How to Become a Professional Pet Sitter
If you enjoy caring for pets and are especially responsible, professional pet sitting may be the career path for you. Professional pet sitters are paid to care for others' pets when they are out of town, at work or unable to care for their pets for any other reason. Responsibilities include feeding and watering, cleaning up after, playing with and/or walking as well as veterinary/grooming trips for the client's pets. Pet sitters often take on several clients at once, caring for each client's pets at least once daily (overnight and live-in services are also offered at times).
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Instructions
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Join professional pet sitting organizations. Some, such as PSI (Pet Sitter's International) offers courses that make you a PSI-certified pet sitter (like a stamp of approval.) This helps you find potential clients in your area as well as making you marketable to clients.
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Decide which animals you are comfortable pet sitting (the more types you are willing to work with the better), whether you intend to care for the pets in your home or the clients' homes (or both), and whether you will do overnight jobs as well as live-in jobs (for long-term situations like vacations).
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Research different licensing and bonding companies in your area and consider becoming licensed and bonded. This is a legal agreement that states that the client will be paid if you do not fulfill your contract requirements. Licensing and bonding gives clients an element of trust when deciding to hire you.
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Behave in a trustworthy manner when you meet clients. Most of the time you will work inside your client's homes, and you will be taking care of their valued pets. Being trustworthy not only helps you to get jobs, but to keep repeat clients.
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Purchase liability insurance to protect your client's pets or homes in the event of an accident while you are in charge. You may also consider getting insurance that covers bodily injuries while you care for a pet.
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Determine how much you intend to charge for your services. Take into account the length and amount of work involved in each job, travel time and expenses and other expenses (insurance, bonding). Also consider how many jobs you can manage in a day and use that to determine how much you need to charge for each job.
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Keep yourself in good physical condition. You may work with large and rambunctious pets, and being strong and healthy helps you to do so.
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Keep daily schedules and manage your time wisely. You may have several clients' pets to care for in one day, so managing your time to fit them all in takes organization and scheduling.
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Take a course and become certified in animal CPR. This makes you more marketable to clients and allows you to care for pets in the event of an accident or emergency.
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Check with your local government to see if your pet-sitting business requires a license. If so, obtain the license and register yourself with the Better Business Bureau. Even if you are not required to do these things, they do validate the seriousness of your business.
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