#34 – Why Own When You Can Rent?

Monday, Monday, wake up and drive to work. The work week begins yet again but I enjoyed a slight variety to my commute this morning. Betty rode along with me! On my way to the office I dropped her off at the vet to get spayed; I picked her up on my way home this evening. Luckily for me Betty doesn’t mind listening to NPR, from which we learned of an interesting concept of pet companionship: a company called FLEXPETZ which allows people who can’t own dogs to rent them instead.

According to their website, “FLEXPETZ is a unique concept for dog lovers who are unable to own a full-time doggy pal and miss spending time with a canine friend.” It’s a service where human members can sign up for “doggy time” with one of the company’s dogs for anywhere from a few hours up to several days.

This rent-a-pet concept immediately raised an alarm in my mind. Are these dogs being jerked around to satisfy the whims of people who don’t want to deal with the dirty work of owning a pet? Betty is the 50th dog rescued by Vicky’s Pet Connection to be fostered in my home and one thing those 50 dogs have taught me is that not having a place to call home is very stressful to them. In my experience foster dogs have required at least 24 hours to feel settled in, and some of the shy ones need a week to acclimate to their new surroundings. Dogs are pack animals that want to belong to a family. Repeatedly being rented out to a stranger would be a stressful life for these dogs.

To the credit of FLEXPETZ, they don’t take their responsibility lightly. All dogs in their program receive regular obedience training and frequent veterinary physicals, which is more than most dogs receive. They are fed premium dog food that is also provided to the renters while the dogs are under their care. For safety these dogs are fitted with a special collar that allows GPS tracking in case they get lost as well as temperature monitoring to ensure the dog isn’t left in a dangerous situation.

Some – but notably not all – of the FLEXPETZ dogs are rescued; presumably these dogs would be crowding a shelter if not in their program. In that sense, a FLEXPETZ dog might enjoy a better life than if they were left in a shelter long-term or ultimately euthanized. Just like people, some dogs are better suited to “life on the road” than others; hopefully FLEXPETZ considers this when selecting a dog for their services but it appears that they do not, again per their website: “Sometimes we have little or no history on a dog, which means spending lots of time and money to bring them back to a healthy state, both in body and mind.”

Kudos to them for committing to total rehabilitation, but I’m concerned that they would select a dog to work for their company despite having “little or no history” with the dog. What happens if they rescue a shy or nervous dog for whom such an itinerant lifestyle would be highly stressful? Would this type of dog be forced to work in their program or would they recognize its needs and find it a permanent home? Why would a dog who was not already homeless be chosen to serve as a rental pet in the first place?

Most of the dogs I’ve fostered would’ve been poor fits for FLEXPETZ as these dogs really needed consistency and stability in their lives, i.e. a permanent home with people committed to the responsibilities of lifelong pet ownership. My foster dogs typically share the same background: a few years in a home where they were untrained, neglected or even abused; days of fear and starvation as a stray; several weeks caged among other homeless dogs in a noisy and under-funded county shelter; dropped off at my house for a week or two, then finally getting adopted out to what will hopefully be their forever home.

Bearing that in mind, ideally FLEXPETZ would seek out happy-go-lucky dogs in need of rescue whose easy going personalities suit their business’ needs. If that is the case, I can see where their program could be beneficial for both dog and human alike. Personally I believe that a better solution would be for a company like FLEXPETZ to run a full fledged, non-profit dog rescue that strives to find permanent homes for their dogs. A fund-raising (or even profit-raising) side business could then use the FLEXPETZ model to select dogs from their rescue program with the right personality to be part of a “rental corps”. With luck, perhaps a few of those rented dogs would convince their temporary families to commit to lifelong pet ownership and opt to keep the dog as a “rent-to-own”.

Ironically it may be more expensive to rent a dog than to own one! Membership in the FLEXPETZ program costs $850 a year just to get in the door, then you have to pay $25-$40 per day whenever you choose to “rent” a dog. My wife and I own two four-year-old Labrador Retrievers that have cost us $7600 over those four years – this covers adoption fees, veterinary services (including spay/neuter surgery, vaccines, a knee injury to one dog, heartworm and flea preventatives, and checkups), premium food and supplements, treats, toys, beds, crates, leashes, collars, and more. The math works out to $950 a year per dog, just $100 more than membership with FLEXPETZ. For the cost of renting a dog for four days a year, you could own one instead!

Someday soon Betty will find a home. She’s a sweet gal who adjusted to my foster home and lifestyle fairly easily, but even so it’s taken her almost a week to relax enough to start playing with toys and my dogs. She would not have been happy working for FLEXPETZ. Ultimately every dog should have a permanent home, not a succession of temporary ones. Bouncing among foster homes or rental homes is certainly better than life in a shelter and is a good way to re-acclimate a dog to life with a family, but the end goal for a dog should be a forever home.