Wednesday 9 April 2014

A Story about Dog Day Care

As Sydney’s premier live-in pet minding service, the Perfect Pet Sitter ethos is to provide the highest level of expert and personalised pet care around the clock.


We believe the best possible choice is for pets to stay in their own homes when owners go away on holiday. So is there ever a situation when we would suggest a different option?

Let’s take one example - a lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback Ruby. Gail first looked after Ruby was she was just 3 months, then fast forward a year & Gail went back to live-in and pet sit Ruby during another of her owner's holidays.

Meeting up for Adventure Walks meant I saw Ruby again – Ruby loved playing with other dogs, was full of beans running around and having a whale of a time!

However, when it was time to go home and her lead went on, her behaviour took a drastic change. She began to slink low to the ground and seemed, well, depressed.

I thought about why this could be & remembered Ruby’s routine. Ruby’s owners work long hours & hate leaving her alone, so every day Ruby has a walker. 
This is wonderful but (there’s always a but!) for the rest of the day Ruby is still all alone.

Imagine if you were Ruby, spending perhaps 10 or 12 hours every day totally alone with the exception of just one brief hour to have a walk & have fun. For a social & energetic dog like Ruby, her days would be a truly lonely time.

Ruby is also known as ‘The Destroyer’ as she’s destructive when home alone, another sure sign she of boredom, loneliness & energy to burn. But with nothing to do, all that’s left is to get into mischief!

Pets cared for by Perfect Pet Sitter have our company almost continuously so luckily for Ruby during our stay she had a lot of company and we were able to assess Ruby’s end of walk ‘depressed’ behavior and advise her owners about it. 

Ruby is a confident, outgoing and extrovert dog. With that in mind we suggested to Ruby’s owners to try her at day care where she’d be with lots of other dogs. With her personality we didn’t think she would be overwhelmed – in fact we thought she was an ideal candidate who’d love the social whirl! So it has proved, with day care for Ruby a huge success.

Ruby is stimulated from the moment she arrives to the moment she goes home and just loves the interaction with all the other dogs. She returns from day care exhausted from the constant play, stimulation and fun!

A word of caution: whilst day care can be a great solution for some dogs whose owners have to work long hours, it’s not the answer for all dogs. It’s essential to take a dog’s personality into account – for example with timid, shy or older dogs it might cause distress & create more problems than it solves.

There’s no getting away from the fact that day care for a dog doesn’t come cheap, but by ‘mixing it up’ it needn’t break the bank. For example, Ruby now has a couple of intense, full-on & super stimulating days at day care then the other week days she walks with the walker.

If we have dogs then it’s our responsibility to find solutions that work & provide for their wellbeing and happiness. As for dear Ruby, she’s a very lucky girl whose owners are devoted to her and we’re pleased to say a very happy one once more.










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