How should I handle future bookings after my dogs got kennel cough from a potential new client?

Sorry to hear about this. However, there is not much you can do to prevent against kennel cough except keep your dogs away from other dogs, which means you wouldn't be able petsit in your home anymore.

In the meantime, I would ask the owner where their dog might have picked it up, For example, do they go to dog parks or daycare facilities? That might be a way to screen in the future. But, again, that will affect your ability to accept new clients that do frequent those types of places.

Going forward, you should talk to your vet not only about the length of time to wait. but also have the vet check to see if it is your garden variety kennel cough or the canine flu that is going around.

Typically your regular kennel cough will be actively contagious for 10-14 days, so you should probably keep other dogs out of your home for probably 3 weeks to be safe. Canine flu has a longer infection period, 21-24 days. The only way you can know for sure is to get them tested. Canine flu also usually has a fever present.

I would be honest and let people know that currently your house is under quarantine by you. People will respect that you are watching out for the safety of their animals, I would think.

This is also called "Bordatello" and has a common vaccine. Make sure you ask to see proof of vaccinations and/or make sure that you let them know, prior to Meet and Greets that they are required for the safety of your dog and the others there. Make sure your dogs also have their Bordatello vaccine.

Now that you already have it, as the previous person said, you will need to quarantine and not keep dogs for about 2 weeks for safety reasons and check for canine flu.

I know your pain... I had a client dog who had KC during his stay. When he got here, no symptoms. A couple days after, the coughing started :( They are usually contagious for 10-14 days. Most vets won't even prescribe medication for it unless you're seeing green snot/runny eyes type stuff. Most dogs can fight it off on their own, but usually when the green snot comes out to play they will put the dog on antibiotics (The dog staying with me needed the antibiotics).

Your pups will most likely have a cough for a while after they are no longer contagious (Like after we get better from a cold, we are no longer contagious but have that annoying cough that doesn't seem to want to go away), so don't be too concerned if you see that.

Going forward, definitely "quarantine" your place for 3 weeks just to be safe. Don't bring your dogs out anywhere either. For me, I had stays already lined up when I discovered the dog was sick. I contacted rover support right away and afterwards I contacted each client that was going to be staying with me in the next 3 weeks to let them know what was going on. Most of them were extremely impressed with me being so up front about it, and were fine with their dog still staying here! I put myself as away so no new requests could come through, and opened back up once I had passed that 3 week mark with no one else coming down with it.

If it makes you feel better, you can request that any dog staying with you from now on needs to have the bordetella vaccine...but to be completely honest it does not work that well, lol. It's like trying to vaccinate for our people flu. It may help keep them from catching it, or it might help the symptoms be not as bad, or it could do nothing. They can even catch KC from the vaccine itself (That's how the dog I had visiting caught it), which is why if they don't get the vaccine 2-3 weeks before a stay it's usually better not to give it at all.

I've never had a dog catch KC twice, so after your dogs get better from this round I doubt they'll be at risk for catching it again unless they have a weak immune system.

Whew... sorry for the long winded answer! I hope that helps.

Edited to add: Sorry, I didn't see the date of this question before I answered. Hopefully this helps others in the future ^^;

If my dogs will be interacting with a client's dogs during a Meet & Greet or stay, I always ask both temperament questions and health questions before the Meet & Greet is scheduled just to cover all bases. So sorry that happened!