Neighbours on holiday and left dog in house

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And the poor bloody animal has been crying and barking for 24 hours. She has the occasional rest but it’s pretty much constant other than that. They have form for this: worst before this recent episode was leaving the poor dog crying for 12 hours straight when they went out one time. That wasn’t the only time but was previously the worst.

They were reported and notified so they know their dog has separation anxiety. Yet this morning in the early hours the entire family fucks off on holiday - must be a holiday as they all had suitcases - and since they left, that poor dog has been crying.

Someone came in for around twenty minutes earlier today to let the dog in the garden and presumably to feed her. But then they fucked off and since then just non stop crying interspersed with barking. it’s honestly NOT annoying me - it’s making me feel so sad for the dog.

Given they had suitcases this has got to be for at least a week, I know the dog will be fed and let out for twenty minutes a day but it’s so clearly in distress! What would you do? Anything?

How absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking.

I hate people like this. When we got a dog in 2016, he was a rescue dog with severe separation issues. Now, we can leave him if we go out for, say, half a day but there's no way that we would leave him and go off on holiday - in fact, we haven't gone away on holiday since then as he would be so distressed and he doesn't travel well in the car.

You buy a dog, you buy a life - not a toy. Some people need a sharp reminder of this.

I wish they would be banned from ever owning another animal. For life.

I would ask whoever is feeding the dog if I could take the dog in for the duration of the holiday. Be honest and say you can hear it crying and it is distressing for both you and the dog. I would have to do this for the sake of that poor dog.

👏👏👏

Well I'm sure the statistics exist somewhere but faulty electrics, space heaters, sunshine reflection, it happens.

Anyway I was being a bit flippant in just mentioning fire, but it just feels risky and wrong to me, I would never do that with my dogs and I remember being amazed the first time I heard someone doing that (naive I'm sure). I just thought house sitters or kennels was a given. My dog would definitely be very distressed if someone wasn't in the house overnight.

As for the dog alerting the neighbours, if it's been barking all hours anyway I don't think that's going to help!! The fire alarm might be audible outside but it likely wouldn't be. I just can't see why you'd take the risk.

It really was.

I offered {as did others} to walk the poor dog {We used to pass the scrap yard to get to the fields, so it was no hardship to take another dog with us}

He was such a sweet, friendly puppy - but as he matured, he developed {unsurprisingly} a fierce streak where his only ''activity'' was lunging and snapping at the end of his chain at passer~by.

Prior to the Collie X, they had a 'loose terrier', a JRT X who used to bite {He nipped my heel once} but this dog was run over, hence the chaining of the Collie X.

At least the Terrier could run up the track - he was a menace, but had a better life than the poor Collie.

I've just got back from house sitting a very aloof cat!
She stayed upstairs and barely ventured out from under the bed, or behind the loo- but after a few days she trusted me enough to come for a head rub.

{she has form for this, as was a feral born kitten}

But even though she's wary, her people say she would like knowing there was someone in the house with her, aside from feeding , watering and litter tray duty.

Thanks for this oakleaffy, it is so shocking isn't it.

I have a terrier - rescued from a terrible life in Spain. She is adorable but will never be completly ok due to her experiences there. I loathe the people that abused her.

Best wishes.

That’s so irresponsible. I hope your cat moves in with someone else. In fact that’s probably happening if he’s “as happy as Larry” after being locked out for a week. Some other kind person will be feeding him.

It's terrible how some people should just not have animals {Or children}
Animals and children are so dependent on their people.

Met a lovely woman who said her daughter has a rescue Lurcher who had been treated very badly, and it has taken months to get her to settle-
Traumatised animals, or unsocialised ones sometimes never fully 'recover'.

A Whippet rescued in Australia had never been out of his crate- for over a year.
{Hoarding situation} - he was afraid of people as they had never been a positive thing in his life. He was terrified of EVERYTHING, having only ever seen the bare walls of an outbuilding through a cage.

His experienced adopter just couldn't get him to come out of his shell- in the end, he met up with a female Whippet from the same hoarding situation- they think she could have been his mother- and the two of them now live together.

