Toby

We watched Barbara and Tim's dog Toby in Happy Valley, OR from May 3, 2023 to May 29, 2023.  Our original commitment was from May 5 but they had to move up the start date by a couple days.  While we had a prior sit in the Portland area, we are usually able to accomodate unforseen changes to sitting plans by splitting up and co-sitting temporarily.  This has happened a few times in our sits, where flights have been delayed for people coming home and we have been able to ensure their pets were still taken care of without them having to resort to some last minute coverage.

Toby was a Springer Spaniel and Poodle mix and was just coming out of his puppy phase when we watched him.  He was a very good boy to care for.  He had very good manners but as a puppy with puppy energy, we had to keep him active.  Fortunately, the weather was magnificent during our four week stay and we did a lot of hiking with him.

We did a lot of hiking at Powell Butte, a local park only 10 minutes drive away that had many proper forest trails with a meadow at the top and 360 degree views.  Although Toby was still very nervous on neighborhood walks, he was a natural at hiking.  We used a retractable leash and he would go ahead until the leash ran out and then wait for us to catch up and do it again.  He just loved hiking.

All of our hikes were relatively short day hikes.  He was good in our SUV.  We have a special hammock like dog cover for the back seat and we can even latch him to his harness for safety while riding in the back.  We also did manage to get in one proper 7 mile hike with some old growth forest hiking in it.  Jeanne showed him how to go over or under various trees that were over the trail.  He loved it!

Even inside Toby was active.  He had a couple of inside balls that he would chase across the floor or wrestle with.  He loved his company too though.  Toby was pretty straightforward with his care and routine.  He slept in a kennel at the foot of their bed while we slept in the guest bedroom upstairs.  Each arrangement is a bit different when we sit.  When we went out without him, they wished to kennel him.  We adapted our schedule so that he wasn't in the kennel for very long as we didn't like to leave him like that.  But he never minded it.

We will surely miss caring for Toby and am sure we will have future opportunities to watch him since we all got along so well. This was a formal Trustedhousesitter sit and our review can be found on the site but we have also added it to our reference page linked from the top post on the blog.  (contact info provided by request).