Ask Amy: Dog owners bark at one another

Dear Amy: Several years ago, one of my neighbors asked if I would give her the name of my longtime (13 years) dog sitter/walker. The neighbor said that she and her husband never traveled, so she would use the dog sitter only for occasional walks.

I gave her the number. Now the neighbor and her husband have begun traveling and have been booking my dog sitter for a week (or longer periods) sometimes a year in advance, so that I no longer can rely on the availability of the dog walker.

This neighbor also has given the name and number of the sitter to another neighbor.

I asked them, out of courtesy, to alert me a few weeks before they plan to use my dog sitter and to get a dog sitter of their own if I need my original sitter. They both say they won't do this. They won't even allow me to use the dog sitter to walk my dog while they are using the sitter for weeklong stays.

What is the etiquette in this situation?

Amy says: I understand how frustrating this is, but a clarification is necessary: This person is not your dog sitter, but a dog sitter who makes their living walking dogs and dog sitting for a number of clients.

This is not an etiquette question, but one of how to get your own needs met. You are one of this person's clients, and — just like other clients — you will need to book your appointments well ahead of time in order to secure your slot in their increasingly crowded schedule.

There are many in-home pet services advertising their business through various apps and websites. It might be time to find a reliable backup for those times when your regular person is not available.

Dear Amy: A few years ago, I realized that I could afford to send small amounts of money — $25, $50 and, once in a while, $100 — to worthy charitable organizations.

Now I'm inundated by requests for money from the 30 or so charities I'm supporting, with letters coming two or three times a month from each charity, long after I've sent in my yearly check.

I recently took a massive box-load of these request letters to my recycling bin after an 18-day trip. It's a terrible waste of paper and so hard on the environment, to say nothing of the time it takes to sort through it all.

How can I make them stop? I thought of writing a letter that says I will donate one time a year and if you send me one extra appeal I will stop altogether, but I think that no human would ever see it and stop this inundation of paper.

Amy says: Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org) has some helpful suggestions for how to stem the tide of unwanted and wasteful solicitations. Their advice includes:

• Don't give small amounts throughout the year, but a larger amount once a year.

• Go to the charity's website, look for "mailing preferences" and ask for no solicitations.

• Donate only to charities that have a verified "donor privacy" policy and won't sell your information to other organizations.

• Contact the charity directly (by phone) and ask staff to remove you from their mail solicitations.