Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Dog Sitting Dilemma and POLL
We have watched my friend's dog 3 times this year, ranging from 15 days to 3 days. The dog is pretty well behaved, but it is still is a burden on us because Rudy (our dog) is uneasy with another dog around. We don't get any compensation, which was fine the first few times, but now that it is getting more regular it is becoming a pain. Also, they can't return the favor by watching Rudy because they live in a small apartment.
I was just asked if we could dogsit over Memorial Day weekend for 5 days since they just found out the beach they are going to is not dog friendly. We are considering going out of town that weekend, so I said no. But it is frustrating that now I hear about the unexpected expense of a kennel and that they didn't consider their dog earlier in the planning process. Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy?
For discussion sake,
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip?
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away?
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much?
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you?
Re: Dog Sitting Dilemma and POLL
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? always
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? we usually leave Bru with some friends of ours, but for our vacation this summer, we're considering a house/dog sitter.
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? We don't give them money, but do treat them to dinner and/or movies when we all go out. One time, I got them tshirts from our trips. For the house sitter this summer, we'll pay him.
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? yep, but they have never asked us before, but I would definitely do it for them.
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? He's not a huge consideration, because we could always board him at the vet if all else fails, so at least we know there's always someone that could keep him
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? Usually with the inlaws. If they aren't available we board him at the vet
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? Actually I don't think we've ever given anything to the inlaws
That would be nice though since they end up watching Rascal 2-3 times a year
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? Maybe not expect, but I would certainly offer
We have two dogs and a cat (and maybe a hedgie soon if the adopting process goes well)
We def. make sure to consider all of them when we're going somewhere!
One dog is a GEB lab, so the organization finds a sitter for us as long as there is enough time and notice. We too have sat for the organization because we think it's only fair.
Lucy the basset typically goes to my parents farm for 'vacation', a friends house or our vets kennel (last resort). If she does go to parents or friends place we'll either give them a giftcard or some other compensation or even maybe dinner out. (Our friend would rather go out to dinner and have a night out than get paid, so we're fine with this).
Gir the Cat typically is okay to stay here at the house with her feeder and auto water, but if we were gone more than a week, she'll make a visit to the kitty kennel (she doesnt do well with others that have dogs that she's not familiar with)
The hedgie will stay with a friend and again, we'll compensate them somehow.
If someone dog sits for us, we automatically offer the favor in return. It's just a given for us.
IMO its just the right thing to do. Friends and family are MUCCHH cheaper than kennels and typically in our experience, the pets do better with family or friends.
What does GEB stand for? Guiding Eyes for the Blind?? I used to train dogs for that school.
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? Always, we have decided to not take some trips because there was not a good option for Rudy. We prefer to not use kennels, just our personal decision.
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? We try our best to take him with us. When that's not possible, we have a friend dog/house sit or leave him with a neighbor. Sometimes we leave him at my parents house (in VA) if we are continuing up to Jersey.
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? We compensate through food/beer and dinner for the friend. And neighbors we bring back a gift from wherever we were. We don't really compensate my parents. I think family is different in this case.
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? Yes!
You would be correct GEB= Guiding Eyes for the Blind. DH sat for the group while we were dating and then he started raising midway dating and we're now raising our second
His family has been doing it for YEARSSS up north
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? Definitely, yes.
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? We usually leave our cat at the house and have either one of my co-workers or our neighbor feed him each day. he's inside/outside and has a kitty door so he can come and go as he pleases.
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? It depends--if my neighbor does it for us, we usually invite her over for dinner or two and we might bring her back a little trinket. I do try to remember her birthday or other holidays--she's 92 so it's just as much "something to do" as help for us. If it's one of my co-workers, she usually goes out of town about as much as we do and has 2 cats--so we usually just think of it as "tit for tat."
And if so, how much? Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? Again, usually it's just my co-worker that doesn't live too far away from us. It doesn't bother me that we don't exchange money or gifts--I'm not really a sovenier kind of girl, and I know she can't really afford $$.
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? Always.
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? We board her at Dogtopia in Cary
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? We board her and pay $47 a day... It's SUPER expensive, but we know she will be safe and never crated.
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? I would, if we had someone watching Sugar for us
DH's family is on their 6th dog now (which is actually our dogs brother) Kind of cool
I think it's great and very fullfilling when they pass through school and go to help others
Puppy Experience! Thats awesome Hah. . Ours is no longer a pup, but yet, a giant yellow block head sweetheart.
That's definitely crazy, I can't believe she had the balls to complain about the cost to you. Talk about being unappreciative of the favors you already extended! The costs for pet sitting were a big consideration for us when we decided to get a dog since we do travel quite a bit and don't have anyone in the area that travels enough that swapping petsitting duties would be fair. We also bring our dog with us more places than I'd like (sometimes it'd be nice to go without and not have to worry about her) but it's simply too expensive to board her every time we go somewhere.
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? We don't make decisions whether to go somewhere or not based on the animals, but we realize we'll have to figure out arrangements for them. Like I mentioned above, it was more of a consideration for when we initially got them rather than for individual trips. The cats can be left alone for a weekend, but for a 3 day weekend we get the neighbor kids to stop by which is relatively inexpensive. We generally bring our dog on most trips but if we don't have a choice (if we're flying, staying in a hotel, will be gone for extended periods of time at our desitination), we board her.
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? We board her at Camp Bow Wow. We usually buy 10 day boarding packages (days can be used individually) so the rate is lower than buying 1 day at a time.
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? Our cats get pet-sat by neighbor kids. The first girl we used charged $5 a visit but we gave her $10 b/c our cats get meds & she did a good job. She left for college and we're paying the kids that took over for her the same amount. If we had friends do it, I'd definitely give them a gift card or something.
