Spring break dog sitters: instructions that work

Spring break for most Houston districts falls in the middle of March, and every year a lot of dogs spend that week with a sitter who has never met them. The dog comes home fine, mostly. It also comes home having learned that the rules were optional for seven days, and it takes another week to get them back. The fix is not a better sitter. It is a better set of instructions.

Why most instruction sheets fail

They list the food, the vet and the emergency contact, which matters, and then they say the dog is really sweet and just needs letting out when it asks. That sentence undoes a board and train. A sitter is not a trainer, and they will not hold a standard they do not know exists. Every rule your dog lives by has to be written down as a thing to do, not a thing the dog is.

The sheet we hand our own clients

• Crate: the dog sleeps in it, eats in it, and goes in it whenever you leave the house. Door closed. It will be quiet within two minutes; do not open the door for noise.
• Walk: twice a day, on the short leash, dog at your left side, stop when the leash goes tight and wait for slack. Fifteen minutes is enough. No retractable leash, no dog park.
• Door: the dog sits and waits at every door until you say the release word. If it moves, close the door and start over.
• Place: when you sit down to eat or watch television, send the dog to its bed with the word place. It stays until you release it.
• Greetings: no petting until four paws are on the floor. Ignore jumping completely.
• Food: measured, twice a day, sit before the bowl goes down, bowl up after ten minutes.

Print it, tape it to the fridge, and walk the sitter through it in person with the dog present. Ten minutes of demonstration is worth two pages of text.

The doorbell routine for a sitter

If your dog has a doorbell routine, the sitter needs it most, because a house sitter opens the door to deliveries all week. The routine is: bell rings, dog goes to place, sitter opens the door, dog holds place until the door is closed. Have the sitter ring the bell three times during the handover and run it in front of you. A sitter who has done it once will do it all week. A sitter who has only read about it will let the dog greet the driver.

The other option

For a dog that graduated from one of our programs, boarding with training refreshers is available: the dog lives in the training home in Cypress for the week, keeps every rule it learned, and gets a few days of tune up on the walk and the door. Spring break week fills before the end of February, so call early. And for a dog that has never had rules to keep, spring break is a good week for its first stay with us. Gold is a two week stay, $2,500, and a dog dropped off the Friday school lets out is home with a full go-home session before the end of March.

Written by

Best Dog University Team

Board and train trainers in Cypress, Houston. 16+ years, 900+ dogs. About our team