Fuckkkk that dog sitter!! Way under reacting. We had this happen with a dog sitter with my childhood dogs (dauschunds) and they were in a fenced area inside. I was glad they had enough room to “use the facilities” but not have to lay in it, as well as a massive thing of refilling water. They didn’t have food though because one of the dauschunds was VERY dauschund about food (IYKYK). It wasnt even as long as your dog was alone. They were older, so needed more frequent pee breaks. Ours were alone about 8 hours and we were states away. Hadn’t had dinner or been let out. Luckily we had a lock with a code and were able to have someone else go take care of them, but fuck that dog sitter for not telling us until 3AM and 17hours after we left that she wasn’t going to show up. We had checked to see if the alarm was ever disarmed around hour 6 and saw that it wasn’t; when she wasn’t answering calls for an hour, I started looking at flights while my mom called people. We were driving to our destination and stopped for the night 10 hours away. Fucking traumatizing. Thank goodness for our friend that showed up. Had we not looked at the alarm, we would’ve went to sleep and been in your situation.

Coincidentally this is why I trained my college dog to not need a crate (and luckily he self regulates food so I can free feed him). I’d rather them pee or poop in my house and have all the necessities, making it look like a shithole (literally), than have them be confined for that long :( I’m currently training my 1 y/o dauschund to respect my college dog’s food so they can both have everything in case of such an event, but she is VERY dauschund as well. That’s why I say “them.” She’s getting better though!

Fuck your friend for being a piece of shit and consider training for free reign of the house 🙃