Map your dog's whole day before choosing cover
When both adults travel in the same week, the natural instinct is to book walks and assume the rest sorts itself out. It does not, because a dog's day is mostly not walks. List what actually happens from waking to bedtime: first toilet break, breakfast, company or alone time, midday break, play and training, evening meal, last garden visit and where the dog sleeps. Mark which parts genuinely need a person present and which can be covered by a visit, then look at the overlap days honestly. A dog used to someone home all evening will struggle with a plan that offers two daytime visits and an empty house overnight, however excellent those visits are.
Choose the cover that matches your dog, not your guilt
The main options are a sitter staying in your home, your dog boarding in someone else's home, a kennel stay, or a patchwork of visiting helpers. Home sitting usually suits nervous dogs, older dogs and multi-dog households because territory, smells and sleeping places stay familiar. Boarding with a known person suits sociable dogs who enjoy company and other dogs. Patchwork cover from friends and a walker can work for a confident adult dog over a few days, but every handover is a chance for a feed or a detail to be missed, so it needs the tightest written plan. Choose based on your dog's temperament and the length of the overlap, and book as soon as both work trips are confirmed, because good sitters are claimed early.
Brief once, in writing, and test the arrangement
Write one care brief and give it to whoever is covering, covering feeding amounts and times, walk routes and handling notes, behaviour quirks, house rules, health notes such as allergies and old injuries, and your vet's details with permission for emergency treatment. Include your travel dates, how reachable you will be, and a local emergency contact who can act if you are on a flight. If your dog has never stayed with this sitter or boarder, arrange a trial first: a day visit for boarding or an evening where the sitter runs the routine while you are out. Trials reveal practical problems, such as a dog who cannot settle in a particular house, while you are still able to change the plan.
Prepare the home for the person covering it
Make the sitter's job physically easy. Lay out food with amounts marked, leads and coats by the door, cleaning supplies where accidents would happen, and instructions for heating, bins and locking up if someone is staying over. Tell neighbors a sitter will be coming and going so nobody reports your own arrangement as suspicious activity. Leave a spare key arrangement that you have tested, and enough of everything, food, bags, treats, that nobody has to improvise mid-week. If the two work trips start on different days, write down clearly who is responsible for the dog on the changeover day, because that single ambiguous day is where overlapping-trip plans most often fail.
Stay reachable without hovering, and review afterwards
Agree how updates will come, perhaps one message and photo each evening, so you are not anxiously chasing news across time zones and your sitter is not performing for your phone all day. When you return, ask what was easy, what was hard and what the dog did that surprised them, and note those answers for the next overlap week, which will come. Dogs who cope well once usually cope better next time with the same sitter, so keeping a good arrangement alive is part of the plan. Sharing the whole routine through a KinsLe Care Pass gives your sitter clear, temporary access to your dog's care details for the trip, without handing over your entire household paperwork or leaving loose notes behind afterwards.