Separation anxiety...mine!

[thefemalegeek]

I am due to go on holiday soon for two weeks and will be leaving our lovely springer/lab with my MIL. Our dog gets on very well with her and has stayed at her house with us and been left with her during the day but never over night. He is just over a year old and my first dog. MIL loves dogs and is really looking forward to having him. She is home all day and has a big garden but this is the first time we have left him for so long. To complicate matters, after this arrangement was made, MIL realised that she had forgotten she already had expensive tickets to an event all day on the middle Saturday. Our dog has never been left alone except for a couple of hours here and there, so I have arranged for a dog sitter local to MIL to look after him at the sitters house that day, returning him in the evening when MIL is back.
Although our dog is easy going, he is still quite young and I'm not sure if the whole thing is going to really upset him. Am I right to worry, or am I treating him like a baby? (a human one!).

Well he will miss you of course, but as he is in a familiar place, with someone who will fuss over him and care for him well, and he won't be alone for long, then I think he will be completely fine. I am agonising about leaving my 18 month old dog, and we need to find someone to start leaving her with in short bursts, so that if we do go away for longer, which seems likely later this year, then she will be used to the person and place. It sounds as though you have thought of everything, and your dog is a lucky boy!

Thanks SirV. I thought I had read all about dog ownership before we got him but I didn't realise how much he would pull at the old heart strings! Good luck with settling your dog too, I'm sure it gets easier as they get older.

I find it a wrench leaving a dog, but if they have stayed somewhere before and have been happy, then it does help. You do always feel terrible driving away though! I've never done kennels, always left my old dog with my MIL, and we usually had holidays where we could take him anyway, so it was rare to leave him, and it was only for a very short time. This time I think we will leave new dog with a local person who has looked after her once before when we had a long day at a family event.

I know your pain! We have done a trial with our dog walker staying over in our home. They LOVE her and by not leaving home they weren't as unsettled - but they KNEW what the suitcases meant and became Velcro dogs before we left - heart breaking. We are now going on holiday for just over a week and it kills me to leave them even though we know they will be so well looked after. Before we got them I figured they go to a kennel. I know that's a fine option... but I just can't! So instead of a car rental on holiday we are getting doggy sitting by their much adored walker. We have also changed our holiday routine so that we will only leave them for one longer (10days) holiday a year.

Oh, and we spoke about them frequently while we were away and looked at pics of them on our phones daily.

I miss my dogs when I go out for a meal, lol. I bet he has a fine time. Don't worry. You are lovely and doing everything you can. We have to live our lives too sometimes. Just think of that reunion