owning dog as professor?

[rabbitandfox23]

Hi there!

My wife and I are thinking about adopting a puppy as we both work from home or have flexible schedules. We've wanted a furry companion for some years now and are finally able to take care of one now, financially and personally speaking.

My only worry is what do you do when I take up fellowships or visiting positions at other Universities that may be hundreds or thousands of miles away? And what about 3 or 4 day long conferences across the country?

Do you have a system set up where you have a go-to dog sitter for these occasions? Or has the semi-vagrant lifestyle of a professor dissuaded you from adopting a dependent pet?

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated!

[Wahoo Redux]

We love our dogs.  Professoring, with its large swaths of unstructured time, is the perfect lifestyle for running home and taking care of the brutes. 

Campus is a great, safe place to walk the beasts and, what's funny, people who work and study on campus will begin to recognize you by your dog(s).  I cannot tell you how many times I've been stopped by some stranger who says, "I recognize those dogs!"  And, generally speaking, academic departments are great places to sneak up a pet now and again and let them run around to people's offices----now and again.

We have never had any great problems with dog-sitting.  We never kennel (traumatic for animal dums-dums).  Sometimes colleagues doggysit; sometimes we pay graduate students to come to the house a couple times a day (and yes, I understand----but we pay them VERY well); but more frequently we take the animals with us. They love the trips.  We have always found a pet-friendly motel somewhere, even if it is not the conference hotel, and as long as it is not hot or cold, the animals do fine waiting in the car while we preen and pose intellectually for a couple of hours, and then they are exhausted when we get home for a couple of days.  We've driven across the continent at least four times to visit west coast family with the overly-enthusiastic animals riding on the luggage the whole way.

I say go for it. 

Make sure you ask around about a good regular vet, and make sure you know the route to and phone number of a 24 hour emergency vet.

[Sun_Worshiper]

We have a dog and I definitely recommend.  However, it is a pain when it comes to traveling.  Fortunately we have friends who can take care of her if we go out of town for a short trip (she has stayed with friends for up to two weeks at a time).  If I had a fellowship or visiting position and my wife was coming with me then we'd probably just bring the dog.

[Parasaurolophus]

For travelling, friends or students are usually good options. For taking up a fellowship... well, if you both go, then the dog comes with. Otherwise, it stays with someone (probably at home, though).

[rabbitandfox23]

For travelling, friends or students are usually good options. For taking up a fellowship... well, if you both go, then the dog comes with. Otherwise, it stays with someone (probably at home, though).

Thank you! In your view, would it be more appropriate to ask a graduate or undergraduate student for this?

[Wahoo Redux]

Thank you! In your view, would it be more appropriate to ask a graduate or undergraduate student for this?

We had a reliable undergrad for a time that worked for our vet----until the big party when she forgot about our animals for about 48 hours.  Came home to parched animals and significant mess.

Grad students are older, more responsible, and generally have some sort of connection to you.

[rabbitandfox23]

Thank you! In your view, would it be more appropriate to ask a graduate or undergraduate student for this?

We had a reliable undergrad for a time that worked for our vet----until the big party when she forgot about our animals for about 48 hours.  Came home to parched animals and significant mess.

Grad students are older, more responsible, and generally have some sort of connection to you.

Thank you. And thank you for your previous response and encouragement!

[Parasaurolophus]

I think that graduate students are better, if they're available, but an undergrad is probably fine as long as you're confident that they're responsible. Just remember to pay them/offer sufficient perks to make it worth everyone's while.

[Ruralguy]

In my adult life, I've only had cats.

But I have a lot of colleagues in our rural setting who have K9 friends. They generally have a dog-owning colleague check in on their creatures. Did those colleagues sometimes get their teenage kids to go and do it for them? I won't ever tell :-)

I'd be careful with bringing them into work. Some people have fear of dogs, etc. and it could be a problem. Every so often---not a problem..every day? Well, I see people do it, but for big dogs especially, not so great.

[fourhats]

I'm not a dog person (at all), but have had a number of cats that lived until old age, and have spent multiple semesters and even a year at a time abroad on fellowships.

You don't say whether you're anticipating domestic or international travel, but everyone who's answered so far has assumed it's domestic, or with car travel. Also, whether it's for an entire semester or a shorter or longer periods. If you're thinking of going abroad (especially for more than a short time) and can't take the pets with you it's a whole different story.

