Hi there, everyone, curious to see what your thoughts are on exceedingly long walks for pets. There are several listings where the homeowners will ask for multiple hours a day to be walked for the dogs. This seems rather excessive, and I feel that most of us who are not retired probably have jobs or remote work to do and two hours a day seems quite excessive. How do you guys feel about this pet parents asking for one and a half hour long or longer every day for dogs? Just curious to see where everyone’s heads are at on the subject. We have three little ones and I work from home so doing a sit with two hour walks every single day seems a bit excessive. Maybe once a week or something like that, but I feel like 30 minutes to 45 minutes is more than sufficient. What are your guys’s thoughts on the subject?
No, obviously, I’m not applying for the house sits that require these exceedingly long walks, but I do feel like they are pretty common so I don’t know if I’m missing something and that’s just what most people expect or if it’s just a bit of a black sheep situation that I happen to be stumbling across a lot of them lol.
My husband and I take long walks every morning–at least 90 minutes. He often will go out one or two more times. So for us, a 90 minute walk wouldn’t be an issue. If they needed a couple of hours a day total, it wouldn’t be a problem.
But as you said, some people might not have the time for that. Some people might not exercise that much. Some might not be in good enough shape to do that long of a walk.
People and their pets have all sorts of different routines and some dogs do need a lot of exercise because they are high energy, and/or they are used to getting a lot of exercise if they have a particularly active owner. In these cases, I don’t think they are ‘asking too much’ they are just outlining their typical routine.
I think hosts can request essentially whatever they want in their listing, and it is up to sitters to decide if they want to do these things or not, whether it is the amount of time the dog needs to be walked, the household responsibilities,etc…
What seems unreasonable, excessive, beyond the scope of typical responsibilities to one sitter may be fine to another person.
If hosts are upfront about their needs and expectations, and a sitter agrees to them, then I don’t see any issues. No one is getting taken advantage of; no one is being forced to do something they don’t want to do.
It is a matching platform, and not every sit will be a good match for a particular sitter.
You’ve answered your own question. If you don’t want to walk a dog for two hours a day don’t apply. You go on in your post that you have three young children and work from home. Everyone applies for sits that suits their lifestyles. There are plenty of other sits that would fit into your circumstances.
Everyone has different lifestyles, routines or expectations, so I just skip sits that require more than I can offer or do.
I also avoid sitting large dogs, because I want to be able to pick up and/or control a dog if it ends up pulling a lot, getting into scrapes with other dogs, tries to run after a squirrel or such. I consider it responsible to avoid pets I couldn’t control or lift, because then bystanders, kids, other animals, etc., could be at risk.
Plus, if a dog becomes unexpectedly incapacitated, I need to be able to pick it up and take it to the vet. That’s especially important to consider in sit homes with stairs and with sickly or elderly dogs.
That latter scenario actually happened with a dog I sat. She had back to back seizures late one night. I ended up rushing her to urgent care, which meant I carried her down two flights of stairs, down outside steps, across sidewalks and such to my rental car. And then across a parking lot at the urgent care. Since it was nighttime, it would’ve been hard to find anyone to ask for help unexpectedly, even say a bystander. And I had to carry all her medications with me, because I wanted the urgent care to know what she’d been taking. I managed to carry her in her doughnut, fortunately. If she had been a big dog, I don’t know how I would’ve managed.
Even with young, healthy dogs, emergencies can happen. Like my own rescue was stung by a bee not long after we got him. He went unconscious. I was alone with him at the time and fortunately he was small enough for me to carry as dead weight, so I was able to rush him to the vet. It turned out he’s allergic to bees and needed a shot immediately or he might’ve died, had we not gotten there in time.
2 hours a day seems a fairly normal amount of exercise for dogs. When I see listings where the dog doesn’t need walking, or only requires 30 minutes a day I am a bit disappointed as we usually like to take dogs exploring with us!
We love walking and hiking and it’s great to have a canine companion with us .
If we travelled specifically to a location for the scenic walks and the dog couldn’t walk any further after 30 minutes we would be very disappointed , especially if they couldn’t be left at home alone for long . So we choose sits in scenic locations with dogs that can accompany us on long walks .
Whilst we love walking, we don’t enjoy running .
We saw a listing where the owner regularly ran with the dog for several miles a day . We didn’t apply as that wouldn’t be a good match for us.
