- Do you want 5 dog walks per day 5 days a week at 40 dollars a walk?
- Do you want to start a doggy day care business out of your home?
- Do you want to board one or two cats or dogs at a time in your home overnight?
- Is pet sitting a side gig or do you want full time income?
- Do you want an army of pet sitters or dog walkers while you do administrative duties?
- Do you want to hire someone to do a lot of the administration so you can focus on another job or business goal?
- Do you want to focus on cat sitting or dog training or puppy care or…?
- Do you want to do pet sitting part time while you get your vet tech certification?
- Do you want to become a pet anxiety training specialist?
- Do you want to create the next Meowtel style app for pet sitters and pet owners to find each other?
The possibilities are endless! And you get to decide what you enjoy most and focus on building that aspect as your business.
Your reason for doing pet sitting might be different from mine. There are no wrong answers. Just know what you want so you don’t end up with a business you don’t enjoy.
I wanted to get out of a job I hated and that didn’t suite my personality, and I love being around animals and I also love having a flexible schedule that changes from week to week.
So, my first goal was to get enough pet-sitting clients to quit my job as a Pilates group instructor. Pilates paid great and there was always more than enough work.
But as an introvert I hated getting up in front of groups and talking nonstop 4 to 6 hours per day. It felt robotic and joyless for me.
Pet sitting is nice for me; not being around a lot of humans or having to talk or direct others is stress-free. All I have to do is be pleasant to humans at meet and greets and in emails and texts. I can do that no problem.
It has been a big relief to get rid of my group teaching hours. I still do private sessions one on one for Pilates for a few students, and it helps fill in the times when pet sitting is slow.
But now I’m a lot happier with my life because I am not dreading getting up in front of a big group of students and performing every day or two. My stress level has gone way down!
I like the freedom in my pet sitting hours. I do morning, midday and evening visits with a large window of time for each shift. 7 am to 11 am is my morning window, 11 to 3 is my midday window and 3 to 8 is my evening window. And some weeks I have only a few visits where people do not care what time I drop in on their cats.
I love the flexibility. I can take a yoga or dance class, go for a hike or work on my online business websites, art and videos, or do coursework online to build my tech skills.
But my goal is to eventually stop doing the daytime drop in visits and just focus on the longer overnight stays with pets so I can work on my online business which includes several art niche sites and a Pilates site.
I would like to move to the country and buy a tiny house and spend a few months of the year there and come into the urban area during peak pet sitting season, The summer months and thanksgiving through New year’s.
Check out my Facebook resource page for pet sitters who want to make passive income offering affiliate products to pet sitting clients. It’s also a great place to connect with other pet sitters to swap clients or online business ideas. Need a pet sitting website? Get my free template and Canva video course and give yourse
