T2: What we write when we leave

Bruce had nine steps for Judge in his pet sitter notes. Most of them were variations on one section: possession aggression. Don't leave bags unzipped on the couch. Don't leave anything at dog height. Have something he really wants ready if he gets hold of something he shouldn't. The pet sitter found this alarming. What Bruce was describing was not a dangerous dog. He was describing a dog he had learned to set up for success, because setting Judge up for success required knowing the one or two situations where his instincts run ahead of his judgement. She read the nine steps as a warning. He had written them as a map of everything he had learned about Judge.

In the second episode of the Pawplexity Pawdcast, we talk about what the pet sitter notes are actually for: what we put in them and what they are always trying to do that writing cannot.

Ben used to work in a dog daycare back in Toronto. He picked up dogs with instructions he had never imagined needing. Justice for example was a tiny dog whose owner left a towel draped over the baby gate with instructions to throw it over her before scooping her up, because otherwise she would bite. Once she was out of the apartment, she was a different dog: social, relaxed, happy to sit on Ben's lap the entire ride. These instructions were about one very specific threshold in one specific place, and what happened if you crossed it without preparation.

My notes for Makenzie covered her relationship with other dogs: how quickly she reads a situation, how fast she communicates with her ears and face, what happens when another dog misreads her in return. She is not aggressive, but she is fast and expressive and completely certain of herself in a way that some dogs find difficult to process. Anyone caring for her without me there needed more than a list. The exception was our dog walker in London, who had a natural calm and direction that Makenzie read immediately. With her, none of the instructions were needed. Makenzie followed her lead willingly. All my spreadsheets covered situations she never needed to create.

Then there was daycare, a category that barely exists in Germany, where a dog is more likely to spend the day alone or with a friend than at a facility. In Seattle I found one I thought was exceptional: a structured day, sniff games at ten, group rest at eleven, individual feeding so each dog could eat without the pressure of the group, and I could watch Makenzie all day on camera. What the camera showed me was a dog who liked the other dogs and liked the people, but who was too stressed to eat and too stressed to rest. She came home exhausted, and it took her a few days to completely recharge. Research on physiological stress in unfamiliar environments shows that outward behaviour is an incomplete guide to what is happening underneath: a dog can appear to be coping and still be showing elevated stress markers throughout the day. Makenzie looked fine. She was not fine. The daycare did everything right and it still cost her more energy in a day than she could recover from.

The notes are not only trying to answer whether the sitter is competent, or whether the daycare is well-run. They are asking whether the environment itself is one the individual dog can rest in. Research into perceived control and welfare suggests that the benefit of a familiar environment comes partly from the availability of withdrawal: the ability to disengage, to step back, to find a corner that already belongs to them. That option may rarely be used, but it matters that it exists. Makenzie could not find that place at daycare, no matter how loving and caring they were there. She needed to be in her own home. Still does.

The bond between a dog and their person changes how the nervous system responds when that person is absent. Dogs with a deeper, more established bond tend to show different cortisol patterns in unfamiliar situations. Before Makenzie that thought never crossed my mind. I thought the relationship was one thing, and how she moved through the world was another. They are not separate. When Bowie was dropped at our place back in Canary Wharf, he rarely acknowledged us at the door. He walked in, went straight to Makenzie's toy box, put his head in until he found what he wanted, and eventually fell asleep somewhere he knew. He is a confident and uncomplicated little guy, and he was in a room that was already familiar, with objects that already belonged to the household he became so easily part of. No instructions required. They cannot.

Bruce once came home to a house that smelled wrong, a sitter who had been walking other dogs during the hours she was supposed to be present, and Judge and Nipsey fed over an hour after they should have been. A man in Ben's building hired a sitter at short notice, went abroad, and spent the following day sending unanswered messages. He had to ask Ben, who was also abroad, to find someone to go and knock on the door to confirm the dog was alive. The sitter had put her phone on do not disturb. Neither of these was a failure of the instructions. Both were a failure of something instructions cannot cover.

Ben now leaves Bowie only with people Bowie already knows. Bruce can ask his mother-in-law to come and stay with Judge and Nipsey, and when she leaves Judge is visibly sad about her departure. A friend of mine accidentally started walking in the same park every day until the dogs knew each other and the owners trusted each other. When one of them needs cover, the dog goes to a home they already belong in, with animals they already consider friends, looked after by people they already read as safe. No notes required.

The longer the notes get, the more they are trying to hand over the relationship itself.

This is the Pawplexity Treat for episode 2 of the Pawplexity Pawdcast „The instructions we leave for our pet sitters“. The audio reading of this post is available in the Pawplexity feed. Find it here.