To think that my friend is being a cheapskate?

[luvvaduck]

A friend who lives alone employs a cleaner for four hours a week at £10 an hour. The same friend also took on a young dog that needed rehoming during lockdown and is trying to work out how she's going to manage the dog now she's returning to the office one day a week. The dog panics when left alone: it had to be rehomed because of this problem. My friend thought it would be easy to sort out, but despite her attempts at desensitisation the dog howls and poos when left for more than a few minutes.

The cleaner likes the dog and has said that she's happy to look after it while she's there cleaning and will take it for a good walk when she's finished and then stay on until my friend comes home, charging £10 per hour. That could be a total of £90.

My friend thinks that charging £10 an hour to look after the dog is outrageous. She's found a kennel not far away where her dog could spend the day in a concrete run for £18 — or £22 if she wants someone to take it out and exercise it in a field with other dogs.

My friend had to put the dog in these kennels for a day a few weeks ago and apparently the dog howled and paced and came home trembling and hoarse. My friend knows the dog will be unhappy in the kennel and much happier at home with the cleaner. She's told me she's going to offer the cleaner £40 for the four hours cleaning and then another £20 for 4-5 hours of dog-walking and dog-sitting till she gets home from work.

I've pointed out that that's lower than the living wage and said that I wouldn't even think of suggesting it. The cleaner seems very cheap to me anyway: most people I know pay £12-15 per hour. I also pointed out that my friend needs reliability and offering someone such a low rate will mean they'll drop her the moment something better comes along. I've suggested that my friend asks the cleaner to take on more cleaning tasks and do the ironing while she's there. My friend says there isn't enough work to do and the cleaner will be able to spend several hours watching TV and drinking tea with the dog. I've pointed out that she's going to be there, looking after the dog, and needs to be properly compensated even if she's not doing much.

My friend disagrees and is planning to ask her to work for five hours at £10ph and then accept £20 for an extra four hours, when she can do what she wants as long as she's there for the dog.

Am I being unreasonable to think she's being outrageously cheap and will end up without a cleaner? If you were the cleaner what would you do?

National living wage is £8.91/hour. For the nine hours your friend wants someone for, she needs to pay at least £80.

I think that £18/£22 or the £30/£35 quoted up thread A DAY for kennels and doggy daycare is simply untenable for any length of time, for almost every regular person, realistically.
Is she going to pay that every single working day for the rest of the dogs life? That's some serious bloody financial commitment.
She really should have had more forethought.

I don't think she values her relationship with the cleaner very much. £5 an hour is far too cheap especially when cleaner has said £10, and is likely to cause offence.

One to one care is in a sense gold plating and unaffordable for most. If she wants/needs to pay less then she needs to look at group daycare (a really good one could work wonders) or find another solution.

She isn't paying the cleaner to dogsit, she is compensating her for not being able to clean elsewhere during those four hours, so she has to pay the going rate for the cleaner. No decent kennel would put up with a dog getting so distressed more than once. She needs to invest in a qualified behaviourist and stop faffing around with that poor dog.

@Thatisnotwhatisaid

I think the cleaner is being cheeky asking for so much. Kennels are cheap but obviously make the dog unhappy, dog sitters tend to charge around £30-40 for a full day though. My friend pays one about £40 for the 12 hours he’s at work. The cleaner is asking for more than twice that for 4 hours.

Kennels do not “obviously” make the dog unhappy at all. I find it quite surprising that a kennel which keeps dogs in concrete runs and doesn’t exercise them is still operating, the friend must have found the worst possible one out there.

A good doggy day care would cost less than the £10 an hour the cleaner wants (which is quite reasonable but nevertheless an expensive option) and dogs are generally very happy to go there. My two see it as a treat, every now and again we send them there when it is non essential because we know they will have a great time playing with other dogs.

Please stop her from putting the dog into that kennel Op.
It's hard enough for any dog but worse for a rescue with abandonment issues.
She needs to put in the hard work to be helping the dog with positive affirmation training.
Please do your best to persuade her the kennel is not in the dog's best interests.🌺

£90 is a lot of money for a day. Our local doggy day care charges £25 if you take the dog to their home (other dogs there) and £35 if they come to your home for the day. That included 2 walks. When we went to a wedding, they stayed at our house overnight and half the next day for £80.

Why on earth did she take on a dog that couldn’t be left alone when she knew she would have to return to the office at some point? Sorry, doesn’t help with your actual question I know!

Your friend needs to get a proper dog sitter and walker. Cleaner is charging more than a dog sitter but she's not a dog sitter. You wouldn't expect someone who earns 10k a month to stop working so they can do you a favour for 500 quid a month.

@Zancah

I think that £18/£22 or the £30/£35 quoted up thread A DAY for kennels and doggy daycare is simply untenable for any length of time, for almost every regular person, realistically. Is she going to pay that every single working day for the rest of the dogs life? That's some serious bloody financial commitment. She really should have had more forethought.

My friend is returning to work for only one day a week, and an extra £30-40 per week is do-able for her.

To answer PP's questions, my friend hasn't been able to find a local doggy day care near enough to her home to make it feasible. Now that people who've bought puppies are returning to work and booking out the doggy day care for five days a week places are like gold dust. Anyone wondering about establishing a doggy-daycare business should start now!

