What to do with your dog on holiday

The conversation always happens too late. The flights are booked, the apartment is paid for, and then somebody asks "what about the dog?". From that point there are three weeks to solve in a hurry something that is decided far better in cold blood, and the calendar ends up making the decision instead of you.

This article is not going to tell you which of the four options is the right one, because it depends on the animal. It is about working out which one is right for your dog, which is a question that does have an answer.

The four options, plainly

Take them with you. The best choice if the destination and the journey allow it and your dog travels well. Watch both halves of that sentence: a dog that gets car sick or struggles in unfamiliar places is not on holiday, it is putting up with yours.

Someone comes to your home. The animal doesn't move: same sofa, same smells, same routine. It is the least stressful option for older, fearful or medicated dogs, and the one that works best when there is also a cat in the equation. That is what home pet sitting covers.

Your dog stays at a sitter's home. The dog does move, but into an ordinary house with ordinary hours. It usually costs less than the option above and suits sociable dogs that take solitude badly. It is boarding as it has always been, but in a flat rather than a facility.

A kennel. Proper premises, permanent staff, several animals. For some dogs — the very active ones, the ones who enjoy other dogs — it is a great week. For a reactive or anxious dog it can be a very long one.

How to tell which one your dog needs

Forget the price for a moment and answer these four:

1. How does the dog handle being alone? If it is already hard on an ordinary day, a kennel with structure and company may beat your empty flat with visits. And the reverse: if noise and strangers are what unsettles them, do not put them somewhere with twenty other dogs. If you are not sure, the whole thing is covered in the dog who stays home alone.
2. How do they get on with other dogs? Not "are they friendly?", but how they react to the fifth unfamiliar dog of the morning, on the lead and unable to walk away.
3. Is there medication or a medical routine? If the answer is yes, the question stops being where and becomes who: you need somebody who can get a pill into a dog that spits it out.
4. How many days? A weekend and three weeks are not the same problem. Under two nights almost any option works; over ten, the continuity of one person matters more than the premises.

What to prepare, in all four cases

This is what gets forgotten, and what later causes the eleven-o'clock phone call:

• Vaccination record and microchip up to date, with current contact details on the chip register. If the dog goes missing while you are away, the number on that register is the one that rings.
• Your vet, and a 24-hour emergency vet, with addresses. Not the name: the address.
• Written authorisation for veterinary treatment and a spending limit that you have set. Without it, an emergency becomes a stranger making your decision with your dog in front of them.
• Their own food, measured out by day, plus a little extra. Changing food on the same day everything else changes is how a holiday turns into a week of diarrhoea.
• A second contact: somebody in the city who can turn up in person.
• Their things: the blanket that smells of home is worth more than a new toy.

Write it on a sheet of paper and stick it to the fridge. It sounds old-fashioned and it works better than any chat thread.

The cost of booking late

In Spain availability disappears sooner than people expect. The first fortnight of August, Easter week and the long bank-holiday weekends fill up six weeks ahead in the big cities, and earlier still in mid-sized ones, where there are fewer sitters to go round.

The difference between booking in May and booking in July is not the price: in May you choose, in July you settle. In Madrid or Barcelona there is enough volume to find something almost always, but "something" and "the right person" are not the same thing. In Valencia, Seville or Málaga, where the summer exodus of residents overlaps with the arrival of tourists, the window closes earlier.

The trial run almost nobody does

If you are going to leave your dog with somebody for two weeks in August, leave your dog with that same person for one night in June. Just one.

It is the only way to find out, with time to spare, the things that never come up in conversation: that your dog won't eat when you are not there, that they howl when left alone in an unfamiliar flat, that the sitter has a cat you hadn't factored in. Discovering that in June is an inconvenience. Discovering it on day two of your holiday, 2,000 kilometres away, is something else.

The free meet-and-greet is for choosing the person, and it is covered in full in how to choose a dog walker. The trial night does something different: it tests the decision.

If you take them with you

Two warnings that account for most of the trouble.

The first is heat. Driving through inland Spain in July with a dog in the back means stopping every two hours, leaving at dawn, and never leaving the animal in the car — not for a minute, not in the shade, not with a window down. It is set out in walking your dog in the summer heat.

The second is the rules of wherever you are going. "Pets welcome" means very different things depending on the property: it can mean a surcharge, that the dog cannot be left alone in the room, or that only animals under a certain weight are accepted. And on beaches, the ones that allow dogs are few and seasonal; the town hall publishes which, and it is worth checking beforehand rather than after.

What actually decides whether it goes well

It is not which option you pick. It is how far ahead you pick it, and how specific you are about what your dog is like.

Experienced sitters all say the same thing: the problems almost never come from the animal, they come from information nobody gave them. "He's very good" is not information. "He pulls on the lead when he sees bicycles, he eats at 8am and at 8pm, and if he hears the lift door he hides behind the sofa" is — and it is the difference between a quiet week and a phone call on Tuesday.