Oh bobbins.

[bunn]

 I have just learned that the person who normally looks after our dogs when we are away has had a Very Expensive incident with a breeding mare, and is going to have to move back to the South East to earn money to pay for it. 

Selflishly, my main worry is 'who will look after the hounds when we go to Iceland???' (we are planning a trip later this year).   In the absence of a Universal Translator which I can use to explain ideas like 'we'll be back in a couple of weeks' I am not keen on putting Mollydog, who spent her first 5 years in kennels into a kennel environment and don't even want to think about what that could do to Az....  We have relatives coming to cat-sit, but a higher level of trust is required for the dogs, I think, and these are not dog people, so I'm not sure if they would even be prepared to dog-sit as well, even if I trusted them to do it, which I'm not sure I do...

There is another 'in our own home' dog boarding person fairly close by who has those dates free, so I plan to interrogate her within an inch of her life this weekend to determine whether she will be a suitable person to be entrusted with the care of the hounds.    I really need somewhere where there will be people around most of the time and no road noise.  Ex Dog Boarding person used to let Az sleep in her bed, but we can probably cope without that! 

Comments

[skordh.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! I hope you find another good dog boarder.

My mind is boggling slightly about what kind of incident with a breeding mare could be quite that expensive...

[clarienne.livejournal.com]

What he said!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I know little of horse breeding, but I'm guessing that the sheer quantity of drugs and size of equipment needed when a pregnancy goes wrong in such a large animal must push the costs up. Though vet treatment is rarely cheap.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of when we first put George in kennels, a year after we acquired him from the shelter, when I was thirteen. We were away for two weeks, and had placed him at a very spartan establishment a few miles north of where we lived. When we returned I was the only member of the family who recognised him, as he was a few pens down from a Samoyed holding his head high; George's fur had gone flat, he was extremely dejected and had eaten his blanket and much of his basket, and was whining his disbelief that we were back after abandoning him. He did not go in kennels for several years, and when he did it was a far more comfortable establishment.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That's very sad, poor George. He must have been very pleased to see you again.

I feel that I need to know the dogs will be happy or I won't enjoy the holiday, so there's no point sending them anywhere I don't feel really confident about.

http://www.caninecountryclub.co.uk/ is another option, but I'm not sure how much the dogs would be alone, and they are used to having people there pretty much all the time...

Ok, probably most people would think they are a bit spoilt but neither of them had much of a life to start with, I feel they've done enough putting up with things and deserve a bit of pampering now.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The kennels to which we took George much later were more in the Canine Country Club's mould; he was dubious on the first occasion, but on the second evidently remembered the place and trotted off with the owner without looking back!

In between, we left him with my grandparents, who were very much dog people and happy to look after him; though there was one occasion when after saying goodbye we dawdled, and there is a photograph of the dog lying down next to my grandfather's armchair and glowering at us, as if wanting us to go and see if he cared...

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

"Oh bobbins".

Is that Mr Pogle swearing? I may need to adopt that? :-D