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Helpful Tips For Dog Sitting Someone Else's Pet
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Helpful Tips For Dog Sitting Someone Else’s Pet

While I’m way too busy to take on the role of a professional pet sitter, I do occasionally care for the pets of some friends and family. I recently watched my friends grand dog “Buster”, who is a beautiful border collie.

Although “Buster” comes to visit when he’s in town, we’ve never had a sleep over with him. 😮

I couldn’t help to think just how well behaved my dogs are when other dogs come into their home.

In fact, they are down right welcoming. They coax them into playing and seem to make their canine visitors feel quite comfortable.

It’s All In The Air

Dog owners always marvel that their dog(s) seem so relaxed in our home. They’re also amazed that their furry kids do things while at our home, that they wouldn’t have any part of in their own home.

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Our dog’s toy basket is loaded with balls, deer antlers (no cloth toys – our dogs like to eat those) and other hard rubber toys; our furry visitors take pleasure in digging a large deer antler from the bottom of the basket and enjoying a good chew.

The owners always ask what kind of bone their dog is chewing on and when I tell them it’s a deer antler, they say “oh, he’s had one of those before and never chewed on it”. Another good example is the hard rubber toys. All dogs don’t like those, but for some reason when they visit with us, they do!

When dog’s come into our home they immediately know that it’s a “doggy home” and they are welcome. They can just tell how much we love dogs. You can’t fool them – they know what you’re feeling, no doubt about it.

Here’s another example. You know how funny some dogs can be about drinking out of another dog’s water bowl, well not at our home. They quench their thirst like they are right at home.

Those are the key words “right at home”. From the time they come, we (me, my husband and apparently the dogs too) include them as part of the pack. Nobody is left behind during walk time, everybody gets a treat as well as after dinner treats too, we play with ALL of them and coax them to play together.

Let’s Bond

By sitting on the floor with the dogs, I can encourage bonding amongst them. They all closely gather around me and lay down. Before you know it, their paws are touching and there’s some gentle sniffing of one another going on. This is good. While I realize that this doesn’t work in every situation, it’s worked for me and the many dogs that I’ve welcomed into my home over the years.

Can’t We All Just Get Along

In order for dogs to be good hosts to other dogs, it’s important that the dog owner or pet sitter bond with the visiting dog in order to set the stage of behavior for all the dogs.

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