Postby jamali » Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:13 am
Hi,
I heard amazing reviews about him but I think we must have been unlucky. I had arranged well ahead of time for him to have my dog over the summer hols and I think it was about 2 weeks before we left that the woman he had organised had an emergency and couldn't do it.
He sorted out someone else but she at first wouldn't confirm it with me until she had met my dog and established whether or not it would get on with hers (fair enough but I was expecting a definite confirmation at this point and weirdly when she turned up to meet my dog she hadn't brought hers with her and didn't want me to walk with them...) but then she also had a family bereavement that meant she couldn't do it either.
By this point we had only a few days before we were due to leave and nothing was sorted. It got pretty stressful and I was trying lots of other options but as it was so late in the day everywhere was full. The circumstances were awful for the 2 women who had been lined up but I also really needed something I felt comfortable with lined up for my dog so I could keep to our travel plans (a family of 5 travelling during school holidays is not easily or cheaply rearranged).
Finally someone was sorted about 2 days before we left but it was not the stress-free, professional experience I was hoping for at all, and I wasn't massively happy with how my worries were dealt with. When you are paying someone a fair bit of money to look after a much loved pet you don't really want to be made to feel unsympathetic to others' issues that you didn't want to be involved with in the first place.
This was all happening right at the end of the summer term and worrying about this was the last thing I had wanted to be doing. I had specifically gone to Dogfather to avoid the very situation I ended up in.
Like I said at the beginning though - think we must have been unlucky and I am sure there are a ton of people who will have good things to say. We now use a local woman at great cost but we know our dog is really happy and super well cared for and so we can totally relax and enjoy our holiday too.
Good luck!