He will never probably trust people.

Animal hoarding is abuse. Women seem to do this, while in Spain, it's the men hunting that's more of a problem.

It is … the dog needs 24 hour care …end of

Just hell for so many dear creatures. ( and children)

You are correct - my terrier was used for hunting - taken from her mother at just 4 weeks.

Absolute monsters.

@Grammarnut
I didn't feed Barry. Bit of an assumption there. I would never do that. Barry made his own mind up. He's a very smart lad. His owner didn't give a shit by the way

Aww she's very cute @oakleaffy
Have you snapped her hiding under the bed?

Thank you for clarifying this. I get really pissed off when I hear people moaning about the RSPCA doing 'nothing' and criticising them, when the reality is they're a charity, and not a statutory body. They have no authority to act unless the police intervene, which more often than not they don't.

Domestic cats do not 'come from nature' and even if they did, they do not come from British nature. Would you like yo be left outside for a week to fend for yourself?

It’s absurd that a family would do this to a any dog let alone one with separation anxiety.
Sadly the rspca have limited powers and there is someone visiting, as long as the dog has food, shelter, water and is being let out several times a day they will not be able to do anything. Once home they may advise the owners on future steps they can/should take, but it doesn’t sound like they would take it on board.
Ive worked in the animal care sector for a number of years and sadly cases like these are not uncommon.
You can call your dog warden, most councils do still have one who may be able to advise but again because ‘care’ has been put in place there probably isn’t anything that can be done if they deem the care in place is meeting the dogs basic needs.
I don’t think you are odd for finding it distressing to listen to, I think most people would and if it were me, I would ask the person visiting the dog to get in touch with the owners and tell them the dog is distressed and then step in and offer some sort of care ie extra walks etc

That’s surely torture for the poor dog?
my heart!
Maybe the dog sitter isn’t doing their job properly? I cat sit and I visit twice a day and in the evenings stay for an hour and hang with the cat. And that’s a cat!

If they rent their house then inform
their landlord.

RSPCA are absolutely useless but it sounds like they helped some people on here so might be worth a try. If you do pm someone Def do some vetting on your side first, otherwise it could be a scam to take the poor animal and do something much worse to him.

These people sound like absolute scum, poor dog :(

Exactly! What kind of shitty person would do this? Well, I guess we know. Poor cat.

Most on here are reacting as if dogs have the same feelings about abandonment as a human would. They do not. Also, dogs sleep for around 16 hours a day - if you have a dog you can check this - my six-month-old puppy is asleep at the moment, we having had a half-hour in the garden twice this morning, where he skeetered around chasing an old plant tray and a mushroom punnet (no idea, but I am trying to teach him 'fetch', with varying results). He has gone to sleep after both sessions, his alternative entertainment being to sit on my Victorian sofa and bark at nothing through the front door (or possibly at my late DH, since dogs 'see' things we do not and late DH is forever leaving hearing aid batteries, etc where I know I have swept and they cannot be). Does the dog howl 24/7 or just when the carer comes and goes away? 'All the time' is misleading, the only way to check is to note times it howls and when it stops. RSPCA will not be interested as the dog is being looked after.

Cats are indigenous in most places and the domestic cat is a fairly recent adaptation by felines, they having found that humans valued ratting and mousing in grain stores. That function diminished, humans found cats to be companionable and both species have adapted to that.
Coming 'from nature' and being 'natural' are overworked emotive concepts. Hobbes said it, I am afraid: the state of nature is nasty, brutish, and short. We are now far from nature in the UK, happily for us - and cats (who need shelter and to be fed, as do we - and dogs).
Off thread, but as a teenager I loved stories by Gerald Durrell, who was a collector for zoos and set up a breeding sanctuary in Jersey. He said to critics that it was all very well to admire natural habitat but the animals he provided to zoos had a life free from disease, hunger and pain, from which they were not free in the wild. It was a justification for his job, but does underline that a natural life may not be a very long or very healthy life (ferral cats, for example, have much shorter lives than their homed brothers and sisters).