Suzi, I recommend petsit.com pretty much every day. We are members of PSI and I trust their vetting process much more than rover or other 'app' based services. Something about the uber of pet sitting gives me a stomach ache!

If we split it up, the pets would be pretty stressed out, and that's not worth it to us.

This is a basic truth for many pets. The stress can be enormous...especially for breeds like this dog (a Whippet) and, frankly, I don't trust anyone to provide a consistent quality of care when they are not 'relatives' of the dog (like I am for many) or are not trained to handle the roughly quadrillion details associated with pet care.

In this case, the friends used the wrong equipment inappropriately and injured the dog, who is now actively trying to bite my care giver...with whom she had had nothing but a great relationship with for two and a half years.

I'm just so sad for the dog. It's taking a huge amount of sleepless restraint to not call the client a coward and discontinuing service. I don't want the dog to suffer even more though, and they clients aren't home for another two days. If she DOES bite my person though, it will be even worse for her.

I'm sorry about all the stress ND and bonnie.

I met with the new therapist today and I like him. His office is in a therapy practice and feels like a therapists office. Plus they have therapy groups which I'm going to consider and see what insurance will cover. And an informal board game night on Thursdays at 7 pm. I won't go today I'm killing time until I see the shrink. And if I see him Thursday mornings it means turning around and going back the same night but might not be so bad.

So when I see the shrink I'm going to get the other therapists direct line and leave her a message. Not what I wanted to do but I felt ... comfortable.

Over Christmas I had two different professionals come in for the guys - my main person was taking Christmas Day off, but I know the cats really like her, so I went with another service for a few feedings in the middle of our week away.

Cats are a lot more chill though. Well, sometimes. Hm, maybe not.

You would not believe some of the behaviors we've seen from cats. Or maybe you would but, WOW.

Not all of it negative, counter to the stereotype, but yeah. Craycray.

Good, askye. The right care makes a big difference.

Oz has bitten/nipped everyone who's fed him while I've been gone but one. But at Xmas my friend L. looked after him. Normally he never misses an opportunity to nom her, but I guess he was so lonely, that he was all love and affection. (Okay, he might have nipped her once.)

My cats seem okay with different people coming over to look after them as long as they are familiar and comfortable with each person. But my cats are pretty chill. If I could figure out how to help Leo and Murray work out their interpersonal misunderstandings (hissy slap fights) we'd have a nice calm household.

Penny likes when people come around, she always wants pettins. And if they are going to open up small places where she'd like to hide even better.

My brother's gf has 2 cats and they are HER cats. One will kinda let you pet him, maybe. The other hides. I've seen him once.

So I saw the new pdoc, it was a really quick visit because she was iced in last week and was catching up with missed appointments but it was okay.

I came home and took some benadryl to help with the IC flare up and ended up sleeping for a few hours.

My guys are pretty chill. Man, I love them so much.

With Harvey and Sammie, I used to have a friend from work come in once a day to feed the cats when we were away. That friend is one of 4 people that Sammie has ever come into the same room with the first time they came into the house. Generally speaking, Sammie will hide the first couple of times a new person comes over. And since Harvey will eat all his food then all Sammie's food if he gets the opportunity, allowing just anybody, no matter how professional, to come in to feed them would be a disaster for Sammie. Of course, now that Harvey's renal issues make it imperative that he have wet food for more than one meal a day, the best thing for his diet is to be boarded at the veterinary clinic. Harvey would thrive no matter who the petsitter was coming in here - he loves everybody and expects everybody to love him. And hold him. And skritch him. He also excells at soliciting snuggles from veterinary technicians and therefore thrives there. I believe that Sammie is happier with Harvey than she would be alone at home, even if friend from work stopped by every day.

Cats is complex critters.