When we've gone away, we've sometimes had a paid house and pet sitter. While some are comfortable with students, my SO is very, very uncomfortable with others staying in our home, with our belongings. Not because of theft, but the thought of people going through our things. That said, we've been lucky to use, for example, the adult offspring of fellow faculty even though they are graduate students, because we know their parents. The one really bad experience was with renters we didn't know, but carefully vetted, including letters of recommendation. It really didn't go well, although they were nice enough. Our pets became ill, and hid a lot. After that we had a couple of wonderful people we paid rather than someone we rented to.

I do know of some faculty who took their dogs abroad with them.

[polly_mer]

I'd be careful with bringing them into work. Some people have fear of dogs, etc. and it could be a problem. Every so often---not a problem..every day? Well, I see people do it, but for big dogs especially, not so great.

Well, it's like kids at work.  Yep, the ones we love we love and we'll tolerate the not-more-than-once-per-year emergencies with the others.

I am still moderately peeved at the colleague who would routinely bring her barky, jumpy big dog to work across the hall from me and yet flat out told me to get a sitter for my well-behaved kid for family-style barbecues and similar events with several children and other relatives who needed adult supervision.

She wasn't even hosting the events and the college was supposedly trying to get more diversity, particularly women of childbearing age.

[pink_]

I have an older dog (12) and adopted a pandemic puppy in early July. It's been a LOT of work. Totally worth it, but it's a lot. A lot of accidents in the house, a lot of nips and scratches as he figures out how much is too much. A lot of early morning wake up calls (barks) because he just can't hold it very long yet (though he has yet to have an accident in the crate).

I haven't traveled since Covid, but when I travelled before, I would either have a neighbor come by a few times a day to feed the animals (I also have a couple cats) and walk the dog, or I would pay a sitter for the same service. My dog has travelled with me to a few places--she always comes to visit my parents, and on occasion I have brought her to a pet-friendly air-bnb, though many of them have restrictions for dogs that are more than 20-30lbs, and mine is (and the puppy will be).

I'll be going away for a weekend in a few weeks, and since the puppy isn't old enough to be left at home for extended periods, I'll be boarding both of the dogs and having a friend come in to take care of the cats. If boarding was less expensive, I would probably do it more often. And I'll probably take the puppy to doggy daycare a few times once he's through with all of his vaccinations both for the exercise and the socialization.

But my best advice, if you don't have other animals in the house, is to adopt a slightly older dog. I went with a puppy because it can be hard to find older dogs who are both dog and cat friendly. . . But puppies get adopted very, very quickly. Slightly older dogs who still have long lives ahead of them often have a harder time finding homes, but they are so much easier to train and you have a much clearer sense of the personality (likely muted if you adopt from a shelter because that environment can be very stressful). 

Oh, and seconding whoever said to be careful about bringing dogs on to campus. Make sure you know what the policy is if you're doing anything other than just walking on the grounds. On my campus, I am allowed to bring my dog into my office, but I'm not allowed to being her to class. But in the week before Covid forced us home, I brought her in pretty much every day because she had the cone on, and even with it, she sometimes tried to get at her stitches. She usually was very quiet and well behaved, but there were a couple of colleagues who made her nervous and she barked at them. It wasn't a problem at the time, but I would be reluctant to bring her back because I don't want to disturb my neighbors. And I do have at least one colleague who is deathly afraid of dogs. I'm sure that there are others and probably some students too. They shouldn't feel like they can't come to office hours because of the dog.

[Diogenes]

The flexibility helps. The Spring after my first year in a TT job I got a very high energy and athletic one year old that was very much still a puppy, house-trained at least.  I specifically chose to wait until the semester was over so I would have more time for it for the first few months since at the time I lived alone in a yardless duplex. Come fall, it was so very helpful to be able to come home mid day and work from home more. If y'all have that flexibility, I say go for it. If not, I say wait until summer break.

[mamselle]

I can't link to it from this phone, but check out the "Dog-translation" thread, which has gone dormant more often that the "herding-cars" thread, but does still exist!

M.

[science.expat]

I'd just add that putting in a dog door makes a big difference - if you're able to, of course. My dog self feeds, in other words there is dry food in her bowl all the time and she eats the quantity she wants when it suits her. With this and the dog door I can easily leave her on her own for a night or two.

For longer stays I've always been able to find dog sitters, usually work colleagues or the relatives of the same who enjoy having a house to themselves and getting a bit of under the table cash.