Greetings fellow pet lovers!
What do you do with your furry family when they just can't go with you?
* How much do you have to pay for their care.
* What services do you get for your $$$'s?
* Do you ever take them along and then use a kennel while you do day trips? If,yes, how do you locate a good kennel in a strange town?

In our case, we are fortunate enough to be able to take our dog with us almost everywhere.
BUT...as for finding good kennel care in a strange town, the Internet is a good place to start. If you have a purebred dog, join one of the breed's chat groups on groups.yahoo.com or similar. Those usually have plenty of members who travel with their pets for one reason or another (shows, for example) and they are usually quite clued in to who's good in a town and who's not. For example, through one Yahoo English cocker group, we learned of a woman who ran a "doggie day care" center in Whistler, Canada, and who is also an English cocker owner and breeder...and who understands perfectly the needs of our breed. You could also contact the national society for your breed (for example, we would look at www.ecsca.org) and contact one of the breeders or state rescue reps, again they're very clued into who's reliable and who isn't.
Aside from a few recs from very trusted sources like those above, we would never kennel our dog in a strange town. If we can't keep her with us, then she would stay at home with a highly trusted pet sitter.

We boarded our little cockatiel once a couple of years ago for 9 days while we were in Ireland. He was ill when we came home, and we (and the vet) were able to nurse him back to good health. We will never board him again.

We now pay one of the concierges in our building to take care of him now - he changes the paper in his cage & replaces his food & water daily, $10 per day.

Petsitter comes and stays in the house with them. $25-35/day depending on how long we're gone and who it is. They come at lunchtime to walk the dog and then after their work and sleep here.

To locate a good kennel, ask other pet owners and your vet.

When we're out of town, we have a wonderful petsitter (recommended by our vet) who visits our cats twice a day in our house. Feeds them, plays with them, brushes them, cleans up after them. $20 a day if I remember correctly.

We use a pet sitter who charges roughly $12/15 per visit. She feeds, waters, and cleans up after the kitty; picks up the mail and waters the plants inside and out when necessary.

Once...I took the cat on a road trip once and it proved to be a disaster. I'm happy for the experience because after that episode I never felt bad about not taking her anywhere knowing what the end result looked like!

Shoot 'em!!!!!!! No, no, no...of course not. Because of business my SO and I are seldom gone at the same time. He is home with the little guys while I got to all the good places. The few times we DO go away together it's for only a couple of days and the dogs really do better at home. I just tell them we're going to the store and will be back soon and when we get home, I tell them it was just a long day. LOL We have someone come in and check on them. They hate being boarded. Won't "talk" to anybody, sulk, won't eat...just a couple of wusses.

I have a wonderful friend that adores our cat. She takes care of her at our home when we are gone. I just buy her some gift certificates at the neighborhood restaurants and bring her a cool souvenier.

Professional Cat sitter - $25/day for 3 cats (Minneapolis) - 2 visits per day. Feeds, plays with them; cleans litter -- will do other tasks as required. I paid a co-worker until one weekend she "forgot" to come #39;( -- argh!-immediately fired. Both dogs and cats do much better being left in their own environment.

For my little adopted 10 pound mixed dog I have people lined up who would dog sit h er..Our friends take her and they cook steak, chicken etc. and spoil her rotten.. My birds I've hired a bird sitter at so far $11.00 a day which is reasonable.. and I've made all the veggies for up to two weeks and frozen the packages.. She changes the newspapers, the water, adds seed, pellets and zaps the veggies in the microwave. They are on good hands... I have recently decided to become a bird/parrot sitter...and have started to pass the word along...

We tend to organize trips around our Goldens- It's one of the reasons we vacation a lot on the OR coast instead of San Juans or Long Beach

But when we're going somewhere they'd hate (WDW) then we leave them w/ neighbors or at the vet!

Neighbors- $10/day (feeding, walking, playing- high school 4-Her her wants to be a vet)

Vet- it varies. Usually just for Kennel and feedings (they get very, very bored at the vet's)

I've considered using a Kennel at our destination but never done it- hard to find a reasonable kennel that takes drop-ins without a lot of paperwork in Seattle or Portland or Spokane (3 main cities I visit).

