Boarding or Pet Sitting That IS the Question

When you travel or work long hours, should you choose a quality pet boarding facility for your pet, or should you consider pet sitting for your pet? Here are a few questions to ask yourself and you make your decision.

Pet sitting offers advantages to boarding in that your pet remains in his or her familiar environment; therefore your pet experiences less stress. Some boarding facilities will allow you to bring your own food, others charge extra for you to bring your own food, and still others charge extra if you dont bring your own food! Usually, your dog remains less stressed if you provide the food that s/he is accustomed to.

Some advantages to boarding are the opportunity for day care or interactive play at your discretion and close supervision during regular business hours.

First consider the number of pets or animals that you have. If you have more than one or two pets to board, then even with two or more visits to your home daily, pet sitting will be no more expensive than most boarding facilities that you would choose to care for your pet.

Another question we ask our callers is what species of pet(s) do you have? Very often cats, cage animals and livestock with access to pasture will do just fine with a once per day visit. A once per day visit usually costs only slightly more than a pet boarding fee. Some pets or animals are not candidates for boarding ... farm livestock, some reptiles, aquarium fish, and the like must have a visit to the farm or home.

Another question to consider is whether your pets have all of the vaccinations that might be required by a quality boarding facility. All cats and dogs are required by North Carolina law to be vaccinated for rabies after 16 weeks of age, but other vaccinations are generally a decision for you and your veterinarian to make. If you have to fully vaccinate one or two pets in order to take them to a boarding facility, your 2-night trip might end up costing $200 or more in vaccination charges and veterinary visits.

Clearly, the distance of your home or farm from the business center of the pet sitting service that you have contacted may affect the cost of the service. At TLC Dog Training and Critter Care, we absorb mileage charges up to 15 miles from our primary business location, but for mileage to a job site greater than 15 miles, we must charge a mileage fee of $.50 per mile.

Another issue to consider is the age of your pet. Generally speaking, dogs younger than 18 - 24 months are not good candidates for in home pet sitting, as they are more likely to go exploring and get themselves into trouble in the home. If you normally house your dog outside in a safe enclosure, then age becomes less of an issue. Pet sitting is usually a better option for a mature, thoroughly housetrained pet.

Other things to consider are your dogs reactions to loud noises, thunderstorms, and other unpredictable things that may happen near your home. If your dog is fearful of strange noises, then you could return to a damaged home! In a boarding situation, your dog is safely confined, and should s/he become frightened, s/he cant really get into a lot of trouble.

Finally, is your dog or cat fearful of strangers entering your home? Might your pet hurt a stranger that enters your home? If your pet will be stressed every time that someone appears to care for him or her, then perhaps boarding is a better option.

Consider your options carefully. Should you decide to board your pet, make sure that you choose a boarding facility that is licensed by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. Should you decide to hire a pet sitting service, ask for references. Your pet sitter should minimally belong to one of the nationwide professional pet sitter organizations, like the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters (NAPPS). Make sure that anyone coming into your home to provide a service has their own workers compensation insurance and professional liability insurance.

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Remingtons tale

This is a dog I trained about a year ago. He had been adopted from a local shelter. When he was found he had three bullet holes in his leg. They were already infected and his left rear leg had to be amputated.

His new adoptive parents named him Remington.

When his owners called their question was, “can you train a dog with three legs”? I hadn’t had one yet but could not think of any reason why Manners in Minutes wouldn’t work. I had already trained a couple of deaf dogs so this did not sound like too much of a challenge.

As soon as they walked in the center I had them drop the line. How the dog reacts to his first few minutes in the center helps me identify problem areas. Remington was just about right. He explored with confidence but natural caution. That meant he wasn’t too timid or had too much out of control alpha drive. He also showed no signs that the missing leg was impairing his movement.

Remington is an Australian Cattle Dog mix according to the owners. Like any herding dog, once he checked out the center, he tried to herd us all in a corner. That meant he thought he was higher in the pack than humans.

Herding dogs are some of the easiest dogs to work with. We put two Q Calmers on him to help him concentrate and started the lesson.

Now one of my beliefs is that all dogs are born con artists. They quickly learn that the body language for submission is cute and endearing to humans. We say “oh look how adorable he is.” As soon as they hear that they now know they can manipulate us to get their way.

In every lesson there comes the moment when the dog recognizes that if I continue their life will change. Manners in Minutes training is about pack order and the dog is taught that humans are higher in the pack than they are. If they are comfortable being higher in the pack, (if they aren’t you probably don’t need a trainer) they will resist the change.

At that moment the dog will instinctively try to get the owner to feel sorry for them and stop the training. Most will tangle themselves in the line.

I was teaching Remington to walk on a long line with the line always slack. As Remington walked past his “Mom” he suddenly dipped the hip on the missing leg. Although he had been in the center for almost thirty minutes, he had never done that at any other point. He then looked at her with “help me” clearly on his face. She instinctively got up to rescue him.

Like any good pack leader I immediately growled at her. “Don’t you get up and indulge this dog.” She sat down and we continued. He would try the leg dip three more times. When it didn’t work he stopped and did not try that again for the rest of the lesson.

Think about it. I bet your dog has at least one manipulative body sign. And I bet it uses it to get away with everything short of murder.

Doug

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Pushing a Pumpkin

We picked up Chicklet, our female Lakeland, in September of 2004. In October my wife put out the Halloween decorations. She immediately seized on the plastic pumpkin we had by the door.

Periodically she digs it out of her toy basket. She will grab it and shake it, she will stick her head in it, and often she will push it around the floor with her fiercest growl. She will put other toys in it and then get them out and shake them. She will play with it for quite some time, and then unexpectedly leave it and go on to something else.

For the longest time I thought it was just one of those goofy things dogs pick up. Then I thought about what Lakeland terriers were bred to do. Unlike the other terrier breeds that are used to go after foxes, the Lakeland will not only bolt the fox out where the hounds can kill it, it will also go into the den and kill the fox.

Now in the Lake County of England, where the breed originated, fox are not hunted for sport. Most of the farmers have sheep and the fox endangers the sheep herd. So for economic reasons the Lakeland was developed to be able to go in the rocky terrain to make a kill so that the farmer did not lose sheep. They have been known to spend up to a week tunneling and digging to get to the fox.

When I read that I knew why Chicklet pushes the pumpkin. In almost every breed, play is also practice for the work they were originally bred to do. Chicklet is practicing pushing rocks aside to get to the fox.

And it isn’t just Chicklet. The picture is a puppy at nine weeks. Izzy saw the pumpkin and started working with it immediately. Izzy is a proud graduate on Pikes Peak Manners In Minutes and a wonderful dog. Hopefully I told her owners to get her a pumpkin, otherwise she may appropriate theirs this October.

Doug

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