Dog Walk GPS Route Report

Last week we posted about our Pet Sitter GPS Visit Location report. This week we show you our Dog Walk GPS Route report. 

Our clients love being able to see where we walk their dogs! The report includes the arrival and completion time stamps (not shown) and a link to open the route map. 

In this report we walked the senior dog around the small block so she could mosey along smelling bushes and occasionally flirting with the people who are out and about. The big loop is for the younger girls who have abundant energy!

The visit report will include a note about the dog walk to let you know about the fun things that happen - like a bird dog coming nose to nose with a rather surprised dove while not breaking her stride!

You'll LOVE our customer service and your pets will LOVE our visits!

Pet Sitter GPS Visit Location

We embrace all of the technology available to us to be transparent to our customers. Our scheduling system has a lot of features that our customers love; like being able to schedule their visits with just a few clicks of the mouse, managing their pet care profiles, being able to view visit reports in their account and by email and much more.

Our visit reports also include a map that will show the GPS location stamp where the pet sitter marked the visit arrival and completion as well as the location of the client's home.  

As you can see, our visits are action packed! The above map shows the pet sitter had quite a few chores taking care of the four dogs, cleaning the back yard, moving the parrot cage into the spare bedroom for bedtime peace and quiet and checking the mail. 

Our clients can simply click on the Visit Map to see the map or satellite overview of the arrival and completion location while the visit report captures the time in and out.  

The note will let you know how everything is, if there are any problems, a description of the activities and an informative report as to how the visit went. Our clients love the personal touch and you will, too!

At Creature Comforts we hope to exceed your expectations for service and care!

Why Do Dogs Fight?

Many people experience it; the sudden fight between their dogs that seems to come out of the blue. It's a highly charged situation that is loud, scary and dangerous! Whether you have Rottweilers or Shih Tzus, dog fights can happen. 

Why do dogs fight? There are a few common triggers:

• Most of the time dogs will fight when they are overly excited about something. This may be over toys, food, the doorbell or games like fetch. One of them will get it in his mind to be dominant.
• Sometimes one dog, who may consider herself alpha among the dogs, will try to be controlling over the others when they are excited about being let out to run in a field or even in the back yard. She will attempt to correct the excitement level and a fight is on.
• Dogs can get into a fight if they see another dog outside the yard. They will focus on the stranger until their excited frustration gets the best of them and they turn on each other.

You'll notice that excited dominance is always the culprit in these scenarios. It is uncommon for truly aggressive dogs to be able to live peacefully within a pack and those dogs will need professional help.

Hank was badly injured by a visiting dog

If you think back to when  your dogs have gotten into a fight you will likely find excited dominance at the core. Luckily, you can correct this behavior by learning their triggers and working on obedience. Practice keeping your dogs calm around each other and keep their excitement periods under control by limiting the time they are allowed to play (with each other or games like fetch) and breaking for a few minutes with calming obedience tactics like sitting for a treat or being on a leash when out running in a field.

This becomes even more important when you have an "Omega" dog. His body language and energy is very submissive. He is the kind of dog who seems to always be picked on by the other dogs and he's always giving up his toys or bed. These dogs will bear the brunt of the excitement of the more dominant dogs in the home. In the case of Hank and his brother Worf, they occasionally get into it when playing fetch. The injuries you see are from their uncle that the client was watching for her daughter for a few weeks. They came home from work one day to find Hank had been attacked and he was in pretty bad shape!

In closing, work with your dogs to reinforce your place as their leader by doing basic obedience and going for walks. Keep their excitement over their triggers under control. Never allow one to be dominant over the other(s) during any activity. With practice and determination you can create a peaceful coexistence between your dogs. 

We'd love to hear about your experience in the comments!

About That One Negative Review

We pride ourselves on the excellent care and customer service we provide. We go the extra mile to make sure that the pets in our care have the best possible care; from noticing lumps that turned out to be cancer to noticing redness in paws that turned out to be grass allergies to lifting a large mastiff up off her bed and assisting her while she walked outside to potty, to intensive care and extra visits and 4 phone calls a day to report to the the vet for a diabetic dog whose blood sugar plummeted to a dangerous level after vomiting her meal between visits - we do far more than simply feed and water the pets we visit. 

We go the extra mile to take care of the homes, too. From calling out a well company when water stopped to shampooing carpets to shutting water off at the street during the big freeze when the pipes thawed out and were leaking (we checked every house) to bringing in my husband for help set a ping pong table upright and away from a glass door during a wind storm, disabling a wired smoke detector that was malfunctioning (with client permission), oiling a padlock that would not open on a driveway gate and shutting off an ice maker that was leaking, we make sure the homes are safe and secure.

Recently we came across a severely matted cat who was kept in a bathroom and was in poor health. As a team we could not simply look the other way and allow the cat to suffer (matting causes pain from the hair being pulled during movement, rashes and possible skin infections and is an indicator of overall neglect). One of our pet sitters is also an Animal Control Officer for the Sheriff's Dept and she went to the job with the assigned pet sitter to evaluate the cat's condition. We reported the situation to the Sierra Vista Animal Control to conduct a welfare check upon the client's return and to encourage the client to have the cat seen by a veterinarian and be professionally groomed.

This cat was one of 14 cats in the home. 12 of the cats shared only 2 litter boxes. As a result there was urine and fecal matter throughout the home that we cleaned on every visit. Water dishes that had slime were washed and fresh water was given on every visit. Food dishes were topped off. This was an emotionally challenging job as we are a team of animal advocates who support rescues, volunteer at the shelter and foster homeless and abandoned pets.

This client has posted some very harsh reviews on Yelp and Google. She has said horrible things about our business and about me, personally. While we responded to the reviews we have disengaged from continued drama in rebuttals.

It is entirely likely that she returned home, 36 hours after our final visit, to find feces in the bathroom. We found it that way on every visit and cleaned it. She had told us at the consultation that the senior cat had ongoing issues with diarrhea. It is also possible that she found some empty food bowls. Prior to her travel she had someone else prearranged to care for her cats after our last visit and before her return home.

We were aware that she has cameras (we assume everyone does) and even set one upright for her that a cat had knocked over. We are requesting the video surveillance of the visits that will show our diligence in caring for her cats.

We have six years of client testimonials that are all very positive that show our consistent excellence in pet care and customer service. They are available on this blog, on our Facebook page, on Google, on Angie's List and on Yelp. We have had clients move away who asked us to start a service in their new area (we are working on it!). Our clients seek our advice about pet care and use us as referrals when they rescue pets. We also enjoy great relationships with groomers and veterinarians (who invite us to attend events and work with us to compose emergency care protocol forms) who refer us to their clients.

I encourage you to take in the totality of our customer reviews to make an informed decision as to the true character of our service. One highly dramatic rant from this situation in no way reflects the care you can count on from our team.

Sherry