Dog Sitting Vs. Dog Boarding: Information for You
When you are making travel plans, whether you are traveling for business, vacation, or to visit family for the holidays, you may wonder what you are going to do with your dog while you are away from home. It generally boils down to two options if you are not able to take your beloved dog with you on your journey: pet sitting services or pet boarding services. Before you make a decision for you and your dog, get to know some of the key information about dog sitting and dog boarding. You will then be able to make the best choice for you and your dog.
Dog Boarding Requires Extra Vaccinations
When you take your dog to be boarded at either a veterinarian's office or any other pet boarding service, they will ask for your dog's vaccination records and information. While rabies is the only legally mandated vaccination that dogs must have to be licensed, you will more than likely need to get additional vaccinations for your dog before you are able to board them at a facility.
This is because there will be numerous dogs in the boarding facilities, all coming from different areas and potentially having been exposed to different contagious illnesses. If one dog is sick when they enter the boarding facility or is a carrier of the disease in question, then any un-vaccinated dog can and likely will fall ill while being cared for at a boarding facility. Because of this, it is often required that your dog have the distemper, bordetella, and kennel cough vaccines done prior to pet boarding.
There is a chance, of course, that your dog will be exposed to an illness at the dog boarding facility that cannot be vaccinated against. This is due to the close proximity of several animals together. With pet sitting, because your dog will remain at home, the extra vaccinations and potential disease exposure will not be necessary.
Pet Sitters Come In All Varieties
While most boarding facilities offer the same basic services and accommodations (kennels or cages for animals when they are not being walked), pet sitters have a wider array of options. If you have a dog that gets scared when left alone at night, for example, you can hire a pet sitting service that will stay overnight with your dog to ensure that they are safe and as unaffected as possible by your absence.
Other pet sitting services will come in and give your dog breaks outside, feed them, give them water, and take them for walks but will otherwise leave your dog on their own in your home. There are numerous options in between these two extremes as well. This means that your dog will be able to remain comfortably in your home and you can customize how much company and attention they get while you are on your trip.
Now that you know a bit more about pet sitting services versus pet boarding services for your dog, you can best decide what you want to do with your dog the next time you will be traveling.