I officially work full time but because I work alone, out and about in a van and dont have to check in every day, I kind of make my own hours! I'm normally home for dinnertime anyway. However, I live with my parents and my Mum works in the evening so they are with her during the day.

When I had my own house and a different job, I took them to my Mums 3 days a week so they werent left for long hours every day.

Thanks for all your posts and votes, sorry its taken me a while to catch up here.

I noticed that a few people really didnt like the thought of a dog being left while someone was out doing fulltime work i.e. 8-10 hours per day. I realise it may not be ideal but I remember when our family dog had to be left at home all day and a neighbour offered to take him - she took him once. Said he just wanted to go home and he made it clear. Which we thought he would, liked routine..

Also, some people will be taking their dogs out say 30 mins in the morning, 60 mins after work and a short walk later. I'm not convinced that a lot of dogs with P/T workers/owners will be getting 2 hours worth of walks a day? (not all but many)

I'm no longer out all day but I know my dog still sleeps most of it, so I don't know that it is that uncomfortable leaving them that long, as long as the owner puts the effort in when they are home?

Not sure what others think of my comments here?

If someone is a single person living alone and has to work full time to pay bills then should they really be without a dog? (think someone commented on if they had to leave them that long everyday they wouldnt have them...).but peoples circumstances change, so should their dog really go through the stress of rehoming just because they are only getting two hours exercise a day when left for 8 hours plus a day, simce their owner has been widowed, split from partner etc?

Err...work full time (ish) dogs are always with me.

That was me, and as I said, it based on my own view on dogs being left all day.

Regards circumstances changing "after" you have already got your dogs, then thats like anything in life, we have to adjust and make the best of things.

But personally I would not willing bring a dog into a my home / routine "if" I was out of the house for 8/10 hrs a day..

Regards the dogs sleeping all day when you are out, I agree, most probably do, my own do , all day everyday.

For me , its not the fact they will sleep away the day, its the fact they are on their own, and if they need to go outside to toilet, or are ill , no ones there to see to them.

I have an old man who`s bladder is not as good as it was, I hate to think of him having to struggle to hold it if I am out for to long, so our routine allows us to make sure he is never left for longer than 3 hrs ..he gets distressed when no one answers his bark to go outside to pee.

I understand fully for many its not possible to be home all day with their dogs, so we all make our own choices.

I work full time, Up to 40 hours a week, although occassionally more in summer, much less for a couple of months in winter. But I work split shifts. 3 hours in the morning and 4-5 in the evening. I have between 11am-4pm at home.

This is a hard one to answer. Yes I work full time. But my partner teaches part time and works on his dissertation when he's home. Some days Dahlia is left home 6-7 hours but other days she's not. The current schedule has been for her to be home Mondays for 6 1/2 hours alone, and Wednesdays and Fridays for 5 1/2 hours.

I work part-time 8.15-13.15 so including travelling time I'm out of the house between 7.30-1.50 each day apart from weekends.

My husband works shifts though so his shift pattern means that 2 out of every 4 weeks he is at home between 7.30-1.50 and there's only 1 week out of the 4where they are left for 6 hours. They sleep all morning anyway and are quite happy as long as they've had their walk first thing before I leave.

I personally wouldn't have dogs if worked full-time though unless I could afford a dog-walker or "doggy day-care".

I work 12 hour shifts, three shifts 3 weeks in the month and four shifts in the fourth week.

My dogs go to my parents when I'm at work, otherwise it would be a case of getting a dog walker in during the day. Living alone and having all the bills to myself I'd only just be able to afford a dog walker once a day in a 12 hour shift. Although I'd walk them for half an hour prior to leaving, they'd still be left from 7am to 8.30pm with a 1 hour walk in between.

Not ideal and not something I'd be overly happy to do, but if it meant I could keep my dogs rather than making them yet another rescue problem I'd do it. Dogs are very adaptable and I know they'd get used to it eventually and at the end of the day most of us have to work to be able to have dogs in the first place.

I really appreciate I am lucky, I work my own hours from home, so am with my dog all day every day.
The most he is left is if i pop to the supermarket- then i always bring him something when i get back.
He sits on the top of the sofa looking out of the window for me as I come up the drive.
Of course, I maybe once a week or fortnight, go out shopping for maybe 4 hrs, but make sure i walk him over the fields beforehand and frankly he's shattered when we get home so im sure he just sleeps.
I always leave the tv on too when i'm out because he loves watching the adverts!
I can honestly say I have never come back to any kind of poo or mess. He's brilliant at holding it.

I think if you have to leave a dog for longer than - say 5 hours someone surely should pop in to let them out for a wee- or just to check they are ok. As another person wrote- your not to know if they are sick or distressed.
However, I do understand, there are lots of people that have to leave their dogs and i guess if its done from when they are young they wouldnt know any better. Shame though, as I think most need the company of ,if not a person then another dog.

I'm a student so I'm at uni different times every day and when I work it's only four hour shifts, but even if I'm away all day my Mum only works part time (4 hours a day) and on the odd time she pops to the shops etc my brother is usually in the house anyway. So I would say no more than 5 hours max. a day.

But when left at home, its just the three dogs, we don't tend to ask people to watch them as they generally sleep when we are away anyway.

They are pretty content, they don't go in crates and nothing has ever been chewed or destroyed and they never mess anywhere (occasionally the oldie does but she doesn't even know she is doing it incontenense), and they never bark or whine, probably because there are 3 of them so I would say they are pretty happy being left.

When me and my Mum are working I walk them a long walk early in the morning, then they get 3 biscuits each and go to their bed and we go off to work then when we finish and come home they get out the back garden if they want and get to stretch their legs and have a hyper moment then they get their dinner and have another long walk .

It's always they same, my dogs are very much routine loving dogs, they anticipate what we are doing next all the time, eg. when they get in from their morning walk they all run straight to bed and wait for their treat and are quite happy to stay in bed .