THE PROFESSION OF PETSITTING

In this chapter:

- Why petsitting is one of the fastest growing industries

- Deciding whether you could you be a petsitter 

- Who uses petsitters? 

- Is petsitting a pet lover’s perfect career? 

- Assessing your potential earnings 

- Drawing up your petsitting business plan.

If you think of a job where you spend all day with pets, what comes to mind first? A vet? Apart from the gruelling seven-year training and the necessity of an unflinching attitude to blood and gore, you might find that the pets don’t want to spend time with you. My vet once told me that she’d gone into the profession because she loved animals but the feeling obviously wasn’t reciprocated. Dogs would cross the road if they saw her coming and cats would cower behind their owners in her surgery.

Petsitters, on the other hand, have the opposite effect. Dogs you walk will rush to greet you in the park, leaving their owners puffing in their wake. Cats sit vigilantly at windows, checking for your arrival and then tripping you up as they twine round your ankles.

Why petsitting is one of the fastest growing industries

Petsitting offers an alternative to kennels and catteries, which although may offer an excellent service, are not ideal for every pet, especially those who are used to sharing the sofa with their owners every night.

There is now a huge demand for knowledgeable, dedicated petsitters whose services have grown to include far more than the original, literal meaning of the word: ‘petsitter’. A pet sitter is a contracted service provider who takes care of a pet in its own home. This is the definition given by www.babylon.com, an online dictionary and translation service. At the time of writing, I couldn’t find ‘pet sitter’ or ‘petsitter’ in a British dictionary, which shows just how new this profession still is to the UK.

The following services are all ones which can be offered by a petsitter: 

- pet day care 

- pop-in visits 

- overnight petsitting 

- pet boarding 

- dog walking 

- puppy home visits

- dog crèches.

Any or all of these services are ones you can offer if you become a petsitter.

Deciding whether you could be a petsitter

My intention in writing this book was to try to offer as much information as I could, to anyone wanting to start up and run their own petsitting business. Generally, this is one person setting up as an independent sole trader or a couple of people going into it as a partnership. For anyone wanting to set up as an employer of petsitters – whether those petsitters are independent contractors or employees – my advice is to try it out as a smaller venture first, before committing yourself to the red tape and expense of becoming an employer.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself first: 

- Do you not only love animals but are knowledgeable about those you’d like to care for? I do cover basic pet care in this book but you can build up your expertise further by reading the recommended books and asking the advice of other pet care professionals such as dog trainers, pet behaviourists, vets and fellow petsitters. 

- If you’re considering dog walking, are you happy to walk when the weather is freezing? Or if the rain is pouring down and you are sliding about on the mud with a couple of Jack Russells and a red setter who want to roll over and play in it? The flip side is walking in the park, watching your dogs leaping over logs and racing around just for the love of it. Or feeling the sun on your shoulders as you sit in a beautiful garden with a contented cat by your side, knowing your friends are stuck behind their office desks and perhaps feeling as bored as you were a few months ago. 

- How reliable and committed are you? You cannot throw a ‘sickie’ when a puppy, two cats and six dogs are depending on you for food, walks and company. Colds and not feeling 100% won’t wash with them. Of course you must always have a contingency plan in case you are really too sick to work, or need a break, and I will show you how to prepare one later on.

- Do you like people? I know this seems a strange question but sometimes petsitters start up with little or no people skills. After all, they may say: I work with animals now, why would I need to be good with people? It came as a surprise to me just how much I would be interacting with pet owners. I understood that there would be the telephone enquiry calls, the client consultations and perhaps a chat now and then to discuss their pets’ needs or to change my visiting days. I didn’t realize I’d soon be considered an expert on a bulldog’s idiosyncrasies, or become second mother to an aging cat, nor did I think I’d be having long conversations about whether a raw food diet would be best for Tony, the great Dane, or if Charlotte, the spaniel, really needed a third fleecy coat. 

