What do you do with your pets?

[smkiya]

Dear mil thinks that if you have animals you either take them with you on vacation or you don't go. She thinks that you brought them in as part of your family and they ought to be treated as such. The only time she went on vacation was when dh was a kid, they went to new hampshire and they were pet free at the time. I find it hard to believe that the millions of people who go to Disney don't have pets. What do you do with yours?

 

[Denine]

We get a pet sitter to come in every other day to visit our kitties.

 

[smkiya]

I'm especially curious to know what people who have 2+ pets do....

 

[stace1214]

We have a really great "pet hotel" we board our dog at. It's around $30 a day and includes lots of exercise and play groups. She always is excited when we get there.

 

[jennilynn510]

our dogs go to "camp bow wow" the best place in the world. our cats get a visit from some friends 3x a week

 

[hannahryan]

We have the neighbor take care of the cat since he is easy. Our dog Riley is part of our family and I could never leave him at a kennel. We are leaving today for WDW and the only reason I can go is my friend offered to keep him at her house. She loves animals, so I know he will be well cared for and given alot of love. I understand where your mil is coming from, but you have to have a life.

 

[NMAmy]

We have a friend's college-aged son come stay at our home with our golden retriever. For less than the price of a kennel, the dog gets a lot of love and attention and I have someone at the house to collect the mail and keep an eye on things. Plus our dog doesn't have her precious schedule upset (she LOVES her routine and gets annoyed when we vary it. ) Win/win for everyone--our housesitter loves to stay at our house and gets paid for it.

 

[RMulieri]

When my doggy was alive we boarded her at the kennel here at home. We couldn't take her, and she did not like people so leaving her with a friend,family member or neighbor was not an option. We really want a new puppy, but the fact that we like to travel on vacation and visit family often iswhat is holding us back.

 

[okeydokey]

We have friends come over to look after them every day. We reciprocate with them when they go out of town.

 

[nessz79]

If it's somewhere the dog can't go (like WDW), we board him. We live out of the way and don't have a lot of close friends on the street, so it's easiest for us to pay our veterinarian.

 

[tjbaggott]

My mother offered to come STAY at our house while we are away, to look after our 2 dogs, 3 hamsters, and 1 rabbit. She's even offered to babysit my daycare children so their parents don't have to find alternate care! How awesome is that?

 

[DawnM]

I got a lot of the "your pets are your family and you need to treat them like your own children" stuff too when I posted about a dog that was agressive and biting!!!! Um, NO, a pet is not my child and if it comes down to my dog or my child, there is NO contest in even the slightest form of the word!

Ok, sorry, a little rant there.

We have had the neighbor come and watch them, but I am looking at boarding them next time just because they tore up a few things while we were gone this last time and it would have been cheaper to just board them than replace the stuff they tore up.

Dawn

 

[mom2travel]

our dogs go to "camp bow wow" the best place in the world. our cats get a visit from some friends 3x a week

We use them too for the dogs - a doggie vacation!
The cats stay at another kennel, together.

this time, though we have someone staying at our house.

 

[pixiewings71]

My mother offered to come STAY at our house while we are away, to look after our 2 dogs, 3 hamsters, and 1 rabbit. She's even offered to babysit my daycare children so their parents don't have to find alternate care! How awesome is that?

Your Mom rocks!!! that is awesome!

We consider our pets part of our family but we would never give up our vacations for them. We have 2 options, well really 3 depending on what we are doing. We always ask a family friend (DD21s BFF) if she can come stay at our house, she almost always says yes. In that case we simply pay her and she stays at our house while we are gone, the dogs LOVE her so they love this. Option 2 is taking them to the kennel, which they also love but it's a drive for us so it's option 2. Option 3 only works if we are going to see my family and staying with my sister, in that case we take them with us.

 

[catne]

Wow, I cannot imagine skipping a vacation because of animals. We love our dogs and spoil them rotten, but they were brought into the family to be pets, not people.

They go to a country kennel...costs about $25 per night for the both of them (small dogs, they share a kennel & we take their food.) They get outdoor time in a large fenced & covered play yard. No objection to going, so it must be o.k. for them.

At first, we tried a pet hotel (in a large national pet store chain) but we thought it was just too expensive... was like $60 per night sharing a kennel.

 

[Colleen27]

Our dogs stay home and a neighbor boy looks after them, walks them, feeds them, etc. When we just had the one, we'd board her, and we'd come home to find she hadn't eaten and had just pouted the whole time we were gone. She's much happier staying in familiar surroundings!

 

[Mickeyherewecome123]

We have a Pug and two cats.
My sister in Law takes our Pug (and then we watch her Pug when she goes to WDW the following week). And our neighbor comes over to feed our cats and change their litter box. We watch their pets when they go on vacation too.
last year we went to WDW with my SIL so, I took our Pug to a dogsitter (my old neighbor does this as her job) and we paid $10.00 a day. It was great, she really took good care of our dog.

 

[Britgirlus]

Last time we all went on vacation, we had a pet sitter some in every day to feed the cats (4), birds and fish, change the litter box etc. This time, my SIL will be taking care of them all

 

[3goofyboys]

We leave both our dogs with my MIL. This works out great because she loves the dogs so much she actually takes them for 2 or 3 days a month anyway. When we go in September, she will have the dogs for 12 days, which I think is a lot to ask from anyone, so my parents may take them for a day or two of respite care during that time. There are times when it is great to live near all our family, this is one of them!

 

[kacaju]

We have a high School neighbor that will watch the house and all the animals while we are gone. Last year I left the puppy at the kennel becuase I didn't want to leave him alone all day. She came and watched everyone else.