A little more than a 1 year ago, a neighbor recommended Home Sweet Home pet sitters to us. At that…read moretime we had 2 large breed dogs ( each 100lbs), and they were 4 years and 9 years old, so they had different dietary, exercise and medical needs. As you can imagine, not everyone would sign up for the job!
Tony came over and met our dogs...he was comfortable with them as they were with him. We went over their schedules, etc. he took notes and we were ready for our weekend away.
When we came home, the dogs were happy, well-fed/exercised, and we had a personal note from each of Tony's visits, describing what he and our dogs did, hoe they behaved, and what they'd eaten, etc. In addition to caring for our pups, he brought in package deliveries, mail, and brought our trash cans into the garage from the curb, just as an extra service! We knew we'd found "a keeper'!
Over the next year, Tony became our regular pet sitter, and we had complete confidence in him and his time with our fur babies. Last October, sadly, our 9-yr, old female was diagnosed with Degenerative Myelopathy (DM), which is basically canine ALS. We were told she may last 2 months or 2 years.
At first she managed it very well, as it only; affected 1 of her back legs, and she adjusted to that, falling occasionally and not being able to run as fast as she once had, but quickly deteriorated, and could only go on short walks, falling as many as 10x's on those walks. We showed Tony how we picked her up and got her adjusted. We even got her "walking wheels", but she never mastered them, so we managed as best we could.
By March, both back legs were affected, and we had to "wheelbarrow her around...Tony jumped right and learned how to help her just as we did, with as much empathy and love compassion as if she were his beloved pet!
By May, she could really only drag herself around, but still found enjoyment in swimming, which she did daily, but it was a lot of work. We were now, literally, carrying her out of the pool, and Tony did that, too.
In June, our poor girl was suffering, and we had to attend a family wedding in California. (Had it been any other trip, we most certainly would have canceled,) We asked Tony if he would be available, and asked him if, in our absence, something happened to our sweet girl, would he be willing to take her to our vet, etc. He agreed w/o hesitation.
Thanks to Tony, our sweet girl lived until we came home and could be with her on her last days.
Right after we lost our sweet girl, we received a beautiful sympathy card from Tony, along with a lovely framed picture of our girl that Tony had taken, ball in her mouth, swimming - in her happy place.
Our pets are our family, and Tony and Lisa treat our pets as their family. We cannot recommend Home Sweet Home Pet Sitting Service highly enough! They are reliable, dependable, capable, flexible, trustworthy and compassionate. They have been a blessing to our family!
Sincerely~ Kim & Jim Lewis (and Teak and Big Gurl!)
