How much for watching our dog?

[solobiker]

DH and I are going to be out of town for 5 days and our neighbor is going to be watching our dog for us while we are gone. Our neighbor takes care of a lot of her friends dogs when they are out of town for some "easy money". We have only been neighbors for a little over a year so we don't know her to well and she is going to be moving out of the state next month. So my ? to you is how much should we pay her? I am not sure how much boarding a dog costs so I don't have those figures to go off of. Thanks for any suggestions.

[Blueberry]

Boarding is usually about $15 per day. We pay a professional petsitter about $15 per visit (depending on how many animals - it's $2 for each extra - that's the base rate for one). I'd think somewhere in the middle for a neighbor - maybe $30 (since she doesn't have to drive anywhere).

CA

[Thorn]

We use a professional pet sitter for our cats. She charges $12/day for cats and $15/day for dogs. We pay her more than she asks because the cats are happy and content when she sits and to cover increases in gas costs.

[DDH]

Around here, they charge based on the size of the dog, and they board them in a kennel so they are caged all the time except when they are being walked. I would rather pay a person to come in even if I payed the same amount just because my pets are at home and not stressed.

[solobiker]

Around here, they charge based on the size of the dog, and they board them in a kennel so they are caged all the time except when they are being walked. I would rather pay a person to come in even if I payed the same amount just because my pets are at home and not stressed.

I agrre. She is an 11 year old, 13# full of love Shih Tzu. She is our child, so we would do anything for her. Some people think this bread is a barky dog, but she does not bark unless DH gets her all excited playing. Even when she wants to go outside she will run to the door then back to us. Thanks for responding.

[Skierchickie]

The kennel our dog stays at just went up to $12 per day recently, plus $1 per extra walk. You could ask her how much she usually gets (or ask people who she's done this for before).

We're getting a housesitter when we go to Alaska for 9 days (we have one dog and 2 cats), and we're going to pay her $20 per day. She'll have to feed and walk the dog, feed the cats, scoop the litter, possibly clean up fur balls, keep an eye on things, in general. Well worth the extra dough to have the animals happy (the dog could go to the kennel, but that is a long time, and we could get somebody to look in on the kitties every couple of days, but, once again, it's a long time without a lap), and have somebody here to notice if something goes wrong. In the winter the job requires a lot more (we get lots of snow).

She's a college student, so she could use the money - plus she lives, works, and goes to school 20 miles away.

When we're gone for more than a few days, we like to know somebody responsible is here, and (as others have said) the pets are a lot happier.

[KnottedYet]

I take my dog to my friend's house when I go out of town. I pay her $15 a night.

[divingbiker]

Wow, I need to move to a different part of the country! I pay $18 for a half hour visit/walk, regardless of how many dogs. When the pet sitter stays in my house, I pay $60/night (which includes a mid-day walk). Taking them to a boarding kennel varies by size, but is around $25-30/day (I think, haven't used a kennel in a few years.)

[solobiker]

Thanks for your advice. As you can tell I was trying to multi-task in my above post..what the heck is "agrre" supposed to be??? Agree, and I hope I don't have a 13# bread....breed would be better. Whooops...I was on the phone with my Mom at that time.

[Aggie_Ama]

We pay $16/dog to be boarded at the vet. This is a 8 lb miniature schanuzer and a 18 lb miniature schnauzer. We also pay an extra $2/day to have the bigger one get her thyroid supplement. And this is for sharing a cage since they cannot stand to be separated. My vet doesn't charge based on weight which is bad for me, good for my mom with a Rottweiler. Mostly they stay with my parents, on a long trip we usually give them some money to have a night out.

[makbike]

I pay $15/dog/day at the kennel I use. I hire the young girl across the street (11years old) to take care of my cats, rabbit and chinchilla. I gave her $7.50/day. Pet sitters in this area charge $20 per day and add on extra fees for extra services.

[mupedalpusher]

My son is housesitting for $15 per day and food! For a 20 year old that's a good deal, he makes extra money in addition to his day job, plus the stock the fridge for him so he doesn't buy food all week. He does have other chores, they fill 3 hummingbird feeders twice a day, several plants to take care of and a cat. But like he said, it's easy money and great FOOD!

[Dogmama]

I pay $22/one hour visit. If they're watching Zack, I want them to stay because he doesn't have a doggie door. That is $125 per 18-24 hour visit. For our vacation in August the pet sitter will cost the same as our plane tickets.

BUT - I don't worry about them and that is priceless.

[xeney]

Wow. We have three large dogs. We are going on vacation soon, and for a week away it is going to cost us over $500 to board them. That is partly because the kennel has odd ours so they will wind up being there for ten days -- every kennel we've used has had this issue, it seems, they open late, are closed on some weird day in the middle of the week, etc., so the dogs' vacation is always longer than ours.

When we used to have a pet sitter stay here to watch the dogs and our two cats, we paid her $45 a day, the same that our old kennel used to charge (before they raised their rates to about $90 a day for the three dogs). We aren't using her anymore because last time she did not feed our cats.

Boarding the animals always costs us more than whatever we pay for our own hotel. I will never have three dogs again.

(When our neighbors watch the cats, they don't charge. We all trade off cat watching. Dogs are more labor intensive, though.)

[tulip]

I was toying with the idea of perhaps eventually maybe possibly getting a dog from the pound when I move into my house. This thread is a good one, because I do like to travel. I think I'll wait until my travel bug subsides, if that ever happens. Plus, the last time I had a dog, you just let it do its business and kept moving. I'm really glad dogowners cleanup after their dogs, but I really don't know if I'd be up to that task. Makes me appreciate paying dogwalkers $$ for doing it instead.

The neighbor has a nice cat who seems to like to hang out on the porch. I've only been to the house a few times for the inspection, etc., but that cat has come to visit almost every time. I think I'll borrow it.