Tell me I’m overreacting….

[Dora26]

My niece lives in the US , a vet and works 12 hours between commuting and long shift. She has a 4 year old sizable mixed breed dog. She leaves dog entire time except for break with dog walker - I’m guessing an hour. As a dog owner and not a particularly precious one - I am appalled. I was lost for words when my sister - her mother- told me the dog was damaging house while niece out so she is going to leave dog in large bathroom - I mean WTF??

That is appallingly sad. It upsets me to read posts like that, a vet as well 😲

I'll preface this by saying I absolutely don't agree with it - but I'm a dog walker and I'm a member of quite a few international dog walking groups for pet-care professionals on Facebook.

As a general rule, things appear to be done very differently in the US. Lots of people seem leave their dogs alone overnight with just two-three visits through the day, and the dogs appear to be just fine with that set-up. This specific dog clearly isn't okay with being left that long but that's not to say other dogs aren't okay with it.

The UK "rule" of dogs only being left for four hours is very cultural. Dogs in lots of other countries are treated very differently and they don't appear to suffer as a result.

So, while I'd never leave my own dog that long, I do think it's important to remember that different countries do things differently and that different isn't necessarily wrong.

This has absolutely nothing to do with living in the U.S. It's a terrible way to treat a dog no matter where you live and every decent American dog owner would agree. Having lived in the U.S. for decades, I am quite confident about that.

But a lot of people are odd about leaving their dogs, including in the U.K. Someone here on MN had a thread about leaving their dog in a car during the full working day.

@lessthanathirdofanacre I remember that thread a while ago. I spoke to someone the other day and their dog was regularly left from 5am -7pm no dog Walker going in . Don't get a dog , simple !