This is a happy day in my house. I found what I am hoping will turn out to be a great dogsitter for our old girl. Being as much of Europe, or at least Germany, is dog-friendly, our hope is to bring Rani along on as many trips as possible. She has become quite the worldly pup, so why stop now?! I still love the fact that we have pictures of Rani hiking in the Cinque Terre! When I adopted her almost 13 years ago, I never in a million years thought such an image would exist, yet here we are...
I digress... back to petsitters. We unfortunately can't bring the old girl with us everywhere for various reasons, so it became an important task for me to find a person to watch her while we're away. The recommendation list from the Army vet ended up being nothing but wrong numbers. Couple that with my inability to understand how to dial numbers locally here, and I again found myself asking a ridiculous request of the receiver on the other end of the call. I can add to my list asking a chair manufacturer to watch my dog. That was funny. Again, not a lick of English comprehension, and yet she mustered up a laugh. I even chuckled at myself when I hung up the phone.
Feeling completely hopeless, I decided to google "hundesittern" in our area, and found a website for services, everything from Tiercare (petcare) to Haus und garten care. It costs money. Nothing in life is free, not in the US or in Germany. Worth every penny. Once I had access to contact information, I was in touch with three different women in the area that were overjoyed to watch my pup. It's good to have options, and although we ended up going with our first choice, they all said we could call anytime we needed their help. That gives us that added peace of mind.
So, we ended up finding someone that is a dog trainer and lives about 12 km away. Rani gets to go on slumber parties with her dog and hang out her home while we are off on mini-adventures that don't mesh with our pup. Peace of mind for a mere 10 EUR a day. Sweet. We have already reserved her dog sitting services for our next two trips, and it brings me so much comfort to know that Rani will be in good hands. Oh, and the other very fortunate detail is that her English is excellent. Not that I mind muddling through broken German, it does make things a tad bit easier that we can understand each other. YAY!
I digress... back to petsitters. We unfortunately can't bring the old girl with us everywhere for various reasons, so it became an important task for me to find a person to watch her while we're away. The recommendation list from the Army vet ended up being nothing but wrong numbers. Couple that with my inability to understand how to dial numbers locally here, and I again found myself asking a ridiculous request of the receiver on the other end of the call. I can add to my list asking a chair manufacturer to watch my dog. That was funny. Again, not a lick of English comprehension, and yet she mustered up a laugh. I even chuckled at myself when I hung up the phone.
Feeling completely hopeless, I decided to google "hundesittern" in our area, and found a website for services, everything from Tiercare (petcare) to Haus und garten care. It costs money. Nothing in life is free, not in the US or in Germany. Worth every penny. Once I had access to contact information, I was in touch with three different women in the area that were overjoyed to watch my pup. It's good to have options, and although we ended up going with our first choice, they all said we could call anytime we needed their help. That gives us that added peace of mind.
So, we ended up finding someone that is a dog trainer and lives about 12 km away. Rani gets to go on slumber parties with her dog and hang out her home while we are off on mini-adventures that don't mesh with our pup. Peace of mind for a mere 10 EUR a day. Sweet. We have already reserved her dog sitting services for our next two trips, and it brings me so much comfort to know that Rani will be in good hands. Oh, and the other very fortunate detail is that her English is excellent. Not that I mind muddling through broken German, it does make things a tad bit easier that we can understand each other. YAY!
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