The handover before a stay with friends

Before your dog stays with friends, give the host a written note with feeding amounts and times, the walk schedule, medication written exactly as your vet prescribed, and your vet and backup contacts, then agree who does each task. A walkthrough of your friend’s home tells you where the leash hooks hang and where the water bowl sits. Pair that tour with a conversation about meal times, walks and resting places, so the host can plan an ordinary day with your dog.

What should you tell a friend who is minding your dog?

Ask to walk through a full day out loud before the stay starts. What time does breakfast happen, and does your dog eat in a crate, a specific room, or wherever the bowl lands? Does the first walk happen before or after coffee?

These details sound small until the first morning arrives and nobody’s sure what comes first.

Consider talking through:

• Feeding times and any quirks around food, like eating slowly or needing separation from other pets
• Walk or yard schedule, including how long your dog typically settles before needing to go out again
• Nap or quiet spots your dog gravitates toward at home
• Evening wind-down, including what happens right before bed

Some of this will shift in a new house regardless of preparation. A dog used to a fenced yard might behave differently on a leash-only walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Naming that possibility ahead of time, rather than assuming the routine will transfer perfectly, sets a more realistic expectation for both sides.

Separate the current care instructions from household preferences. Write down medication directions exactly as supplied by the prescribing veterinarian, and identify which other timings need to stay fixed.

A preference might be which blanket your dog likes to nap on. Agree which preferences the host can adjust, and keep prescribed care instructions separate from those choices.

Walking the routine together, even briefly, surfaces questions neither of you would think to ask over a text message. It turns “here’s the guest room” into “here’s what the next few days will actually look like.”

Agree the responsibilities

Deciding who handles what, and when, before the stay begins gives both of you a reference for the stay. A handover conversation works best when it names specific tasks rather than assuming shared understanding.

Start with the basics: who feeds, who walks, and who’s on call if something unexpected comes up. If you’re dropping your dog off and leaving town, write down a plan for reaching you, and agree on what counts as urgent enough to call versus something that can wait for a text.

Useful points to settle out loud:

• Who administers any medication, and at what time of day
• Who’s responsible for the first walk of the day versus the last one at night
• What happens if your dog seems unwell or unusually withdrawn
• Whether the host is comfortable making decisions alone or wants you consulted first

Consider putting these agreements in writing, even briefly. A short shared note or text thread works fine.

Name the next task, the person doing it, and how they will tell the other person it is finished. An assignment and a completion note serve different purposes.

If the stay involves other pets in the home, agree in advance how introductions or separations will be handled, and who steps in if tension arises. Naming this ahead of time gives the host a clearer sense of what’s expected of them.

Responsibilities can shift once the stay is underway, and that’s fine, as long as both sides know a shift happened. A quick check-in partway through the visit, even a short message, gives room to adjust the plan if the original one isn’t working.

What to write in a dog care note for your host

Written details outlast memory, especially once a stay stretches past a day or two. A short reference document, even a few lines, gives the host something to check instead of relying on what you told them out loud before you left.

Useful categories to include:

• Feeding amounts and timing, plus any food-related sensitivities
• Medication name, dose, and time, if applicable, written exactly as instructed by your veterinarian
• Your veterinarian’s contact information and the nearest emergency animal clinic, if you know it
• Any behavioral notes relevant to a new environment, like reaction to doorbells or unfamiliar visitors
• Your own contact details and a backup contact if you’re unreachable

Keep this list separate from the verbal walkthrough. Spoken instructions get forgotten or misremembered, particularly details like exact medication timing.

If the completion record is blank, check with the previous caregiver before repeating a task. For an uncertain or missed medication dose, ask the prescribing veterinarian what to do instead of guessing from the schedule.

Avoid over-loading the document with speculation about what your dog might do. Stick to what’s known and observable: what your dog eats, what medication looks like, what the walk schedule has been.

Guesses about how your dog will react to a new home work better as open questions for the host to watch for.

If your dog has any known medical conditions, note them plainly along with your veterinarian’s guidance. Leave your own interpretation of what symptoms might mean out of the notes. Should something come up during the stay, contact information for your vet serves the host far better than a secondhand diagnosis.

Update the document if anything changes close to the stay: a new medication, a schedule shift, an upcoming vet visit. Tell the host what changed, so you both work from the current version.

Close the stay clearly

Ending the stay with a short debrief closes the loop on anything that happened while you were away. A few minutes of conversation, or even a written summary, gives you a fuller picture than picking your dog up and heading straight out the door.

Ask the host directly: did anything change from the usual routine? A missed nap, a skipped meal, a new reaction to something in the home. These details matter for spotting patterns over time, particularly if you plan to use the same host again.

Points worth covering at pickup:

• Any changes in appetite, energy, or sleep during the stay
• Whether medication was given as planned, and if any doses were missed
• Any incidents, however minor, involving other pets, visitors, or the yard
• Whether the host would make the same arrangement again, or would want anything done differently next time

At pickup, clarify any uncertain medication entry with the host, and contact the prescribing veterinarian for instructions on a missed or uncertain dose. Keep your observations about appetite, energy, and other changes factual when you share them with the vet.

Thank the host specifically for what worked. Specific thanks double as information: if a particular routine adjustment helped your dog settle, naming it gives both of you something concrete to repeat next time.

Consider closing the handover with a short written note, even a few sentences, summarizing what happened and what to watch for going forward. That note becomes useful reference material for the next stay, whether with the same host or someone new.