Are you saying that there are multiple 90 minute to 2 hours walks per day requested? Or that the total walks per day adds to that amount? Because I can see if every single walk is supposed to be over an hour, that seems a bit much, but if that’s the total walking time per day, that’s on the low side of normal, from my experience as a former dog-owner. But I also don’t see it as unreasonable - and if that’s what the dog is used to, getting less walking activity while owners are away would probably make the dog more upset and possibly act out.
Tired dogs are good dogs!
As others have said, it’s a matching site, and if you’re already not applying for those sits, there’s no problem, is thre?
I love long walks and prefer to have a dog who has one long walk and a shorter one before bed. I have taken younger dogs out for several hours, taking my lunch and food for them. I also like taking them in my car for us both to explore different places. As @Debbie says, I wouldn’t want a sit with an elderly dog that didn’t walk much.
For some of our sits, the owner has suggested options, for example, a one hour walk OR throwing the ball on a field for 20 minutes, with the dog running back and forth many times to fetch the ball.
Another option has been to take the dog to a nearby enclosed dog park. While the dog is running around playing with the other dogs, we are sitting and relaxing, usually chatting with the other dog owners, but you could be checking email on your cell phone, I suppose, while the dog is getting exercise.
If you see sit opportunities that you really like, but the walking seems to be more than you can handle, you could ask about these other options in your application.
I’m more than happy to walk for hours each day and have frequently taking a dog on a long hike with me. Some dogs are happy with this and used to it, some aren’t. I sit for owners whose dogs need exercise.
@Smiley Although we do some repeat sits where the dogs are not as young as when we first looked after them…. breaking up walks with plenty of rest stops helps. And as we already know the area well, we don’t always need to explore for so long.
Thank you all for chiming in with your feedback. Suppose I should specify and say that we do have three children so just getting out the door to do fun stuff with them is enough of a process lol. I think that walking dogs for two hours per day is excessive for our lifestyle. Little legs can’t usually do that long without a break, so it’s not always the best for us. Was just curious to see if we were the only ones that preferred shorter walks and it looks like we are lol
If I didn’t have all the extenuating circumstances that we have I think two hours might be OK, but that’s two hours that I’m not making money so it’s a bit of a process. I only get paid when I work and my work is very flexible, but taking out two hours just to walk around seems a bit much.
Of course, not a problem, was just curious to see if we were the outlier or if everyone likes to do longer walks. Typically speaking what I’m talking about our owners that say, they walked them for an hour or more in the morning than an hour or more in the afternoon or evening equating to about two hours.
HOs don’t need to cater to sitters that find this excessive. They are looking for sitters that are interested in caring for their pets and who will offer the care they requested. There is no stipulations that say you cant be a member if you want your dog walk for 2 hrs or want the litter box scooped 3 time a day. HOs make a request and sitters interested apply. It’s none of my business how long or often they want the dog walked. They only need to list it up front.
I guess your kids are quite a bit younger than mine were when we first joined THS (they were 10 and 8 but we had been looking after our friends dog since before they were born, so they had grown up with a love of dogs and walking). Equally active dogs and very small children might not be a great mix.
It’s all about finding the right match, so if 1.5 - 2 hours walking doesn’t work for you and your family, you can avoid those sits. My family all enjoy walking, especially with dogs, so it is a fun thing for us to do, something we want to do in our spare time. It sounds as you don’t see it in the same way, so you need to choose sits that work for you.
When we adopted our first family dog, I had an infant, a toddler, and a 5-year-old. I was so thankful we had a large backyard because there were days when just getting to the park at the end of our block was an ordeal. Now I love taking dogs out for miles and miles. You should only do what works for your family and there are plenty of sits out there that would be a good match for you.
I suppose it’s again about matching the pets’ needs to what the sitter can offer. We’re big walkers so prefer sits with active dogs. Yes an hour or two as a morning walk then an hour later is normal in our case. However there’s 2 of us so sometimes I’ll do a morning walk eg in a very hot location it’s got to be maybe 5/6am. In our 3 Perth Australia sits it was up to 43° by 10am so we did very early walks. It’s not always the length of walk however but more an extended opportunity for social interaction, problem solving and games, and training.
It all depends on the dog. Most dogs need daily exercise. I have a large dog and he needs his morning walk/hike. I take him out daily 1.5-2 hours daily. I don’t expect my sitters to go this long and state this in my profile, but he needs at least 30 minutes. In the late afternoon we take him to our doggie park in the neighborhood and throw the ball and play with his doggie friends.
Small dogs, who need minimal exercise, or cat sits would work better for you.