What's a Professional Pet Sitter and Why it Matters.
Many in the pet services industry distinguish a professional pet sitter from what they call a, “hobbyist sitter”. Amongst other things, it's often suggested that a professional pet sitter goes beyond their commitment to excellent pet care and maintains pet-sitter insurance and bonding, has any necessary local business licenses or permits, uses a pet-sitting service contract, offers proof of a clear criminal history and demonstrates their knowledge through industry certifications. While this concept is dated, it holds value still today and yet there remains room for improvement. Moreover, despite the massive growth of the Pet Sitting industry, there is still no regulatory authority that oversees whether a person is a *professional pet sitter* or “hobbyist sitter". While education, obtaining business license/permits, using a contract, providing background checks, insurance, and bonding certainly does show that a person is committed to being a professional, there still remains no legal definition or set of requirements. So, how Can You Tell the difference between a Professional Pet Sitter and a “Hobbyist”?
To be clear, the above criteria are important, they just no longer clearly separate those that are performing as a professional and those that are not in the current environment. Many hobbyists simply join directory listings or online pet sitter marketplaces! and have immediate access to education (albeit often very little), basic background checks, and insurance that is questionable at best. Such directories and marketplaces, although may be used by professionals, are designed to flood the industry with endless supply through support of the hobbyist and the masses (quantity over quality) in order to maximize profits for the third party directory or marketplace owner. In other words; real passion for pets, quality of pet care, concern for pet owners, and concern for pet sitters are all diminished priorities to their need for more and more participants. All the meanwhile for the general pet owning public, it becomes almost impossible to understand any differences between professionals and hobbyists as in these places, they look the same. The are left to rely on reviews that can be bought or exaggerated either way….and none of us want to be the one who gets the legitimately bad experience for others to learn from.
So What Makes a Professional a Professional? From my perspective as a Professional Pet Sitter, the difference lays inherently in the experience, education, and commitment. It’s the commitment to put Clients and pets first, the education that can only come from a true passion for animals and experience (and variety of experience). It's one thing to walk a well behaved/trained small dog on a summer day while the pet's owner is working a long day and totally different when your hired to care for an unruly animal bigger than yourself while the owner is in a different country, it's the middle of winter, and you arrive at their house to see frozen pipes that have burst and a heater that's not working. While a hobbyist may do in the first scenario, you need a professional in the later. Professionals have the education and depth of experience to come equipped with the tools to handle every situation, from human to pet and the property in between. Moreover, having access to that amount and quality of information, being (or being part of) the brand, the direct connection to the person that makes the decisions or being that person that makes the final decision is what truly denotes a professional.
Who cares more if there is bad weather and a dog is scared, an accident occurs, or an emergency happens, the professional or the hobbyist? The professional, the owner of a pet sitting company, whether solo or employing staff does as it’s their life and reputation
! It's them being all in and not simply creating a profile. How they have trained to handle the issues that occur or put procedures in place for their staff to follow to make certain the number one priority in every situation is the client’s pet(s) and the property in their care – makes that a person a professional pet sitter. A true professional pet sitter through experience and education has taken great steps in educating themselves and their staff in providing the best service and can easily convey that to their clients.
This doesn’t mean that a pet sitter listed on a dot com site or within a marketplace app isn’t a professional. Professional pet sitters are both company owners and can often be found listed. It's the attitude they have about the client’s pet and the steps they have taken to educate themselves and finally, it’s the experience they have. It's whether, when you contact them, you are contacting a real business that will be there when you need them vs. a hobbyist here one day, gone the next, and a directory or marketplace representative telling you they have no responsibility for the actions of people on their sites.
So rather than state that the difference between a professional pet sitter depends on if one has followed the now common thoughts originally listed, I hold a higher standard as should any pet owner. One doesn't simply create a profile to be a nurse, you don’t wake up as an engineer, and even hair your stylist has a legal standard of education to become a stylist and work in the field to gain the experiences needed for a license. Even though pet sitting is without a legal standard, pet owners must hold a standard for the level of care provided by a professional, because at the end of the day, the care the pet receives is the only thing that truly matters.
Without the regulatory guidance to determine if a person providing care for your pets is professional or not and with certain companies taking advantage of this deficiency; as a pet owner, be thoughtful and ask the right questions. Ask what experience that person has and not just in how many pets they themselves have had or how many years they have taken care of a dog. Ask about their backup plans; what their emergency plan is; what education they have completed to make certain your pet is their #1; about their depth of experience in terms of at least types of animals and types of situations experienced.
Yes, a professional pet sitter should be educated, possess current business license/permits, use a contract, provide background checks, provide insurance, and bonding and be trained in pet first aid so they know what to do when something goes wrong. A professional should go the extra mile, they should have every tool available in their toolbox and they should have the experience of how to use them or access to the business owner that does. The most important tool is in them knowing what to do when reality is different than what was planned in the meet and greet, in an emergency, or when something requires immediate decisions beyond the normal routine.
So do Your Homework. Until regulations are created to truly denote the difference between a professional pet sitter and one who is not, it is up to the pet owner to determine who is best alone in their house and alone with their pet(s). Dot com listing sites, directories, and marketplaces do not have the obligation
, are often misleading or ambiguous at best. They are a tech company first
that to survive needs to create an overabundance of supply in hopes the demand will follow and they provide a false sense of security that their insurance is full and that they educate their sitters. Look at what each sitter has done with their time in the pet sitting world and knowing what you know, expect, and deserve; ask yourself, are they a professional?
