Going On Vacation; What About the Pets?

As I have mentioned before, and obviously one of the main reasons I write this blog, we love to travel as much as possible. So we constantly watch for deals to both new and old places. We find that amazing deal, book it, and start packing for the trip. Then at some point we remember, we have two dogs and a cat, now what?

Let me take a quick step back to explain how it used to be before I took on more responsibilities in my life. In addition, let me preface this by saying I LOVE being a husband and a father and would not trade it for anything in the world. This life is now everything I hoped for my entire life. When I was single, I used to travel quite a bit. At one point I made it a goal to try and go somewhere at least once per month. Shortly after I bought my current home in 2003, I purchased my first dog, a female Pug, in 2004. She is absolutely a great dog in spite of all the hair. Who knew a short haired dog could create such a huge amount of fluff?

Luckily, my immediate family all loved my dog because she is very well behaved and great tempered. So whenever I would go away for the weekend or an extended vacation, my parents always amazingly took her. I was always extremely grateful.

Fast forward a couple more years when I met my wife, and she came with both a dog and a cat. After we got engaged and moved in together, our house grew by several family members when you factor in the now two dogs and a cat. When we initially went on vacations, and actually up until very recently, my dog would go to my parents and my wife’s to her parents. It worked out well because both of our parents also had their own dogs.

One thing my wife and I both do not like to do is be a burden on anyone. We were always grateful to our parents for taking care of our animals while we were away because we knew they were being well taken care of in our absense. However, my in-laws recently lost their dog and they are both retired. Therefore, they also love traveling, a lot of the time with us. My parents also have recently acquired another dog and they both work still. Therefore, I was curious one day what type of boarding was available in our area.

I had never boarded my Pug before, although my wife had her dog prior to us living together. When we went to Hershey, PA last year with my wife’s parents over a long weekend, boarding was the next option because we did not want to burden my parents with both dogs. So as I evaluated different options, I saw how the cost really added up. In addition to the nightly charge per dog, both our dogs had to have special shots just for their “vacation.” If I remember right, a short weekend trip was going to cost us around $300 for both dogs. Ouch.

Then, I found a local lady that offered in home pet sitting. Your pets get to stay in their home environment, eat their normal diet, and have play time. The service we use is fully licensed and bonded should there be any issues. In our case, we leave the sitter a garage door opener, and she comes in and lets our dogs out as many times as we want. The best part is the price…we typically schedule three visits with our petsitter. Two longer 30 minute sessions including feeding, fresh water, exercise and playtime for $15 each, and one 15 minute visit in the middle of the day for $13. So our daily pet sitting fee is $43.

Going through this petsitting service has been a huge savings for us and the benefits to us and our pets has been tremendous. We now no longer need to keep up and pay for the annual boarding type of vaccines that dogs require. In addition, our fee includes both dogs (or 15 if we had them). Now, even if we do have a last minute trip, we no longer have to worry about burdening our parents with our animals.

Oh yeah, the cat. Our cat is great, I will admit, and all we have to do is make sure there is plenty of water and food out. Our parents, if we had a really long multi-week trip planned, would likely come over and check on our cat. We have not had to resort to letting the petsitter take care of her yet, although she gladly would and it is included in the current fees.