Pawsitive Attention Pet Services

Most pet sitters are true animal lovers who have only the best of intentions. That said, the industry is still new and many consumers are still confused by what pet sitting is and how it works so I’m going to attempt to fill in some of the blanks the average pet sitting client may have, based on my own experiences as a professional pet sitter.

1. Bonding does nothing to protect the pet owner. Although the vast majority of sole-proprietor pet sitters do pay for bonding every year, it’s useless to the pet owner. Unfortunately, many folks believe that bonding and insurance is a packaged deal that protects them so us pet sitters go ahead and pay extra for this coverage because it’s expected. The truth is, bonding protects only the owner of the company from dishonest acts by his/her employees, which has zero effect on the pet owner.

2. Pet Sitting Associations mean one thing: you had the money to pay the yearly fee. Let me stress – many of these organizations can be an invaluable service to the pet sitter and I’ve found PUPS to be exactly that for me. But let’s not get ourselves confused here – anyone can join any of the Pet Sitting Associations, such as NAPPS, PSI, PUPS, APSE, etc so long as they can afford the membership fees. Why am I telling you this? Well, you may see some snazzy website with all of these paid-to-use logos and think one sitter is more experienced or knowledgeable than another and that is simply not a good way to determine such things. I will say this – professional sitters usually DO belong to at least one of these groups and that is because we are in the business of providing peace of mind to our clients, we do find those groups to be an integral part of running our businesses successfully, and it does show a certain level of commitment to the legitimacy of your small business if you plunk down the money to join one of these groups. Fees range from under $100 to well over $300, so keep that in mind when a pro sitter can’t do your pet sits for $10 a visit.

3. You do pay for travel fees. One way or another, if a sitter is going to stay in business, we simply have to recoup our fuel charges. Looking at the example of a $10 visit from the last section, if it takes me 15 minutes to drive to a pet sit, I’m there for 30 minutes, then drive 25 minutes to my next pet sit…you’ve just paid me $10 for 1 hour and 10 minutes of work. Not many people can survive on that and most sitters that charge those rates won’t be around for much longer.

4. Professional sitters have to charge enough to stay in business. As I touched on above, you can quickly see why we can’t make it on $10 visits, it’s not feasible. Please keep in mind, we have to put gas in our cars, we pay for those association memberships, insurance, bonding that isn’t really needed (but that you want), treats for pets, cleaning supplies, poop bags, dog walking equipment – I can go on for days but I hope you get the idea. Doing this job professionally requires a professional commitment which doesn’t come cheaply.

5. Hobby sitters aren’t evil! So I follow up my last statement with this one. In this industry, the folks that do this part time, high schoolers, people that are only watching the pets of friends and family for a few extra dollars here and there – are known as “Hobby Sitters”. These folks often do not have websites, trade associations, insurance, or travel very far from home. In fact, they have nearly $0 in overhead so they can get by with lower-cost sits. Most of us start out this way, we want to get our feet wet and see if we can truly make a business out of this. Because of this, I can’t honestly tell you that hobby sitters are inherently bad or wrong. I didn’t suddenly become better at caring for pets with my business license and website launch. However, I also didn’t stay a hobby sitter for very long.

Let me warn you though that 3 things can (and do) happen with a hobby sitter that will leave you calling me 2 hours before your flight and begging for me to squeeze in an initial consult. These are actual situations that clients have called me about:

– Since hobby sitters aren’t depending on your business to pay their bills, they aren’t as invested as being available for you nearly 24/7. They often do not have a contingency plan in place if they become ill, so they will often simply cancel scheduled pet sitting with you and you are on your own to find a replacement. A panicked woman called me one day, her train left in 48 hours and her regular pet sitter had fallen ill with the flu and had no back-up plan. This left the pet owner in a mad dash to find another sitter before her departure. Fortunately, it happened to be a slow day for me and I was able to get the initial consult complete and care for her pet while she enjoyed her much-needed vacation.

– Hobby sitters eventually move on. They will either find a job that pays them well but keeps them too busy for pet sitting on the side, or they will realize that they simply cannot survive on what they’ve been charging which means you either have to pay them more to keep them, or bid a fond farewell and find a new sitter at the rate you were paying. One lady called me when the sitter she had for 3 years was moving to go to college. She loved the girl, and said she did a great job. Of course, she was only doing this for fun money and her rate of $5 per visit was not something I could possibly meet. The distraught pet owner was shocked to find out what pro pet sitters actually charge. And then she tried to get me to agree to pet sits for her cat at one vist PER WEEK during her 3 week vacation. Of course, I passed on that offer, but only after advising her of the very serious risks she was taking with her cat’s life by trying to get this arrangement. I also mentioned that once a week visits would surely be considered to be animal neglect by local animal control. Hopefully, she’ll heed my advice.

