The Perfect Dog Sitters

When we went on holiday recently, we left our friends in charge of our dog, house and garden.

Going away and leaving our pup behind has been a conundrum these last few years. We’re a family who likes to get away, but we also love and miss our pup terribly.

As pet owners will testify, your pet is part of the family, and leaving them behind safely is a top priority. While it’s a popular solution for many, I simply couldn’t put her into a boarding kennel for a week, or even a night, come to think of it.

Our teenagers are on the wrong side of the teens to be left home alone and in charge, so we were stuck in a bit of a corner.

The answer was our friends

As luck would have it, we didn’t need to look far for a solution. Our friends were free that week, and happy for a stay in Edinburgh rather than ‘over the bridge’ where they normally reside.

Our checklist began to get ticked off quickly.

• Would they look after our house? Yes.
• Would they look after our pup? Yes.
• Would we be able to relax on holiday? Yes.
• Would we come back to a new herb garden, pruned and re-planted bushes and a new lavender pathway? Yes.

Hold on, that wasn’t on our checklist, that was on our wishlist. 

Guests with benefits

As it turned out, our house-sitters became the dream house-sitters from heaven as they did all of the above.  Yes, they really did put in a new herb garden. Apparently, we already had chives in our garden, which we had no idea about. Where was Alex’s garden plant spotting app when we needed it?

I had also expressed a desire to have a front garden pathway with a lavender border so our pup wouldn’t be able to escape when out at the front – lo and behold, it appeared!

They also took two rose bushes and re-planted them so they would flourish and grow in sunlight and not squished by other plants.

Now, these are the kind of house-guests we can get on board with!