When you go out of town who takes care of the pets? It’s important to have someone you can trust with your home and your beloved furry companions.
Do you really need a professional pet sitter?
A professional pet sitter might has more qualifications than the local teenager.
- Should be bonded and insured with professional pet sitters’ insurance.
- might have pet first aid
- Background check from Vetty and personal references
- Maybe fear free certification
- may have pet sitter’s international animal care certifications,
- a vehicle to transport pets to the vet in the case of an emergency.
- A contract and forms for veterinary information and your pet’s needs.
- Oh and, and a professional pet sitter is a grown up.
When is it ok to leave the home and pets with a teenager?
Sometimes it’s fine to leave your pets in the care of the neighborhood kid but make sure their parents are aware of the arrangement and willing to help out in an emergency.
One time when I was eleven years old my best friends went out of town and asked me to take care of their two dogs, beautiful Samoyed mixes. I said “sure, of course, no problem”.
But this was the weekend of a big mime workshop at the Albuquerque mime troop with the famous mime Richmond Shepard. Mom and I were in awe of this famous mime, and we went off to this two-day workshop to learn everything we could from the great master.
It was thrilling as a kid to be taken seriously and treated like an adult. I took part in all the exercises, and it was fascinating and fun. The weekend went by in a whirl of excitement and activity.
Then on Sunday evening my two best friends came by. I hadn’t thought of the two sisters all weekend. We only lived four blocks apart and we were used to just showing up unannounced.
“Oh, hi” I said unenthusiastically as the two girls stormed into my room. I was lying on my bed reading The Book of Three for the thousandth time.
They were livid. “You didn’t come by to take care of the dogs the for the last two days and they had to poop in the house! How could you forget!”
I was crest fallen. I had indeed forgotten all about the dogs in my excitement over the workshop!
“Oh!” I cried sitting up and dropping my book. “I’m sorry, but I was busy too with this mime workshop all weekend.” I felt horrible about forgetting. But I was eleven years old. Maybe a little too young for pet sitting on my own.
The moral of the story is: make sure the kid you have for a pet sitter understands the responsibility of the job and that the parents are aware.
My mom had no idea I had promised to care of the dogs because I hadn’t mentioned it, and their mom had not mentioned it to my mother either. The whole house and pet sitting responsibility had been left up to two eleven-year-olds and a ten-year-old!
How to choose a professional pet sitter
There are lots of ways to find a pet sitter. Word of mouth is often the best way to find a great pet sitter. But if you don’t know someone who can recommend one there are many listing agencies and websites you can use. I list my website Mellifluous Meow and my services on Pet Sitters International.
I like Pet Sitters International because they have lots of training for sitters and they have a form where my clients can leave a review themselves, so you know they are real reviews and not just ones I slapped on my website myself.
I have clients who have recommended me on their local neighborhood online bulletin board in one Palo Alto neighborhood. And many of my clients were originally my Pilates students at a small studio in Palo Alto. So, word of mouth is always a great way to find a pet sitter.
Meowtel is a portal where I have a listing. It is only for cats, but the nice thing is that they insure and bond all their sitters and have a system for payments that is easy to use. They background check all their pet sitters. And they have a built-in system for contracts and veterinary forms.
The thing I don’t like about Meowtel is that they expect you to book the sitter before the meet and greet. I have gotten around this by messaging the perspective client before accepting the job and setting up a meet-and-greet first to make sure we’re compatible and comfortable with each other.
Whichever website or pet portal you use make sure you set up a meet-and-greet with the pet sitter before you book to make sure you and the sitter are both comfortable with doing the pet sit.
In conclusion, the neighborhood kid might be a fine choice if that kid is old enough and has parental supervision. But if the neighborhood kid has gone off to college it might be time to hire a pet sitter you can trust.