– Hobby sitters are not business owners. They may not care if you are going to rip them a new one on yelp (they aren’t listed there anyway) or whether you love them enough to refer them to your friends. Essentially, they haven’t invested much time or effort into building an actual business and their responsibility to their business may reflect this. I’ve had a few clients that had “pet sitters” that were actually the kid-next-door call me after finding out that parties had been thrown in their homes when they were gone.

6. It isn’t enough to simply “love pets.” Pet care is far more involved than cuddling, loving, kissing, and smooshing those wonderful furry faces, although we do get that in droves, thankfully! Your professional pet sitter should also know Pet CPR and First Aid as well as have extensive knowledge regarding the care of your particular type of pets. Does your pet sitter know what the signs of illness are? If your dog pulls on leash, can they help with that? Your pet is healthy now, but what if, later on, that pet requires daily medication, will your sitter be able to handle that? I have one client that started out as your routine feed-walk-love kinda guy. Well he’s since been diagnosed with diabetes and now our visits also include twice daily injections and they must be given at the appropriate time. Because I’m experienced in animal care, this isn’t a problem for me. I don’t just love pets, I LIVE pets. Your pets deserve that level of skill in their care.

7) I run around your house. I run down your hallways, I hide under your bed and behind your doors. I crawl around the living room on all fours. I lay on the floor and let your cat sleep in my hair. If your pet feels like chasing me, then chase me they shall. And we’ll have a ton of fun, and I’ll double over laughing and be quickly reminded why I love this job so much. And then I’ll hope that you don’t have video monitoring inside the house, because that would just be embarassing.

8. “DUH! OF COURSE I DO THAT!” I’ve wanted to shout this a few times, but I don’t, for obvious reasons. I’ve had people ask if I clean litterboxes, if I change water daily, if I will bring in the mail. It honestly saddens me that people don’t feel that they can assume that these things are included with their pet sitting visit; certainly, these things are listed on my website. Any pro pet sitter should do all of these things and no, they should never charge extra for them. So one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to work harder on getting the word out, because people need to know everything they get with their pet’s visits. You aren’t just getting someone to feed your pets, you are getting an entire pet and house care package. So don’t fret – I have it covered.

9) “Thanks for wasting my time, jerk.” Okay, I HAVE to share this story because I was so upset, I nearly cried. And the person that did it is completely clueless, I’m sure. I wanted so badly to tell them what I really felt, but that whole being professional thing put the kabosh on the words coming out of my mouth. A woman emails me wanting more info on services, which I was happy to provide, including my rate. She scheduled an initial consult and booked the dates she wanted. I print out paperwork, drive 15 miles to her house, go through the entire meet & greet and when we get to the end, she asks for the total for the sit, which I give her. Then her sister-in-law, who was also there, starts talking about some “other guy” that they had come out the day before and how he was cheaper. With me standing right there. I didn’t quite know what to say, so I just stood there. Finally, after some more awkward conversation, they decided to go with the other guy. Awesome. Well….okay then. I picked up my paperwork, said, “thank you”, and walked out. Look folks, this was wrong on so many levels. I’m out the gas money it took to drive out there, the time it took to do so, the ink and paper I used for the documents (which she filled out and signed, by the way), and all those bills I had planned to pay with the check I was supposed to get will now go unpaid. Hey, I’m not the cheapest in town, I know that, and I don’t try to be that. But this lady knew well ahead of time what I charged and she had met this “other guy” before I drove out and knew what he charged. So next time, do me a favor and just cancel the consult. Because not only did I lose out on the job, it actually cost money out of my pocket. It’s common courtesy. Thankfully, this is the first time something like this has happened. Hopefully, it will be the last.

10) I don’t dress up for your dog. It’s true, I have shown up at your house at 7am in my pajamas with my hair all wild. And yes, I’ve walked your dog around the neighborhood looking like that. Apologies in advance, but I was probably up until 4 am trying to come up with an interesting blog topic, working on the dog rescue, working on the rabbit rescue, being suffocated by my 5 cats; there are a variety of reasons why I didn’t get enough sleep. But the important thing is that I was there when your pet needed me. At least, that’s what I think is the important thing.