My friend has asked around the neighbourhood to see if there's anyone prepared to have the dog for a day once a week for a lower fee and a couple of people have offered to cover in an emergency if they're available that day, but I don't imagine many will want to tie themselves up long-term for £20 a day.

My friend hasn't been irresponsible in taking this dog on. She's an experienced past dog-owner and she took this dog from a chaotic household in her neighbourhood when the owners' relationship split up and neither wanted to take the dog. In other aspects the dog has settled well but it has anxiety issues. My friend was told last year that she wasn't likely to be required to work from the office more than once a month but that decision has been changed and now she's going to have to go in once a week. It may be that she can reduce the number of office days once things are settled in the new normal routine.

Why are you posting on here about something that has absolutely nothing to do with you.

I think your friend has a cheek. Would she try this on if it was a childminder? The cleaner is actually doing your friend the favour, the least she could do is offer minimum wage. Sorry, I cannot stand people like your friend.

It became my business when she a) asked what I thought about her offering her cleaner £4-5 an hour to look after her dog, b) when she became irritated by my response and c) when she asked me if I'd look after the dog every Wednesday from 7.30am- 6pm for free for the foreseeable future.

It guess it also became my business from an animal welfare perspective because she seems to be prepared to put an already anxious dog into kennels once a week when she's already aware that the dog hates it.

For £90 / week she could get an au pair for the dog, I think.

Hmm the going rate in London for doggy day care or for a dog walker to care for your dog for the day is £30-£35 so I can definitely see why she doesn’t want to pay £90! Obviously there are minimum wage laws but I wouldn’t say that spending time with a dog is actually a full hourly work rate... for instance the cleaner could take dog to cafe, go back to her house with the dog for a day, do remote work for a day. Etc. your friend is better off finding a great dog walker (£15 per walk usually) and letting her dog build trust with that person, and then having that dog walker take the dog for the days when she is in office for £30-35. The cleaner is obviously looking at it from the perspective of opportunity cost of hours she could be cleaning, whereas a dog walker will be able to take the dog on dog walks with other dogs etc and be making extra money that way.

It is not unreasonable to ask but the cleaner is well within her rights to say no. I have two dogs and dog walkers were quite expensive as they charge by the dog as well as by the hour. When we first met our old dog walker, he asked if she would come down in price for a daily 1hr walk, Mon-Fri and she did. If she hadn’t, we may have paid the full amount as we still had to be at work anyway, but might have taken less days and juggled wfh. She was keen to have the regular steady income, particularly as she was only up the road and could fit them in when it suited and wasn’t tied to a particular time each day and I can assure you the amount we ended up paying was not unreasonable or anywhere near below minimum wage, and she she was certainly not exploited!

You can pay for doggy day care where the dog gets picked up in the morning, runs around all day with other dogs, then gets dropped back in the evening. I live in London and I get charged £30 a day. My dog loves it! I think if the cleaner's hourly rate is £10 and they could be working elsewhere for that price there is no debate. If the cleaner wouldn't work during those hours anyway maybe there is a discussion to be had but to be honest I would look at daycare instead!

She needs a doggy day carer. We pay £ 25 for the day here. My dog worries in a kennel but with someone he’s fine.

surely someone can do doggy daycare in their own home for cheaper than that? It doesnt have to be either a concrete kennel or paying someone a tenner an hour to just sit there with a dog

I have recently (last few years) paid £10 an hour for babysitting - child is now 13 so babysitter got to sit on settee and get on with her uni work or watch a film with him for two hours then send him to bed, and that was it. I still paid £10 per hour.

National living wage is £8.91/hour. For the nine hours your friend wants someone for, she needs to pay at least £80.

I think your friend has a cheek. Would she try this on if it was a childminder?

The point is, you don't pay a Childminder the NMW per child, as a CM is self employed, and will look after more than one child at a time.

So actually, as others have said £10 would be taking the mick. It is presumably a price set by someone who isn't really bothered about doing it. Which is fine. But I wouldn't pay £10 an hour for some doggy day care. Same as I wouldn't pay £10ph for one child to go to a CMer or for a babysitter to sit.
But, it is an individual arrangement between two individuals, so up to both of them to come to an arrangement or not as the case might be.

Your friend doesn’t value the cleaner’s time much eh. Totally irrelevant what a doggy daycare costs: they’re set up to look after loads of dogs simultaneously. The cleaner can’t be at that house dogsitting and also cleaning someone else’s house can she.

@Skysblue

Your friend doesn’t value the cleaner’s time much eh. Totally irrelevant what a doggy daycare costs: they’re set up to look after loads of dogs simultaneously. The cleaner can’t be at that house dogsitting and also cleaning someone else’s house can she.

which is what makes it a bad value option

Not only is she a cheapskate, she's a selfish.

Rehomng a dog that can't cope with her routine? Selfish.

Cleaner sounds wonderful!

@ChessieFL

Why on earth did she take on a dog that couldn’t be left alone when she knew she would have to return to the office at some point? Sorry, doesn’t help with your actual question I know!

This. Your friend is an idiot