Anyone from Seattle or Portland who has a facorite kennel/doggy day care? If so, why do you like it?

Neat thread, cactushugger (and AWESOME name.) LOL!

If we'll be gone more than a week, we fly my MIL over from Oregon. Her ticket is not much more than doggy boarding fees. This way the house is occupied, the dog is happier being home (especially since MIL spoils him rotten), MIL is happy to be in Hawaii, we get a visit with MIL, and we aren't worried about the dog while we're gone.

Now that we are in Florida and only 25 miles from our son & daughter, our two Labs stay with them...or our son comes to our house and takes care of them. When we lived in Ohio, we had some neighbors who looked after them. The "girls" stayed in our house and the neighbors came and fed them and let them out...or let them play in our fenced yard.

We leave our cat at home and have a feeder that holds 5 lbs of food and a water that holds 2 gallons of water. I feel bad leaving her, but I know she feels better in her own surroundings as she is an indoor cat. She is always fed dry food anyway so her routine does not change much. I guess she is OK with it.

We board our 2 beagles when on vacation. We tried staying in a hotel with them once and it didn't work out. Lesson learned. Moosely, we are in Seattle, see www.acanine.com.

The place we go to we've had a terrific experience with. Our dogs get a a comfy kenneled space (approx 8'x8') in a heated auxiliary building. They go out to an exterior pen to play at least 3x a day...they let them stay out there longer if they don't seem to be tired. Then, every other day, we pay a few extra dollars (5 or 10) to have them taken out to a fenced 4 acre park for 45 minutes. We've been told our pups make good use of the park, running and barking the entire time.

We took our dogs there for obedience training when they were young, so the owners (the whole family) knows them well. They visit "camp" probably 1 week a year, when we vacation.

When we call, I say I am their mom, and they know exactly who I am. When we pick the dogs up, they don't need to ask which dogs are ours. They've observed and commented on the personalities/tendencies of our dogs, so we know they are paying attention.

We drive a little out of our way to get our dogs to this boarder, but we feel it's well worth it. It's less expensive than some of the places closer in ($20/night per dog), but we feel we get much better service than some of friends who board elsewhere.

Hey, thanks, lovesadventure!

We send our two lovebirds to a bird shop nearby. They charge $8 a day for the two of them. I've been using these guys for about 7 or 8 years now and am very happy with them.

-Bill

If it was an extended trip (both out kitties have passed on) we would take them to their grandparents for a vacation. (They hated the trip but loved being there because they had attention all day.)

For short trips we had a sitter who lives in our building. For $30 per day he came in morning and evening to feed/play with them, scooped the litter, watered the plants and brought in the mail.

We are blessed to be owned by 3 of the sweetest canines in the universe, and if the truth be told, we haven't been on vacation in a while because we hate to leave them here!

When we do leave them, they board at the Vets office. We spring for the indoor/outdoor kennels which last I recall were $19 per night, so about $60 a night for the 3. It is a little high as boarders go, but we feel better having them with their doctors since 2 of the 3 are considered elderly. They get fed according to whatever schedule you request, walked several times a day, and the kennels are very large with a flap so they can go in or out. The out part is covered -- like a covered porch.

We don't take them with us on the few vacations we've been on. It would be too stressful for them.

If it were just one dog, and a little one, he'd probably go with us and we'd probably be better travelled.

There was a book, I think by the same people who have petswelcome.com, that lists hotels and innes that allow pets all over the U.S., you might find it thru google or amazon, I read it a while back in the vets office but can't remember the name of it.

Sometimes friends will take our dog.
Sometimes, we have a woman who comes to the house, she charges $25 a day, comes to our home during her lunch hour and then at end of day and sleeps here; charges another $10 if I'm gone long enough for her to water plants, a few things in the garden, etc.

For day trips she charges $15.

I found her by placing an ad on the bulletin board at our vets and our community center.

For kennels, I would ask your local vet and see if they recommend someone.