I thought it might be beneficial for animal owners to have a “be prepared” list. This list will help your pet sitter do their job more efficiently. Here are 5 quick and easy things you can do and your pet sitter will love you for it!

1)   Food: It’s great when you leave the food on the counter for us; it makes it much easier to find. However, if your cats or dogs are anything like mine, leaving food – even an unopened bag of food – is an invitation to a huge eating binge. So, we understand if you need to leave the food in the cupboard. Please leave enough litter and food. We recommend you leave more than you think your sitter will need. Trips do get delayed!

2)   Medication: Please keep this in a secure area and be sure your sitter knows where to find the medication. Often the dosage written on the label of the medication has changed. For example, your vet may have initially told you to give one pill per day. Now, 6 months later, your vet has reduced it to ½ pill every-other-day. Please be sure to verify with your sitter the proper dosage and, in the case of every-other-day medication, please be sure we know which days of the week we are to give said medication.

3)   Dustpan/hand vacuum/paper towels: We are more than happy to sweep up the litter or food that has fallen on the floor, but it is difficult to do so if we can’t find a dustpan and broom. A hand vacuum works great too, but not if we don’t know where you keep yours. For clean ups, paper towels are a necessity.

4)   Old Towels: We really want to dry off Fido after a walk in the rain. And, even if it is not raining we would like to wipe off his feet before we bring Fido back into your home. If it’s the rainy season please leave us more than one towel for this purpose.

5)   Leave The Lights On: Are you leaving on “Monday” at Noon and asking your sitter to do the first visit that evening? Please be considerate and leave an outside light on for us. There is nothing more disconcerting to arrive at your home after dark and there are no outside lights on.

Your sitter will thank you for remembering the above items. The less time your sitter has to spend looking for these items, the more time we can devote to giving your fur kids our undivided attention!