For the first time in my life I found myself watching a stranger walk my dog and I didn’t like it one bit.

Let me back track.

In a couple of weeks I’m going away on vacation. Truth, I do almost all of the dog walking/care giving in this house. Now, Hubby is capable of walking the dogs, but for whatever reason, he just doesn’t like it. When I do manage to squeeze a day or two away, he will walk the dogs. Reluctantly and not the way I would walk them, but he does walk them.

Weekends of course are easier for him. But weekdays are hard, because he starts work at 7:00 am and leaves the house by 6:30. THEN about three weeks ago, he was offered over-time (and who can pass that shit up with my hours cut in half at work?) Because it’s so dang hot, he starts work at 6:00 AM and leaves the house at 5:30. In order for him to be able to walk both dogs, he’d have to get up at 3:30 AM, and I can’t ask him to do that.

So I went to my old trainer and asked her and she recommended someone. We spoke on the phone for about 1/2 an hour and she is a  really nice lady.  We set up a meet and greet and she came over to the house yesterday. The dogs both loved her and we sat and chatted for a bit, then she said, “So how about we walk the dogs?”

Since Sampson’s walks are timed, she started out with him, while I took the D-Dog. Once we turned around, we switched dogs.

So maybe it’s just me being a Nervous Nellie, but here’s what I observed:

Sampson was practically in the middle of the road, with cars coming, I said, “Buddy, what are you doing, there are cars coming.” And she brought him in. (When I walk my dogs, they are on the inside of me, closest to the curb.)

Delilah’s leash was too tight. So I waited a minute and then I said, “You can loosen up on her leash,” as nicely as I could.

Of course, we WERE talking while we walked which could have had a bearing on it.

Afterward we chatted a little bit more and we talked about her payment, and her coming over again before I leave, and her meeting Hubby etc.

She had shared with me on the phone that she is insured AND she uses the same Vet I do.

We talked about encounters with other dogs, and I asked her if she’d ever had an incidents and she said, “No.”

She left me with her business cards and a contract.

Since Delilah’s walk had been shortened (because we walked with Sampson) I took Delilah out for a few more minutes.

While we were walking, I was thinking about the dog walker and I started getting really freaked out. Almost like panic attack freaked out.

I’m leaving in two weeks, and I need a dog walker, but suddenly I wasn’t 100% comfortable with the person I’d chosen.

So I started thinking. Where do you find a good dog walker? I thought of the websites that offer that service, but honestly, time is short now.

Then I remembered hearing you should ask your vet, as many times the vet techs, also do dog walking/pet sitting. And I thought of the lady up the street who has a vet tech stop by in the mornings and walk her GSD.

I thought about Sampson’s favorite vet tech who loves him as much as he loves her. So I called my vet and asked if Emily did any dog walking. As luck would have it, Emily was there and would be available to walk my dogs on the days I needed.

Of course, I told Emily everything and advised her I might not like the way she walked my dogs any better. 🙂 And she totally understood that.

It made me feel so much better, because Emily knows both of my dogs really, really well and both my dogs adore her.

I feel really badly that I’m going to have to tell the original dog walker that I’m going with someone else, but I feel, for my own peace of mind that it’s the right thing for me and my dogs.