Here are some crazy reasons you might want to hire a professional pet sitter:
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| Roomba wants us to starve! |
😞 Your neighbor's kid loves dogs and does a great job walking your dog, but she wasn't expecting an unleashed dog to come blazing out of someone's backyard and attack your dog. She doesn't even have a car to take your dog to the vet.
😡 You asked a friend to watch your bunny while you were out-of-state for a week, but she said the front key didn't work. You frantically called a locksmith for help, but your friend stopped answering or returning your phone calls.
😿 You left for a three-day weekend with a 2-gallon self-serving water container for your cat, but Muscles the Cat knocked over the whole thing and emptied it within a matter of hours.
💩 Your friend agreed to take care of your dogs over the holiday, but a last-minute all-day event came up and she just had to go. Your dogs also had to go, and the pee and poop caused permanent damage to your hardwood floor.
🙀 Your friend didn't bother cleaning cat litter boxes, and didn't notice that one of your two cats was missing. Waldo the cat was stuck in a closet for a very long weekend.
😒 Your friend happily agreed "We can watch Rover in our house!" while you were on vacation, but the dog was stressed and howled constantly for the 5 days you were on gone. Your friend will never speak to you again. Or worse, Rover chewed up their brand-new, $1500 leather couch.
😰 Your water heater broke while you were on vacation and completely flooded the basement. A pro pet-sitter wouldn't be able to prevent this, but he or she could prevent a lot of the damage by discovering the problem early and working immediately to fix it.
❄ An unexpected blizzard hit while you were gone for New Year's, and your friend was unable to feed your guinea pigs for several days. One of the guinea pigs died shortly after you returned home. Professional pet sitters always have a backup plan: either calling a neighbor, leaving out extra food and water, or staying at the client's house. A blizzard is never an excuse to abandon a pet.
In my own history, a client's furnace broke down when the temperatures hit 21 below zero this past January. I was able to keep the kitty warm with heating pads, call for emergency furnace repair, and let the furnace guy in so he could fix it.
Some of the things that my pet-sitter friends have experienced:
• A cat tangled up in the cords of the blinds. Luckily the cat was only stuck for (at most) a few hours.
• Two sibling dogs that had never before had any altercations, suddenly got into a bloody, serious dog fight. This is a distressing situation for any pet sitter, but the professional knew how to break up the fight safely, without getting bitten, and prevent the dogs from going at it again.
• A cat that got stuck (yes, stuck) in the bricks in a chimney flue.
• A dog that caught and almost killed a squirrel. Yes, the pet sitter had to make sure the squirrel was dead and not suffering.
• A pet sitter that walked in while a client's house was being robbed. This retired military woman had a concealed carry gun and shot the robber, then waited for police to arrive.
• A dog that started suffering from bloat and would have died if the pet sitter had not recognized the symptoms immediately and taken the dog to the emergency vet.
The moral of the story? Crazy things sometimes happen, even to the best of us... but professional pet sitters prepare for the "what-ifs" and worst-case scenarios, and they can use their experience and knowledge to prevent accidents and lessen the impact of any unavoidable disasters.
