At first, I did pet sitting now and then as a fluke for a friend or Pilates student. I didn’t see it as a serious way to make a living.
The first time I did a pet sit a friend who did a lot of house sitting and pet sitting asked me to help out. I pet sat for a couple of dogs who yowled and wanted to get on the bed with me all night long and I thought it was a nightmare to take care of pets.
I didn’t know about doing a meet-and-greet and screening clients before accepting jobs. So, I assumed you would be at the mercy of badly behaved pets and that pet sitting was not a viable serious income.
I lost out on a potential income through assumptions that it wasn’t worth it
About ten years Later I was paid 300 dollars to spend a week going over to feed two cats twice a day. The next time she went out of town she didn’t want to pay me to stay and wanted someone to stay overnight with the cats.
So, I assumed people didn’t want to spend money for pet sitting because this person didn’t have much money to spend.
Pet sitting motherload!
Years later a pilates student had a last-minute cancelation by her long term pet sitter. She had two cats, and I volunteered. I didn’t even ask the price.
I came and met the two delightful cats at her cosey home and signed on for a week of pet sitting. She showed me their feeding schedule, toys and litter box arrangements.
She wanted someone to stay overnight with them. And be around during the day when not at work. That sounded easy enough.
When I got there and moved in, she had left me a check for $700. $100 dollars a day for two cats who didn’t need walking and go outside.
That was when it finally dawned on me that some people valued a good pet sitter and that there might actually be some real money here. I sent her daily pictures morning noon and night of the cats playing and eating and just lying around.
I finally started a real pet sitting business
I made business cards and set up a profile on Pet Sitter’s International and started handing out business cards to all my pilates students. The first year I got about 9 or 10 clients by word of mouth and made an extra 10K pet sitting after work. Not bad!
It was mostly cats because more people seem to have cats than dogs in an urban area. So, there wasn’t even any need to walk dogs all that often. One of my clients was on a neighborhood online bulletin board and she referred several new clients to me.
I signed up with a dog walking company because they were swamped with one of their walkers in my town doing 10 walks per day. I figured I could do my cat sits in the morning and evening and walk dogs midday and be able to quit teaching pilates in short order.
But the dog walking company suddenly got slow over the Christmas holidays and didn’t pick up for months, so I quit reserving midday for them and decided to focus on growing my own pet sitting business.
The Meowtel app filled in the gaps for the first year
I had signed up for Meowtel and this helped fill in the gaps and paid a decent wage with tips because they marked up the price and took a small amount off the top. So, if they charged 45 for half an hour, I got around 32 per visit.
I was at a new pilates studio and handed out cards there but didn’t get many responses.
Why I don’t recommend becoming a pet sitting employee
I signed up for a cat sitting company the next holiday season, so I was doing 10 to 13 drop in visits a day in December. Driving all over the area. But this was no way to make money.
My own pet-sits were paying 35 per drop in visit but this pet sitting company only paid the minimum California wage which was 21 an hour so I was only getting $10 per drop-in while they were charging 45.
Posting on Nextdoor revved up my business
Finally, I started advertising on Nextdoor and set up a business account. Soon I figured out that posting a cute pet photo and writing a little blurb was just as good as running ads if not better. I picked up 10 new clients within a few months and some of them scheduled ahead for the summer this year.
The first two months of the year, January and February were pretty dead with only a few jobs. Then starting in March things got busy! I was doing overnight stays for a few weeks at a time while doing drop in visits for new clients twice a day. Still mostly cats.
Income went from $700 in January to $1000 in March, and $4000 in April In May it is back down to $2400 and in June so far there is only $1000 scheduled. But July is up to a little over $8000 so far with overnight pet-sits and drop-in visits.
There are peaks and valleys, and it takes time to build. You need other income while you start your business. For me it was teaching Pilates from 6 am to 11 am a few days a week. So, my schedule was flexible enough to start to accommodate the needs of pets for breakfast and dinner visits and for dogs midday walks.
This year I was finally able to quit my Pilates group class teaching shifts though I still teach privates and am on the sub list.
Since I have more time available now, I can schedule more pet-sits than I could before. And even when it’s busy with an overnight sit and 3 to 6 daily drop in visits it isn’t all that taxing.
The problem is you can only do so many pet-sits per day, and it is seasonal work. So, the best thing is to find a way to make passive income from the pet sitting clients you have even when you are not doing a pet-sit for them.
They already know like and trust you, so I have been looking for affiliate products to offer to my pet sitting clients.
I came across PawTree which is a quality customized pet food and supplement company that offers a free website and training to new distributors. All of it is done online so you don’t need any products of your own.
Check out my resource page for pet sitters who want to make passive income offering affiliate products to pet sitting clients.
Need a pet sitting website? Sign up on the resources page to get my free template and Canva video course and give yourself some brand authority!
To find more about pet sitting gigs and passive income for pet sitters visit my Facebook page for pet sitters.
