If you're traveling for Thanksgiving or Christmas and your dog is staying home, book your dog care now. Not in mid-November. The holiday weeks are the busiest of the year for every walker, sitter, and kennel in Monmouth and Ocean County, and the good slots go first. Here's how to plan it so your dog is covered and you're not scrambling the night before you leave.
This year Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, and Christmas lands on a Friday, which means a lot of families in Red Bank, Holmdel, Middletown, and Toms River are turning both into long weekends. Everyone wants the same Wednesday-through-Sunday stretch, and the calendar fills from the front.
When to Book Holiday Dog Care
- Thanksgiving: by early November. The Wednesday before and the Sunday after are the hardest days to get.
- Christmas through New Year's: by Thanksgiving. People book December the moment their family plans are settled.
- New to your walker? Add a week. You'll want a meet & greet and a trial walk or two before they're responsible for your dog for four days straight.
That last point matters more than people expect. A holiday trip is the worst time to try a brand-new walker for the first time. If your dog has never met them, the first visit happens with you three states away and no way to step in. Book early enough that your dog already knows who's coming through the door.
Drop-In Visits, Boarding, or a Sitter?
There's no single right answer. It depends on your dog and the length of the trip. We covered the general tradeoffs in dog walking vs. dog boarding, but holidays change the math a little.
Visits at Home
Your dog stays in their own house, on their own schedule, sleeping in their own bed, and someone comes in several times a day for walks, meals, and bathroom breaks. This works best for adult dogs who sleep through the night and are comfortable alone between visits. It also skips the kennel cough risk and the stress of a loud, unfamiliar building during the busiest boarding weeks of the year.
Boarding or an Overnight Sitter
If your dog can't be alone overnight, has separation anxiety, is a young puppy, or needs medication at odd hours, they need someone there at night. That means a kennel, a home boarder, or an overnight sitter. Happy Tails does walks and drop-in visits, not overnights, and we'll tell you honestly if your dog needs more than visits can give. Plenty of our clients pair the two: boarding for the long Christmas trip, home visits for the quick Thanksgiving overnight.
How Many Visits a Day?
For a healthy adult dog staying home while you're away, here's the usual starting point:
- Three visits a day for most dogs: morning walk and breakfast, a midday walk, and an evening walk and dinner. This keeps the longest gap overnight, which is when your dog is used to it.
- Two visits a day can work for a calm adult dog who already handles long stretches alone, but the gaps get long. Be honest about how your dog does with a ten-hour day. Our guide to how long a dog can be left home alone has rough limits by age.
- Four visits for seniors who need to go out more often, or for dogs on a medication schedule. If your dog takes pills, here's how medication works with a walker.
Ask for the last visit to be as late in the evening as your walker can do it. A 9 PM visit makes for a much shorter night than one at 6, and with the sun setting before 5 PM in late November, that evening walk will be in the dark either way.
What Holiday Dog Care Costs
Holidays are the one time of year rates go up a little, almost everywhere. At Happy Tails, a 30-minute solo walk or drop-in visit is $30, with a +$15 holiday surcharge on the holiday itself and +$5 on weekend appointments. Extra dogs in the same household are +$5 a visit.
So a long Thanksgiving weekend for one dog, Wednesday through Sunday with three 30-minute visits a day, looks roughly like this:
- Wednesday and Friday (6 visits): $180
- Thanksgiving Day (3 visits with holiday rate): $135
- Saturday and Sunday (6 weekend visits): $210
That's about $525 for five days, or a little over $100 a day. Your walker will confirm exactly which days the holiday rate applies to. Full rates are on our pricing page, and if you're wondering about a holiday tip on top of that, we covered that in should you tip your dog walker.
What to Leave Out Before You Go
- Enough food for the trip, plus two days. Flights get delayed and the Parkway on the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the Parkway on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
- Written instructions. Meal amounts, where the leash and bags live, any quirks (the dog who won't go out the back door, the cat who must not get out the front).
- Your vet's number and an emergency contact nearby, plus written permission for your walker to take your dog in if something happens. Know which emergency vet is open on the holiday itself.
- Reliable access. Test the lockbox code or garage keypad before you leave, not from the airport. Here's how walkers usually get into the house.
- Holiday food out of reach. Leftover pie, chocolate gifts under the tree, and a trash can full of turkey bones are how holiday vet visits start. Our list of Thanksgiving foods dogs can and can't eat covers what's dangerous.
- A light or radio on a timer. A dark, silent house for four days is lonelier than it needs to be.
Where Happy Tails Fits In
We cover holiday walks and drop-in visits across Monmouth and Ocean County, from Rumson, Colts Neck, and Holmdel down to Brick and Toms River. Every visit is solo, one-on-one, your dog only, never a pack, with the same walker each time and a photo update after every visit, so you can see your dog is fine from your in-laws' couch. If your dog would be better off boarding, we'll say so. And if you're new to us, now is the time to book a meet & greet, before the holiday calendar fills.
Traveling for Thanksgiving or Christmas? Lock in solo, one-on-one walks and drop-in visits with the same walker every visit across Red Bank, Rumson, Holmdel, Middletown, Colts Neck, Brick, Toms River, and nearby towns. Book a Meet & Greet.
