Going away. Help, please :)

Hi all... My husband and I are going on a cruise in a couple weeks and my father is coming to pet sit for us. He's never taken care of the chins before, and he's not very computer literate at all so I can't tell him to come here if he has any questions. I worry that while we're out at sea, he won't be able to reach us by phone. I am going to leave him a credit card and the vet info, but I don't want him to be like, OMG, they're sleeping, I should take them to the vet. If you know what I mean. So I was hoping that someone on here would be willing to give me a phone number for emergencies in case he has a question and needs help while we're away. If anyone is willing to do this for me, PM me your number and first name. He probably won't need it, and I'm probably being completely paranoid, but it would give me piece of mind if I knew he had someone to turn to if anything should happen while we're away. Thanks in advance

Something else your can do to ease him into it too is have him over for dinner and spend the evening showing him what to do, how to hold em, have him do things once while your there. also how to catch em if they get loose. I think that would be the biggest thing to freak out an inexperianced person, have a chin bail when you open the cage door then having to catch it haha.

Anyway hope someone is able to help you out with their number.

I have just alerted my mom to ask him to come up the night before we leave since we're on an early flight. Hopefully he can do that. I worry most about my boy. He likes to try and escape.

If you are nervous about giving your dad this responsibility, you could maybe call your vet office and see if any of the vet techs there "petsit" on the side. I feel much better having someone who knows a bit about chins watching my herd.

If this is not available, I would definitely have your dad come over ahead of time so you can show him what to do and give him some blocking techniques to keep your escape artist in his cage.

you can give him my phone number - I am definitely willing to help. When exactly will you be leaving?

Oh yea what Dragonfly said is true, the exotic vet I used a bit ago also has a separate area for healthy pets to stay for vacations, don't know how expensive that would be though.

Thanks Barb, I'll do that. We leave on the 12th and get home on the 20th.

I'm not at all nervous about my father's abilities to pet sit. I grew up with all kinds of animals, but he's new to chins. I don't anticipate there being any problems, I just want to have some piece of mind that he can get in touch with someone knowledgeable in case he has questions and our cells don't work out at sea. Besides, I would much rather have him in my house than a virtual stranger. Plus, it's not just the chins. I have two small dogs who are used to having me here most of the time as well. It's best to just have him stay here for the week for that reason alone.

On a good note, he is coming up the night before we leave, so I can go through everything in person. I think once I explain it and show him everything, I'll feel far more comfortable than I was before. If I had nothing but written directions left for him, I'd feel like I was forgetting something.

Thanks for all the help