I’m writing this on an airplane. For the past 8 weeks, six
of them have been on the road, it’s my excuse for why my blog hasn’t been
updated as much as I’d like.
While I’m traveling, two of our pets get cared for away home. Toby, my mixed breed rescue from Thailand, stays with his trainer, Alycia Hinton of Thinking Dogs. Dodah, our black and white tuxedo cat, voluntarily crosses the street (even before I leave!) and stays with our neighbors Christophe and Christine.
Toby didn’t have a choice in the matter. He’s an escape artist that is even harder to manage when I’m not there. Dodah, on the other hand, has decided she’s had about enough of the activity that goes on in the Weiss household. She was never fond of either Chocolate, the Yorkie, or Minnie, a tortoise shell alpha cat. She did hold her own with them, however, but once Toby came into the mix, she shared her opinion of the situation with all four legs. We started missing her around dinnertime, and soon after Christophe let me know that she was sleeping on their couch during the day and would get a treat from them when Christine got home from work. No worries, I was happy she found a refuge where she felt safe and comfortable.
She still crosses the street back to our house to visit and say hello, but she’s spending more and more time with our neighbors. My daughter is not happy about this at all, but I’m actually ok with it. With Dodah, our neighbors get the experience of having a wonderful cat who shows them the joy of what it’s like to have a pet. We’ve agreed that if there comes a time when it’s too much for them (which hasn’t happened yet), they’ll stop feeding her and she’ll return home.
Dodah has blended our families, and we’re all the better for it.
I connected this thought with the recent raging debate over renting a pet (FlexPetz). The idea around the business was to enable people to enjoy the company of a dog but not have them as a permanent member of the family. The business started in Los Angeles, got some significant initial traction, and then hit a wall when it went to expand to Boston. The city government there moved quickly to consider an ordinance to ban the rental of animals. FlexPetz was blocked from opening a franchise there.
Renting animals does seem wrong to me, but sharing them among families is turning out, at least for us, to be a wonderful experience. I have greater piece of mind that my brood is getting the care they deserve when I’m not there. They are happier because there are more hands to pet them and provide them with different experiences. I’ve learned a lot about Toby and Dodah by hearing stories of their adventures while they are away from home.
I started thinking about how many people might like to have a pet, but aren’t able to because of a work-life issue. This was one of the motivations for FlexPetz. Maybe they travel a lot too, maybe their work hours are so long during the week that proper care couldn’t be provided. But maybe the weekends, they’re fully available to love and integrate a pet within their family. As long as a steady routine was followed (that’s really important for dogs, but cats like it too), two, or even three families could share ownership of a pet and reduce the chilling number of almost 4 million adoptable pets getting euthanized in the United States because they don’t find a home during the time the clock ticks for them at the shelter. Agreements would need to be worked out with regard to health care, and other support costs, but I think reasonable families who truly had the best interest of the pet in mind would have no problem with the details.
Maybe this could be a new business model for FlexPetz – finding great adoptable homes among families within a neighborhood. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this and whether you think it’s a viable idea.
