Leaving Dog Alone Overnight - Big Deal or Not

[rfomd129]

Originally Posted by Blazin65

Plenty of food and plenty of water. Trust me. She lives in the lap of luxury. Vet says she's 20 pounds overweight.

And by the way I've already done this 5-6 times over the past 18 months. And absolutely nothing happened. It's just that I'm about to have to do it more due to parents declining health and other things. It's not even really an option. I just posted because I was wondering if others were in the same predicament.

I will keep my eyes open for another dog sitter. But I'm not going to actively search for one like it's absolutely necessary. The dog is just to independent and self sufficient for me to do that. And as I've mentioned I've got back-ups for emergencies.

Twenty pounds overweight is a very serious problem and can have a huge impact on the life span of your dog. It also impacts her daily quality of life. Her body isn't meant to carry that much extra weight and her knees and hips are being strained every day. Her health is the much more pressing problem that needs to be addressed. Leaving food out for extended periods of time for free feeding could be the reason for the excessive weight.

[Igor Blevin]

As a first time dog owner, I let my Lab get fat. I didn't even notice until friends called it out. Less food, more exercise, and she quickly got trim and svelt. It was a rookie mistake.

[kygman]

We have an 11 yr old chihuahua and a 4 yr old dachshund. If we're going to be gone somewhere for a night or two, the dachshund goes to the kennel and the chihuahua stays home. She has gravity feed water and food bowls and we have puppy pads we leave in the bathroom for her. We've done this for several years and haven't had a bit of trouble with her. Couldn't do this with the dachshund. Just to test him, we left him out of his kennel (where he stays when we're gone for a few hours) and rode around town for about 15 minutes to see how he'd do. Every trash can he could get to was spread all over the floor. That's why he goes to the kennel. I like this kennel because if we wanted to pick him up at midnight, there's somebody there to let us get him.

[Teacher Terry]

I would never leave my dogs alone overnight. I hire a dog sitter to live at my house. Anything could happen and you could come home to a dead dog. 20lbs overweight is huge. I have had some dogs that could free feed but not all can.