If you go out in the evening

[tobee]

So there's loads of places that do doggy day care, house sitting, boarding and walking round here. But what if you go out in the evening? I'm thinking occasional evenings for special occasions etc. Does anyone employ an evening sitter or someone to drop in? Specifically on a casual basis ?Professionally I mean as opposed to relying on friends and family.

Yes of course there is, some dog walkers offer a drop in service to let out for a wee, but some may not as it's in an evening. I'm a dog walker but wouldn't offer evenings as I have kids but others would. Another option would be have them boarded overnight so from evening to morning after and pay for that service

I think it's more common to board them overnight rather than a few hours to be picked up late at night.

Thanks! I tried googling for local area services but couldn't see it clearly listed.

I haven't got a dog but am thinking it through very carefully.

I’ve seen someone advertising evening and weekends... so aye, someone’s doing it.

Could you not ask a neighbour to pop in and let the dog out?

I always used to use home boarding if we were out late. These days I have a lovely babysitter who comes round to eat chocolate, watch Netflix and cwtch DDog! She loves these evenings and really looks forward to them. I pay for a taxi for her to get home. Any possible 6th formers about who could do the same for you for the price of the WiFi password and a hundred weight of Celebrations?!

My dog walker offers evening/ night time walks and visits.

Great thanks!

I have friends who would be willing to look in on a dog but it's always good to have back up!

We rarely leave our dog but if we have an evening out I fill kongs for him and leave the radio and lights on. That would be for a maximum of 4 hours.

More than that and I'd book him in with our dog carers, though with our previous dog we would ask my parents if she could go to them (they're too old to cope with the current dog).

Pearl Dog settles very happily in the car for quite long stretches of time so we have on the odd occasion taken him with us after dark, left the windows open a bit and checked on him regularly. I put his bed in the boot (hatchback), put a little radio in with him and he curled up and slept.

I am assuming you already work during the day and leave dog? Otherwise, a well exercised dog with company during the day and a bit of mental stimulation won’t find being alone in the evening hard. If you are working and leaving dog in the day then, yes, finding a good overnight sitter who will walk the dog in the evening and give st8mulation and c9mpany will well worth finding.

We will leave ours for around four hours in the evening. We leave a radio and lights on, plus toys and nibbles. She often spends the entire evening asleep even when we are here, so I don't think it's too much of an imposition for her. She does have our company all day though as we are retired.

It will depend on the dog you get. One of mine would be fine alone for the evening, the other would chew the house to bits.

No I would be at home/with the dog all day.

Yes, I'm bearing in mind all dogs are different.

Our daycare will do pickups/drop offs at any time of day/night.

Though I appreciate we're extremely lucky.

Most days someone is home with our dog but it wasn't always that way. When he was a pup we started training him to be ok on his own (started with 5 mins gradually working up to an hour etc) so there has never been any behavioual issues or problems leaving him on his own. If we're out, day or night, he's outside and on his own (fully fenced section so he's never been chained). He has toys and bones, a comfy bed in a sheltered spot, plenty of water etc and he's fine.

Having said that if we've had to be away for a night or two and couldn't take him with us we've always made sure that at least one of the kids were around to "dog sit".

They’re all different. Our young dog is very very active all day and has an hour of mania every evening then sleeps until bedtime. We have been outa few times, leaving him for four to five hours after a good walk and he was fine, ready for bed when we got home.