- What family commitments do you have? If you are a parent, who will care for your children in the holidays? As a petsitter, your insurance won’t cover them in the case of an accident or if they get bitten by a pet in your care, so you may need a support network. As petsitting is so flexible, there is nothing to stop you advertising your services as ‘term time only’ for dog walking, if you intend to include this service, and then caring for cats and small animals in the evening.

Who uses petsitters?

More and more people certainly are using petsitters. Hiring a petsitter is often considered a necessity and not a luxury. While kennels and catteries often offer excellent services, they are not ideal for every pet, especially those who are used to sharing the sofa with their owners every night. Nowadays pet owners would no more leave their pet alone than they would a child. In the past, owners would ask neighbours, friends or family to care for their pets while they were at work or on holiday. People work very long hours, commuting times are longer, and relatives and friends are just as busy. It’s become more difficult to find good care for our pets so if you have the expertise, reliability and dedication to care for pets and give owners peace of mind, you’ll be very popular.

Is petsitting a pet lover’s perfect career?

As a petsitter, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and spending my working days with a variety of wonderful animals. I’ve met the odd one of two who have been difficult but this has usually been because they’ve never been socialized, or because at some point in their lives a human has hurt them. With proper training and behavioural advice, these pets have all improved immeasurably.

For me, as a dedicated pet lover, petsitting has given me: 

- The chance to be my own boss. 

- An opportunity to learn about animal care, behaviour and training. This has been not only through being with animals every day but also by reading up on their care and meeting and learning from other pet professionals such as pet behaviourists, dog trainers, vets and veterinary nurses and other petsitters who are usually very generous with their advice. 

- The opportunity to get fit! My own dogs have benefited from extra walks with some of the dogs I’ve walked and we’ve all got thinner and healthier from so much exercise.

Because of the contact with other pet professionals, petsitting can also be a stepping stone to careers in other animal-related industries. You have the opportunity to carve out your hours to completely suit you, your family, and, if you have them, your own pets. The biggest reward for me is to see the face in a window of a dog who’s waiting for you to give him his walk and to be greeted with such affection when you step through the front door. Or to be able to cuddle a purring cat on a warm sofa after you’ve fed and groomed her.

It’s not just the pets either. It’s so rewarding to help a struggling mother whose dog is missing its long off-lead walks because she can’t push her new baby’s buggy in the woods. Or helping an elderly man who is too arthritic to take his dog out and being able to give his dog an exciting run in the park with a couple of doggy pals and a ball to chase.

As a dog walker, I’ve been instrumental in helping people who thought they couldn’t take on a rescue dog, thereby providing a loving home for a dog who might have spent his entire life in a kennel. After a meeting or letter from me confirming that I am an insured petsitter, the rescue centres have allowed these people who would otherwise remain ‘petless’, to adopt a dog.

Assessing your potential earnings

It’s not easy to put a figure on how much you can earn, apart from saying that the sky’s the limit if you start off as a sole trader and then move up into recruiting your own petsitters and building a larger business.

Here are some examples that might help you consider thoroughly whether this is the profession for you. I wrote this as an article for the Petsitting News in July 2008 so bear in mind that the cost of living may have risen since then.

Example 1

Carol is a 43-year-old single mother to a 10-year-old daughter. Carol petsits from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays to Fridays. Back-up help if needed: Carol’s mum.

Carol walks six dogs every morning in groups of three. In the afternoons, she walks four dogs, apart from Fridays when she has three extra. Carol doesn’t look after cats and small animals. She is happy with the amount she has at the moment, but if she gets busier, she wants to employ a helper on a part-time basis.

Carol charges £10 per dog for a 40-minute walk and her weekly income is currently £650.

Example 2

Simon is 31 and is married with two young children. He’s been petsitting for a year and works from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Simon does five walks a day with four dogs in each walk at £10 per dog. He also offers pop-in visits for cats and has an average of three cat visits a day at £10 a visit. His current weekly income is approximately £1,150. In the summer his cat visits increase three-fold so he can earn up to £400 extra.

