yours2share - sharing stuff & collaborative consumption » dog sharing

Guide dog bed and breakfast

sophie — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 13:40:54 +0000

One alternative to dog sharing is being a trainee guide dog boarder. During guide dogs last few weeks of training, trainers have found that they perform best if they live in a home rather than kennels. They are happier and respond better to training. In addition, feedback from the people with whom they board enables the trainers to understand their temperament. This helps them a better match to their eventual blind or partially sighted owner.

The dogs need a home at weekends and in the evening, which suits many families and other people who would like a dog, but cannot commit to owning one full time.

yours2share also provides a dog share service. Owners with a dog that needs company during the day can get together with families and people who can’t have a dog because of other commitments to share a dog. This is commonly done within families and between friends, but can work just as well between strangers, provided that time is spent at the beginning discussing how the arrangement will work. There are some sensible guidelines here together with the list of current dog shares.

CBC Radio interview, Toronto, Canada

sophie — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:49:09 +0000

I’ve just had an email from Barbara Langford in Toronto, Canada, who I wrote about in my last blog post about dog sharing. She and Kristen were interviewed by CBC Radio in Toronto earlier this week. You can listen to the CBC radio interview here for the next few days.

Barbara shares a cockerpoo called Charley with Kristen and is very keen to promote the idea of sharing dogs. yours2share is very pleased to help her.

Perfect dog share

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:49:31 +0000

I was at a dinner party a couple of weeks ago and found myself in conversation with someone from the village who suddenly started to tell me how wonderful her dog sharing arrangement was. I love moments like this. Christine didn’t know me and had no idea about yours2share. She didn’t know that I was looking for a successful dog share case study that wasn’t between family members.

I went down to see Christine yesterday to find out more about the arrangement. I met Verity with whom she shares Percy, a border terrier. Christine explained how the dog share came about and how it works.

When Christine’s husband died three years ago, her friend and nearby neighbour Verity suggested that she got a dog. Christine’s immediate response was that this was impossible as she frequently goes down to London for a day or two, and has a busy social life that wouldn’t be good for a dog. However Verity had thought this out because her immediate reply was “Yes you can, because we can share the dog. Whenever you are away, he can come stay with me”. And so the plan was hatched.

Christine went to her local dog rescue home and there she found Percy. After a couple of visits to the rescue centre to take him for a walk, he threw his paw in with Christine and came back to live with her, settling in well. The first time Christine went away, he went to stay with Verity. Percy wasn’t too pleased about this for a few hours and whimpered a bit. But he soon settled into his second home.

Two years later, Percy is a very happy dog. He has two adoring owners, as many walks as he can manage, and is always with either Christine or Verity. He has toys, food and basket in both homes (although it appears that he spends the night at the bottom of either Christine or Verity’s bed). He is always excited to visit Verity, running round the house to check everything is as he left it, and ecstatic to see Christine when she return. On the rare occasion when they are both busy, another neighbour looks after him.

Both Christine and Verity are keen to point out that Percy belongs to Christine and that she is completely responsible for his health and well being. They, like me, believe that it is essential that the ownership lies totally with one person.

One key tip was to have an understanding about between-meal titbits, as Percy was very clever at taking advantage of the additional opportunities for extra treats!

They are also keen to promote dog sharing. So many people would like to own a dog but can’t because of other commitments. If they can find someone with a compatible requirement and spend some time setting up the arrangement in the interests of the dog, then it works wonderfully well.

Percy certainly approves!

Here are all yours2share’s dog sharing ads and here is some guidance on sharing dogs.

For a complicated reason which has nothing to do with the dog sharing arrangement, I’ve changed the names of the people involved.