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? I would. And that's partially why I don't know if I'd ask someone to sit my dog, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable reciprocating and having another dog in my home with my cats if I don't know how they'd behave w/ cats.
Wow, I can't believe your friend had the nerve to compain to you. First off, they have been taking advantage of you for a long time. At minimum, they should have given you a gift card, bottle of wine, SOMETHING for you watching their dog. Yeah, it might not be a big inconvenience for you, but it's a HUGE favor to them (which obv. they don't realize). And, what, they just assumed you'd watch their dog again? Just...wow.
We board Cara at Camp Bow Wow and it's like $40/night. Yeah, definitely adds to the cost of any trip we take. But we knew that was part of the deal when we got a dog! We try to bring her on trips when we can to save $$, although then that is another can of worms b/c it affects our trip to some extent.
If I were you, I'd be 'busy' every time from now on that they ask, b/c clearly they need to realize how lucky they were!
I think your friend is crazy. Who plans a trip and thinks about their pet after the fact?
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? Yes! We assume we will have to board her, and take it as a blessing if we are able to arrange something else.
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? We will board her if we have to. We have done it in the past when we haven't had friends/relatives to take care of her. The place we use here is $30/day, which adds up, but sometimes it's necessary. A few years ago, when we were in OK and came to NC for 10 days, a friend stayed at our house. Lately, my in-laws have kept River when we've been away, except over Christmas, when they decided it would be too much of a burden w/ everything else and told us 5 days before we were leaving and left us scrambling, but I digress . . .
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? When our friend stayed at our house, we brought him back a gift. We never do anything for the IL's but we probably should.
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? We haven't had that situation, but we'd be open to it if it was necessary and we were in a position to do it.
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? yes, I have to do a lot of planning
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? sometimes kenneled, sometimes someone stays at our house.
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? No, my friend used to watch Bobo for fun. No one has ever watched Cocoa outside of our home.
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? I would do so if asked.
Is your pet one of your considerations when planning a trip? she is our "kid" so she is definitely a part of the planning. We have structured our travel plans around her before. We try to take her with us whenever possible.
Where do you usually leave your dog while you are away? I am lucky enough that I can get one of my students to usually stay with her if we can't take her with us. At last resort, she'll get kennelled.
If you leave your dog with a friend (or have someone come to your house), do you give them any compensation (gift, money)? And if so, how much? Yes, I pay my dog-sitter the same amount we'd pay to have our dog stay at the kennel
Do you expect to dog sit in return if a friend dogsits for you? I would do so if asked.
Man! You're not the only one who thinks that was crazy! No one should ever try and make you feel guilty for wanting to take vacation instead of watching their animal! You can always throw in a sort-of passive joke like, "What's it to ya?" or "Sure I'll watch your dog, but what will you do for me in return?!" I don't know- you don't want to burn bridges, but what a pain to be expected to help someone when they need you but not to be able to need them in return.
We have a landlord that has two dogs, a cat and two horses. We watch their animals all the time. She doesn't pay us to do so. We have very cheap rent. When she calls someone else in, she pays them. We have asked her to watch our dog on occasion. There was one evening she let our dog hang out with hers and another where she came and let her out to potty while we were out. I really wouldn't ask her for more than that because she has so many animals and obligations. I don't mind her asking me, in fact I want her to because sometimes, it's nice to have the farm to ourselves while she and her husband are away. (If she wasn't our landlord-I'd probably take issue with our arrangement!)
My parents have a neighbor that has ten animals in her Raleigh home. My parents watch her animals at the drop of a dime and vice-versa. They stopped paying each other over a year ago. They go out to dinner often and always make sure everyone's happy with whatever situation is up that week!
Other than when you are consistently trading services, a sensible friend/neighbor should always offer compensation. Sounds like to protect my feelings in your situation, I would gently tell them how I feel. I would probably start by saying, "You know this really isn't working out as well as it used to for us. Do you have any other friends who might be able to take your dog in with them for your vacations?"
Our dog is the first thing DH and I think of before making vacation or travel plans-heck even out-on-the-town plans! I'm trying to figure out what I can do with her this weekend, matter of fact! I don't think of boarding her because she's so well behaved, inside and out. I do make plans way in advance (except for on occasion like this weekend!) I do provide everything one would need to watch her with especially a crate. For one dog, I would offer between $10 and $15 a day. For ten animals, my parents' neighbor used to pay $20 a day. Call us cheap but when leaving our animals in someone's care, the money was more out of politeness. You pick a person who's excited about it, responsible and already loves your animals! That way it's not such a chore.
I have a friend watching Ivey when DH and I go to weddings this summer and I will probably be getting her gifts one weekend and cash the other. She probably won't accept it, but either way, It's set aside for her. I'm ready for her to ask me to dog-sit as well and if I can't take her 220lb English Mastiff with me, I will visit 3 times a day for plenty of time to make sure he gets attention, excersize and proper care-just like I'd want mine to have.
Good luck!!!
This friend recently moved here from another country and I've tried to be as welcoming as possibly because I know how hard it is to move into a new area, much less a new country. The first time we dogsat it was when she went back home to visit all of her family for over 2 weeks. I honestly didn't mind that time because it would have cost a fortune to put her dog in a kennel and I understand the need to visit family. However, I don't think there is any excuse for not planning for the dog on these weekend-type trips. I'm not sure if the compensation thing is a cultural thing, so I'm trying to cut her a break. But I think we are just going to be "busy" when she asks from now on since it really isn't working out the best.