Borrow My Doggy

[glowfrog]

Hi all - my kids are desperate for a pet / dog so I'm thinking of signing up to Borrow My Doggy so they can spend some time with an animal! I was wondering what people's experiences of it was? Have you used it to "lend your dog" or have you borrowed one, and does it all work ok? Any problem that could arise and that I should be aware of? Just want to go in with the right expectations.

Are your kids dog savvy? They need to be left it just “be” a lot more than you might think.
I use it but would be wary of people with potentially over excited children you might not leave them alone, bother them when they are sleeping or resting or get in their face/space a bit much and stress them out.

My daughter used to use it and borrowed a lovely poochon. It stopped due to Covid but the dog still recognises her when she sees my daughter even now! We walked her and looked after her for the day when her owners were out. Thinking back, I’m surprised they let someone they didn’t know look after their then puppy, but we lived in their village and I guess when they met us they trusted us!! It was a lovely experience and did the job for me as it showed my daughter that walking someone else’s was enough and we didn’t need one ourselves!!

my friend did this, her dog was in a breeding farm and being retired so she adopted her.

@Lastqueenofscotland2 I've had dogs (and even cats) in the past and same for my DH, and the welfare of any animal is really important to us. It's one of the main reasons we don't have a pet - we know how much care etc they require and we just don't want to have to worry about that currently. So any dog we borrow, we'll definitely make sure they are comfortable. That's something the kids definitely don't realise - that dogs / pets aren't toys!

We signed up for the same reason and met a local lady with three dogs who works shifts. We still help her out years later, even though we have our own dog now too. I think it's worth paying the small fee for insurance etc. too to show you're serious.

I'm a borrower, but find that people don't tend to contact you to offer to lend their dog for a few hours or a day but want someone to look after the dog when they go on holiday. That's worked out well for us as we're experienced dog owners having a break from dog ownership for a while so we can do some travelling, but we had missed living with a dog.

I would just be really careful having a strange dog around your children. Go and meet him/her multiple times on your own to assess their behaviour and personality before introducing DC.

Another thing to add is that we always feel quite sad for a few days once the dog we've had to stay leaves! So I would think about what this would mean with children thrown into the mix.

@fieldsofbutterflies good advice, thank you

@GCAcademic that's true, I hadn't thought of that... I guess we won't know for sure until we do it.

@SoulMole thank you, I'll look into that. I do feel anxious at the thought of something happening to someone else's dog while in our care 🙈

Get their vet and insurance details, keep them on lead. The owner will make sure you know what you need to. Our three got attacked after disturbing a wasps' nest though. She was fine but I felt so guilty!

@SoulMole 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