Hi there - apologies if I have posted this on the wrong thread, but I'm new to the forum, if so please redirect where this should be go and I will repost.

We have 1 large dog and 1 small dog and we were hoping to find someone in a similar situation who also is not keen on sending their dogs to kennels (the yorkie is very sensitive and I don't think she would handle the siutation well). We would be willing to look after your dogs in our home when you go away for long weekends/holidays if you would be willing to return the favour for ourselves. All we would need to do is let the dogs meet in advance and co-ordinate holidays etc.

Both our dogs are friendly and are ok with other dogs too. We are based in Sudbury (Suffolk), and would be willing to travel a fair way if needed. Currently my closest family is in Burnley Lancashire and I could do without the 12 hour round trip! Please let me know if anyone is interested.

Thats a good idea
Sadly I am too far away but I hope you find someone.
If not, have you looked at home boarders?

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such a good idea, wish I could help

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hi there - thanks for that - i'd never really heard about that before, if i understand correctly someone looks after your dogs while away? sounds interesting and will defintely look into it more if no-one is interested in doing a swap/exchange.

i think people are looking more and more to avoid taking their pets to kennels, some dogs are fine with that environment, but others like my yorkie i think would be quite traumatised.

Agree with looking for a home boarder. Mine is lovely and the council do checks so would trust her more than doing a straight swap.

Barking Mad do home boarding
Dog Sitting | Dog Sitters | Pet Sitting | Dog Care | Barking Mad, UK

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I can only recommend these highly, Maya has been looked well after when being with them that she didn't want to come home sometimes

I could not put my dog in kennels because she came from them and it may be anthropomorphizing her but I don't want to feel like she's not coming back/in the shelter again.

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R.I.P Barney, I had 4 wonderful years with you, Thank you-29/04/06-25/11/09
The dog who saved my life
Proud owner of Maya, the Rescued Alaskan Malamute

http://www.dog-breeds-plus.com
Mine and My husband's Dog breed website

i think you are being very trusting allowing complete strangers to care for your dogs while u go away even if they are dog people themselves ... i wouldnt trust a stranger to care for Bentley i think id prefer him to go into Kennels as long as they were a legal set up, clean id had a good look round, asked for other customers contact details and spoken to them about there experiences with the kennels and i had met all the staff... there are alot of bad people out there i know but not all kennels are bad ...have u no family members who could care for your dogs while ur away? ..tell me to mind my own business but im not a very trusting person these days

its not a case of just accepting the first person that would show an interest. i mentioned in the post it would be important for the dogs to meet first, but of course this involves meeting the owners and you get a very good impression of who they are. we have done this already, in fact we found someone in sudbury who we went round to meet.

we talked for 40 mins at her house or so and saw each others dogs, and after seeing her garden, house and getting to know her i would have had 100% confidence in doing the exchange. the only downside was that her dogs weren't easy to mix with others, and she would have preferred just going round to each others house morning and evening and walking the dogs. this is better than kennels but what i really want is for the dogs to go into a home where they're not alone for most of the time.

ref family - i did say in my post that my closest family is in burnley, which is a very long detour which i am currently having to do every time.

I am too far away to recommend anyone.
However, my friend has dog sitters to look after her dogs, the sitters met the dogs a few times before my friend went on holiday and they were excellent. The dogs stayed in their own home and kept to their everyday routine.
If you take this route you need to ask for references and follow some up, that's what my friend did.
My dogs always come with me on holidays.