watch my friend's pets regularly. Last month for example, I spent two weeks watching Izzy the beagle. Two days after I finished spending the night with her, I took care of my neighbors dogs for the weekend and then three days after that, I took care of my other neighbors cats!

 

And I don't charge people! Well, they're my friends for one and two, I like to think of it as building good karma for my pets. LOL! That doesn't mean I don't accept any gifts graciously. I've watched Izzy's owners dogs for years--she's recent, the other two passed away in the last couple of years. They've bought me beautiful cobalt blue pitcher and glass sets, a copper wall sculpture of a sun and moon combined. The last trip, I received a gorgeous wall hanging made completely of leather. It's an "Oso", Spanish for bear. Which happens to be the name of my dog.

 

But I would do it even without the gifts!

[TERRIER1]

I use my children's high school and college friends who are now living back home locally going to graduate school or working full time at new jobs. They live at my house while we are away and they seem to enjoy the chance to move out of their parents house and into our empty quiet house and be on their own for a couple of weeks.

 

Our dog loves them since he has known them for a long time and is comfortable with familiar faces. I cook and big dish of lasagna and stock the freezer with Klondike bars and forzen food. The kids like being on their own and can definitely use the extra money.

[Red-Bird]

A few years ago we had a good friend of my DW come to live at our house and look after our 2 dogs, a Lahso and a Shiu Tsu while we spent 6 weeks in the UK. Never again! The friend had the run of the house including use of the pool. We came home to be told that both dogs were messing in the house, and there was something wrong with the pool. I won't go into details but the water temperature was 105 deg. Apparently our DF had not been letting the dogs out when they asked to go.

 

Both the aforementioned dogs have since passed on but the last few times we have traveled we have used a kennel for our 5 year old Beagle and it has worked out just great and Mickey seems to like it. The cost is $22 per day if we supply food - a bit more if the kennel supplies the food. Considering that we have not seen the friend who house sat for us for a very long time and the fact that the stuck thermostat cost us over $1200 in extra gas charges, we find the amount charged at the kennel to be very reasonable in comparison and we do know the dogs have playtimes and such although they are crated at night which is fine with us because Mickey is also crate trained at night and while we are out. Beagles get into too much mischief.

 

We now definitely prefer to use a kennel over friends and house sitters and yes we now turn OFF the pool while we are away.

[cruisemom42]

I've always kenneled our dog. I just don't trust others in my house and if something bad were to happen to the dog or the house, I would hate for it to happen on a friend or neighbor's watch, as I know it would be hard not to blame them.

 

I have a good kennel that I've used for over 20 years (two dogs' lifetimes!) and have never had a problem. I pay for extra "recess" for my playful lab mix. While I wouldn't say he is thrilled to go (as he's badly spoiled at home), he does just fine there.

[WeBeGone]

I kennel our beloved Max because I don't want any of our friends burdened with the responsibilty. I'd feel awful if something happened to Max while under a friend's care. They woulld feel awful too. Our vet has a great kennel facility where the pets are loved and coddled. What I wish is that some cruise ship would allow pets. I know it will never happen but our cruises would be oh so much more fun if Max could come along.

[Papasaurus]

Our three shih tzus would not do well kenneled. They have the run of the house so we have my brother or my son in law and his wife stay at the house. They don't mind and the dogs are happy to be at home.