Petsitting As A Part-Time Job
Scan any list of most highly paid professions and you probably won’t find petsitting on any of them. Unless, of course, one is lucky enough to end up petsitting for the very rich! However, petsitting probably compares pretty well against other part-time jobs on the personal fulfillment scale. At least that has been my experience – perhaps because most of my petsitting has been for dogs – the legendary “man’s best friend”. When the master is away, the petsitter becomes the lucky recipient of the dog’s love and admiration.
As I had almost no prior experience with animals, petsitting seemed an unlikely part-time job at first. I had never disliked animals, but I couldn’t really understand what moved people to melt and gush over each and every dog or cat they encountered. Two years of regular dogsitting and now I know. I am a confirmed dog lover. There is hardly a dog that does not turn my heart to mush.
Oftentimes a pet owner wants someone to not only take care of their dear pet’s food and elimination needs but also offer companionship while the owner is away. In my case this has led to petsitting at the dog owner’s home since my own living situation does not allow me to have anything but small animals on the premises. In situations like this, petsitting can easily morph into housesitting. Also, people who have a dog might also have fish, turtles, a bird, plants. You get the idea.
Some people might prefer to only offer drop-in petsitting where the petsitter visits the dog’s house while the owner is away, gives a little food, water, bathroom, exercise and TLC and then departs. As dogs usually need to be let out 3 times per day, drop-in visits will probably only work well if the owners live close to you. Occasionally a client just needs someone to stop in and walk the dog in the late afternoon or evening when they cannot make it home at their usual time. In that case a drop-in visit will do just fine.
To get started, survey the fees charged by a few petsitters and boarding veterinarians in your area to see what the going rates are for your market. You want to be competitive. You can advertise by circulating flyers on bulletin boards around town. Also consider a small 3 or 4 line classified ad in a small town weekly paper. Sometimes the least expensive small market ad will bring better results than a larger paper with a circulation of over a million.
Many petsitters prefer to be bonded and insured in the event of any unfortunate incidents with the home owner’s property. You might want to try a few petsitting assignments to be sure you have found your calling before you make this investment. I have been fortunate to petsit for people who already knew and trusted me before they hired me as a petsitter and since I only petsit on average a few days per week, I have not found it necessary to be bonded.
Once you have a handful of satisfied customers, you will have an enjoyable sideline source of income. And while you may not get rich in dollars, you will surely find the man/animal bond to be enriching.
