Want to rent a dog? :rolleyes:

Saw this on the agility forum and thought I'd share....

Or they could simply volunteer at the local shelter to walk the dogs there and socialise with them.

I see this on the news this morning.

Very strange, cant see how it does anyone any good really, like Brainless said, walk dogs from your local homing rescue. At least the dog doesnt become confused and learn bad things from different owners.

Don't like the idea of it being a commercial enterprise but I suspect informal arrangements occur quite a bit in these days of fulling working families.  For instance my neighbour's sister went to work abroad so her labrador has been living the last few years with another sister much of the time, all the school holidays with my neighbour (she is a teacher) and with the original sister during all her breaks back in the UK.  He is a lovely old chap, very happy and sociable so certainly seems to work for them.

That's two homes though - rented dogs go to many homes.  There's a company in Japan that does it, I saw it on a show on animal planet recently - they showed an aging papillon bitch, who was rented by a couple every weekend and went to other homes in the week.  The poor girl looked miserable and confused, I don't think I saw her wag her tail once.

No, it's three :) 
The link above says no more than two or three although that is America not Japan.

I remember when my mother and father divorced and they shared custody of the dog :D he stayed with us during the week and then came with me to my fathers for the weekend that worked for about 6 years and he was as happy as a pig in muck :D
I'd be too worried about getting too attached to a rental dog?

Woops!  Sorry, my mistake :)

Can't help thinking that it's just turning a dog into a commodity :(   Like you can rent a nice car for the weekend :rolleyes:    Thing is, cars don't have feelings and don't get confused.   From what I understand, in-between sessions with the renters the dog is kept in kennels :(  a bit like keeping a car in the garage :(   I'm sure the dogs are happy when they're with their part-timers, after all they then get company and fussing, but what about when they're in the kennels?  What attention do they get then?

It's probably not very different to a lot of dogs' ordinary lives. A walk in the morning, alone for several hours, someone (maybe the same same person as in the morning, maybe someone different) comes to take them out, then alone again for several hours, then someone comes to take them out, feed them, spend some time with them then put them to bed for the night. The 'alone-time' might be spent in a kennel, or a kitchen, or a utility room, or a whole house. But it's still 'alone-time' with no more attention than a dog in a kennel fulltime. People always say that dogs adapt and cope just fine.

The KC has now issued a statement about this:
http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/1329/23/244/3

I've also found this article about the CEO of the company..

http://www.itchmo.com/ceo-with-sordid-past-linked-to-flexpetz-dog-sharing-service-2018