All-

I'm hoping for some suggestions from the wise folks on TE. We are planning to put our house on the market in the spring (for a whole lot of reasons - scaling back, want to be able to move if need be without dealing with selling, etc.). I've been fortunate that prior to this, we have been able to move, then put a house on the market and sell it (without having to show it while we're living there).

We have a Golden Retriever and 3 cats. All are well behaved, but it is my nightmare that the cats (one in particular is adventurous) will get out, and I'm not sure 100 lbs of dog following people around is a good thing for selling. We don't have a basement, or really anywhere out of the way that we could confine them (it's a very small house). We can bring out the dog's crate again (he was crate trained until age 2), but he will bark (again, not good for showing). Does anyone have any creative solutions for how to handle the situation? We are planning to market and try to sell ourselves - and that should be the easy part. However, I'm realistic - and if that doesn't work after a month or two, we might well need to list with an agent and deal with regular showings. I mostly work from home, so that's another wrinkle that will have to be dealt with. From what I recall, showing windows tend to be several hours - and I don't want to just load the animals in the car and drive them around for that long....

At least we're thinking about 5 months ahead on this issue....

Thanks in advance!