Even if you’re not new to employing dog sitters you might be wondering how I like to go about things. The first thing to mention though is that every dog and every owner is different and my first priority is keeping things consistent for your dogs, so very few of the things I mention here are set in stone; this is more of a process I go through in order to find out what you and your dog need.

Your booking enquiry

After you’ve checked my availability and made a booking enquiry, I’ll get back to you pretty quickly (probably within minutes) to let you know whether I am truly available and in a position to travel to your home. I do need to run long stays past my partner, and check that there isn’t some prior obligation that either of us have forgotten about.

At this point I’d like for you to tell me anything notable about your dog, and if you are a new client (or if your dog is!) I’ll want to arrange a meet up so that you and your dog can get to know me.

If you’re local then this initial meetup will usually be free of charge, otherwise I might need to get you to cover my travel expenses. If you are so far away that the meeting is going to take up most of my day then I would also usually want to charge you half the nightly fee.

For new local clients what I often do is come over and take their dog for a walk then settle down in their home and do my own work on my laptop for a few hours, so that their dog experiences what it will be like when I’m taking care of them.

During one of our meetings I will get out my checklist to make sure that I know all the usual things about your dogs and your home.

Every owner is different. Some owners already have very comprehensive notes about their dogs and home and I am happy to read through these and then ask whatever questions I have left. Quite often I learn something new from these owner notes and I later incorporate that into my own!

Other owners don’t have any notes because they already know their dogs very well. In this case we have to go through my checklist; some people prefer to do this themselves and send the notes back to me, while others prefer that I run through it with them and take my own notes. I don’t mind which way we do it – whatever is easiest for you!

I will keep my notes on file in case of repeat bookings.

You make payment

After one or two meetings I would expect that you’re ready to make a decision about whether you want to book me or not. If your decision is made then you should pay at this point to confirm the booking. I can hold bookings in reserve for some period of time but it’s not fair on other clients if someone ends up taking a long time only to decide not to proceed.

Cancellation policy

Hopefully it doesn’t come to this, but if you have to cancel our booking then I have a pretty generous cancellation policy. You can have a 100% refund as long as you cancel no later than mid day (in my local time zone) the day before your booking was meant to start.

If you cancel after mid day the day before then 50% of the first 7 days of your booking fee can be refunded, and 100% of the fees for days after that.

If I have to incur expenses like long distance train tickets, that will only happen after your booking is paid for, so if you cancel I will deduct those expenses from any refund.

I arrive at your home

We will have agreed what time I should arrive at your home. Sometimes it is preferred if I’m there before the owner leaves in order to do a final handover. Sometimes the owner is very busy preparing to leave and their dog has no anxiety, so they ask me to arrive after they have gone.

We all thrive on routine

I now try to keep things as normal as possible for your dog, while keeping things as normal as possible for me too (work on my laptop, stay up too late).

If your dog is used to being off-lead, that’s something that unfortunately won’t happen for them during the first booking. I will only allow dogs off-lead with your permission and once I’m completely happy with my ability to recall them in a variety of circumstances. There’s not enough time in the first booking for that to happen.

There may be multimedia

I like taking photos and videos of dogs, but not everyone wants to receive non-emergency contact while they’re away on a trip. I understand that sometimes just seeing a message from your dog sitter can make you worry that something is wrong. That’s why one of the questions on my checklist is how often, if at all, you want to be sent updates, photos and so on.

I surely will take photos and can send you those and status updates at least once a day if that’s what you want, or I can just keep them to myself if you’d prefer.

Rover has this interesting feature where you can tell the app when your walk has begun and when it ended, then it records the route for the owner to see. For Rover bookings I’m happy to do that if owners ask, but I don’t have the tech for doing that on non-Rover bookings. Tell me if that disappoints you, as then I’ll work on it.

One feature of Rover’s app that I absolutely refuse to use is the thing where I can tap the app whenever your dog toilets during their walk. If an owner asks me to use that feature I have to politely say no, because I regard it as dangerous to be fiddling with my phone when I’m walking a dog that I don’t 100% know. If it’s something you want to know then I’m happy to tell you after the walk how many pees and poops your dog did.

Your return

I prefer to be present when you return so you can see how your dog is behaving after spending significant time with me. I’m flexible, though.

Post-booking debrief

I will of course be very interested in any comments you have regarding my dog sitting services. I hope you will give me a testimonial and tell your dog-owning friends about me!

Any other business?

If you have any other questions please take a look at the frequently asked questions page to see if they’re answered there, otherwise by all means do contact me to ask.