Friday, August 3, 2007

New Job Offer Stressful on Pets

A friend of mine called me with some exciting news – he’d just been offered a managerial job with good benefits. “Congrats,” I tell him. One problem, though…he has to go out of state for training for two months. He lives alone with his two large dogs and now has to figure out how to get care for his canine roommates.

Unfortunately, his options aren’t that great. Finding someone to take in two large dogs for two months is not an easy task. Finding someone who can housesit for two months is also not an easy sell.

Other options include breaking the dogs up for two months, sending them to different family members to watch. However, you still need to find two homes for two months. And the dogs will certainly miss each other.

Another option is to house the dogs in a kennel. The costs will be high and you run the risks of the dogs not getting the same love and attention they would have in his care. My friend also doesn’t like the idea since his dogs were rescued from a pound and now in some ways he feels like the dogs will feel they are back at the pound and may have anxiety issues.

What about hiring a pet sitting service to come over? He’s exploring that path, but it’s so hard to trust people you don’t know.

Hopefully things will work out for him. Some co-workers may help him out. The option that may work out the best is to basically have shifts of people he knows coming in for a few days at a time. It will confuse the dogs a bit, but at least the dogs won’t have to leave their home and will still have top notch care.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey...That was a very informative piece. I can relate to your friends delema. I too have been faced with a similar problem. My problem was solved when my friend Miguel Escura agreed to take care of my pets. The only weird thing was that he would take pics of himself playing with my dogs. Oh, he also went through all my stuff. Yikes! Thanks for the info!!!