When you go out of town...

We don't have any family in town and our dogs don't like any of our friends When we go out of town, they get boarded. It stinks all away around (the expense, the hassle, the disruption to their schedules), but it's our only solution.

If you leave your dogs home alone overnight, how will they go potty before bed?

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Take them with us, if we can. This limits us to Howard Johnson's and other dog-friendly motels, but that's our fate at the moment. However, one of my husband's colleagues has offered to dog sit for us: She's living in a group house and would welcome any opportunity to stay somewhere else. She had dogs always while growing up, and her boss cannot survive without her, so we figure she's responsible enough. Plus, it would give the cat some company as well.

However, when we went to New Zealand for two weeks to get married, we took the dogs to my ILs, about 2 hours away, and they kept them. We had a neighbor come in every day to check on the cat, try to give her scritches, and scoop her litter. However, we're planning to relocate eventually, so the ILs won't be an option.

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I would leave them outside if I did leave them home. I wouldn't leave them crated alone overnight.

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What are "scritches"? I've always had cats but have never given them "scritches", at least I don't think I have.

Well...in my desire to have a place I'd trust to leave my dogs I started a kennel where the dogs were taken on a long hike every day...had house and couch privledges...slept whereever they want..etc

Business is good...but I still have nowhere to leave my own dogs

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Wow, that's an amazing business idea for stay-at-home moms!!!! How do you make sure that the dogs you accept will not harm your children?

Once we left the dog with his vet who has a beautiful house with a large yard and lots of other critters to play with. We thought he'd actually have a good time over there running around (we live in an apartment, so he doesn't get much chance for free running in grass). Unfortunately, we were wrong. The poor little guy was so upset he barely ate for the week that we were gone. When we came back, we barely recognized him

Now we take him with us.

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Scritches are those good little scratches behind the ear or under the chin, at least that's the definition in our house. They are not limited to cats. Our golden likes his scritches on his back by the base of his tail.