Example 3

Sarah is 36 and lives with her partner. They have three children, two of whom are under five. She only wants to work part time caring for cats. She has only been working for four months since March.

Since Sarah started advertising in the spring, she has quickly built up a small client base of 15 clients who are all going away for a couple of weeks’ holiday between April and September. Sarah estimates she’ll earn between £2,000 and £3,000 between April and the end of September. She hopes to have at least doubled her client base by next year and again the following year. After that her children will all be at school and she hopes to do some dog walking too.

Example 4

David, 55 and Helen, 49.

David took early retirement five years ago. He and Helen have been building up their petsitting business and haven’t had to spend much on advertising because they are good friends of the local vet and have many retired friends who can afford to take frequent holidays and book Helen and David to care for their pets. Their friends have also recommended them to other friends.

Between them, they do 12 dog walks a day. They care for approximately ten cats a day in the winter and double this in the summer. David and Helen also offer a microchipping service and Helen has just passed her dog groomer’s course. David is a qualified dog trainer and takes two classes every Saturday and one mid-week evening class. Because the business is growing so quickly and they want to cut down their dog-walking hours, they are taking on a full-time dog walker to help them.

David and Helen earn approximately £2,000 a week from their petsitting business during the winter and £3,000 a week in the summer. They also earn an income from their other pet services.

You can see why it’s very hard to give you an exact figure because it depends on the time you’ve got available to work and how long it takes you to build up a regular customer base.

When I started out, over 12 years ago, I earned just £35 a week for the first three months. But I didn’t have this book to help me!

Also, of course, the concept of petsitting is now far more widely known and the number of people using dog walkers and petsitters has risen dramatically since my early days.

Drawing up your petsitting business plan

If you can draw up a business plan, it can be a useful way of setting out what you hope to achieve in a certain time frame. When you look back at it, you will see if you have reached those milestones or goals you set yourself. Plans can also be crucial if you want to borrow money from your bank as they will like to see if you have a clear vision of your business future.

A basic plan might cover: 

- A summary of what your business will offer e.g.: Pete’s Petsitting will be offering dog walking and pop in visits for pets. 

- Your qualifications and any experience. 

- Who your competitors are, how much they charge and how they operate. 

- A description of exactly what you will be offering e.g.: I will be offering a dedicated dogwalking service for owners who cannot walk their dogs due to work or other time commitments.

Pop in pet visits will involve visiting pet owners’ homes while they are away, to feed and generally care for their pets, the majority of which will be cats.

For this work, I will be taking out specialist petsitter insurance to cover me for third-party liability to cover my business. 

- Market research

Show that there is a demand for your service. Do any research yourself as market research companies are usually quite expensive. By following the guidelines in Chapter 2, Researching your market, you should be able to quote some figures. 

- Legal matters

State that you will be a sole trader and that you have or will be informing the Inland Revenue and National Insurance office of your sole-trader status.

- Your objectives

Put down your goals for your petsitting business over the next 12 months. These should include how many clients you hope to have on your books and what kind of income you hope to have achieved by the end of your first year. 

- Financial

If you are hoping to borrow money, then provide reasons why you need to. For example, you want to buy a van and equip it with integral cages.

Stick a copy of your business plan above your computer to refer to and to keep you on track!

‘It could only happen to a petsitter…

A petsitter called Jes from New York was looking after two birds, an African grey and a cockatoo. She was looking out of the window to the other side of the street when she saw a green Amazon parrot sitting outside a window ledge.

Throwing on her coat, she went outside to try to save the parrot. She climbed up the stairs of one building, setting off the roof alarm before realizing that she’s climbed up onto the wrong roof. A man shouted to her that people are only allowed on the roof in an emergency and that a bird isn’t an emergency. She replied that if it was his bird, he would consider it an emergency.

She then rushed over two more buildings, climbed up onto another roof, looked over the side and there was the bird! Rushing down a ladder leading to the fire escape, she finally reached the bird…which turned out to be made of stone!