Vacation....Feeling Guilty
 

In a few days my family and I will be heading out to Florida (Disneyworld) for vacation (for a week) and I'm feeling soooooo guilty leaving Oakley behind. Well, not actually leaving him behind but leaving him with my sister.

My sister lives about 2 hours away and we'll be dropping him off as we pass through MS. My sister is an absolute animal lover and has one dog (a pug) and two cats, the second cat actually adopted my sister, lol. She is great with animals! If you want that story, let me know and I'll tell you.

So why am I feeling terrible? One day my daughter and I left for a couple of hours and my son texted me asking when I was coming home because Oakley was at the front door crying. I was heartbroken! Another time my son sent me a picture text wherein Oakley was sitting in the living room facing the front door!

I am so worried that he'll do the same at my sister's house and she assures me that they'll have so much fun that he won't miss me.

Do any of y'all have separation anxiety from your furry ones?

I absolutely feel your pain. There are so many places we use to go on vacation that I refuse to consider now. I just can't leave my babies for that long. Just going back to work in August is going to kill me.:(

With today's technology, at least I can face time him on the phone :)..

Yep, it's me that has the separation anxiety not Princess Sophie. For her it's kind of out of sight out of mind while I stress every minute we are apart. LOL Does that make me lame??

Not at all....I know he will have lots of fun and I believe me I want him too but I feel if he has too much fun, he won't miss us at all. My sister tells me he'll be fine and I'm crazy to think the way I do. She was actually in town Father's Day weekend and had the nerve to ask if she could bring Oakley home with her. I said, not gonna happen because I can't go three weeks without him!!!

I know what you mean; I hated having to board Minnie, but most of the times I left it was to go to national parks, which are extremely dog unfriendly (a lot of those places are pretty people unfriendly too, e.g., thin air, bears, thunderstorms, rough terrain, etc. )

I can relate! We recently went to Spain for 10 days. I had all the same feelings you did before we went! I left Pasquale with my parents. They treat him like a prince!! He is spoiled rotten...and was for the 10 days that we were gone! When we got back....i actually felt back taking him home, since he was having so much fun there!
I think your dog will do fine. He's going to have a pug to play with!!! I definitely think its US that have the separation anxiety!!

Ugh I feel your pain!!! I love to travel but have not done a lot since I got Jackson. I just can't stand to leave him for too long. It's mostly me, I know he is very well taken care of at my dads house, but my dad said he is definitely different without me. I think the longest I left him was 6 nights and that just seemed like SOOO long. When we do Disney, we stay at their campground so we can bring the dogs! LOL...

I feel your pain. But it sounds like your baby will be in very good hands. If I were in your shoes, I would try to focus on my family during the trip because I know at my house my family can sometimes take a back seat to my fur babies. Yes, you will miss Oakley, but think of the joy you will have when you are reunited.

I barely leave chester, it is very hard, I feel your pain

I know how you are feeling... We always go on vacations where the dogs can go, because I can't leave the dogs. The longest I've ever left them is two nights. So hard!

I wish I had a sister like yours. When absolutely needed, I'll leave them at daycare but I would much prefer family. When I do go out for errands and such, I start getting nervous if I've been out for longer than 3 hours. I think I'm the one that has separation anxiety. LOL

I know how you feel. I hate to even leave my dogs for the day. Now that we own a house we don't have the money to really go on vacation so thank goodness we did it all when we were animal free.

I'm almost afraid he won't come home with us :eek:.

I'm very lucky to have her in my life.....as teenagers, we fought like cats and dogs (she's 4 years younger than me) and I never thought we'd be as close as we are.

This is my granddaughter's (she's 2 1/2) first trip to Disney, you can only imagine what my week will be like! Nah, I'm very much looking forward to it. She'll more than likely have lots of souvenirs with us there.

I even got my toes painted red with white polka dots on my two big toes with a Minnie bow just for her. She saw them last night and my D-I-L had to go buy red polish for her.

Maybe I should put him in my suitcase and sneak him in the hotel room, lol.

Ohhh! (Imagine a high pitched happy yell there). Lucky you seeing Disney through the eyes of your granddaughter. I vote for sneaking him in the suitcase. You need to get him a pair of Mickey ears. You will have a wonderful trip I am sure.

I just returned from my first vacation without my pup :yorkiej: and i couldnt stand it. I almost cried every day (11 days gone). My husband is a marine :usaheart: and just left for a month of training and my pup sits by the front door for hours at night waiting. Sooooo sad. Dont know how my little one will handle this upcoming deployment :(

I hear you. I am going to be going on vacation next month. It is the first time i am leaving him. I really want to take him. My friend is an animal lover like me. She is going to come to my house. I have four cats also.

One of the things that can help is give your pup a shirt of yours that you slept in or worn. It will have your scent on it. It will make him happy.

Well, we survived Disney and my little Oakley had lots of fun at my sister's house. So much fun that he didn't even cry for me.....he cried for my sister on day 3 when she left to go to Walmart. My sister sent me daily videos and on day 2 sent texted me a pic of her with ear plugs, lol. She asked if he ever stops barking. He's not really a barker at my house, only when very playful, but I guess her dog and 2 cats were responsible for that.

The only problem I have encountered is that at first he wasn't eating like before. Since my sister has 1 dog and 2 cats, at times she fed him from her hands. She didn't want to leave it down and the other furry ones eat it. I guess he was spoiled and expected me to do that so I did for a few days. It got to a point that I would sprinkle his kibbles on the floor and he'd gobble it up! We're now home almost two whole weeks and he finally went to his food bowl all by himself this morning like a big boy, yay. I have to admit that I weighed him this morning and before our trip he was 5.4 lbs. and now he's 4.8 lbs....my poor baby lost 6 oz. Now that he's back to his old self, I expect him to gain it all back.

Now I'm told that he sits in the living room looking at the front door waiting for me to come home from work....I had to stop at the store on the way home and my DH told me to hurry up because Oakley was there waiting. This mommy has him spoiled.

I am so happy everything went well at your sisters with Oakley.
She took wonderful care of your baby.:)

I agree we're going on vacation and pets not allowed, I will miss my boys.

What a wonderful dilemma to have. You don't want to leave him because he might have too much fun!! Maybe he lost the weight from all the activity playing with the pug and kitties all day.

Sounds like you both had a vacation. But, I'm sure he's glad he's back home with Mommy!