What To Do When You Go On Vacation Without Your "FINE" Dog

Sounds like I should have this great solution available, right? Well, truth be told, I don't. But I have suggestions. And I have stories that go with those solutions.

Before I became a pet sitter, I was in NEED of one. I met this very nice woman who my neighbors gave rave reviews. Her name was Pat and she was very professional. She came to my home and sat on my carpet and met my Sadie. She also had me come to HER home, where we hoped Sadie would stay, where she made us feel welcome and at home. Sadie had always been a bit "odd" with new people, but we assumed that it was something that happened with a previous owner and she was fine.

There it is. The assumption that she was FINE. Truth be told, I must've known she wasn't fine. She had something going on that wasn't identified or named, so we excused it as her being "shy" or "cautious" or "afraid of men" or whatever excuse we could come up with to make her sometimes odd behavior sound normal.

We left for our vacation to visit my brother and about 3 hours into the trip, we got the call - Pat had come to pick up Sadie and couldn't get within 10 feet of the dog without her barking, howling or growling at her. She consulted with people and they all deemed Sadie too aggressive for her to continue working with. But she tried! And when all else failed, we had to turn around and come home to our stressed out doggie. She was so happy to have her people back and didn't have a concern in the world about our ruined vacation.

Fast forward 2 years. Now, I'm the pet sitter. I was called by a lovely woman who needed someone to board her dog. I went to her home and met her and her dog. She told me that even though her dog was a bit high strung that he was FINE and was just excited that someone was visiting. Truth be told, I enjoyed this lady's company and conversation and was distracted by the signs that he wasn't FINE.

Now he's in my home and there's lots of chaos going on. The poor guy is in a totally new environment, with other animals, full of energy without having the space to let it out, and very dominant! If he wants to play and the other dogs don't, he picks a fight and it gets ugly. The difference between this situation and the one two years ago is that the owner can't come home. She's in another state. So, I need to suck it up and brainstorm with Justin and my customer on how we can make the next bunch of days livable for me, my family, the dogs and my customer who is stressed by a situation out of her control.

Why am I telling this story? Well, I think it's to promote awareness. Don't let this type of situation happen to you. We learned that Sadie had fear aggression and that's why she behaved how she did. She wasn't FINE with some uneducated excuse like the one I had made up. Everything we do with Sadie has that diagnosis hanging over it and our lives have changed a LOT because we have to WORK at making things AS FINE AS POSSIBLE.

My boarder's human will have to do the same thing. He will need training and probably some sort of work done with his dominance issue. For his sake and his human's sake, I hope they persue this issue and work to change their lives to accommodate his personality. I know fabulous people with lots of education on this subject who can change their lives. I know this because they did the same thing for me.

When you go on vacation without your dog, be realistic about any potential issues. Don't be afraid that the sitter or kennel will turn you away if you give them "less than fine" news. If they do say no, you don't want your dog there anyway! But the people who care for your dog need to be informed and prepared to handle anything that comes up. A real pet professional knows that all dogs aren't perfect. And a real animal lover would never say "no" to a dog that isn't perfect. They'd give you both a chance.