Don’t Be Fooled – What Really Matters When Selecting A Pet Sitter

When you’re online searching through the multitude of pet sitting companies in your area it can be a bit overwhelming and you might be asking yourself, who can I trust and how are these companies any different from each other?

While we can’t tell you who to pick as your pet sitter or a fool proof method of how to figure out if a company is trust worthy or not, we can give you some pointers on what to pay attention to and most importantly, what not to pay attention to.

What does not matter when researching a pet sitting company:

• Memberships to pet sitting organizations – While it is good that a pet sitter be active in the industry that they work in being a member of large pet sitting organizations really doesn’t mean anything to you, the pet owner. Being a member of organizations like Pet Sitters International or National Association Of Professional Pet Sitters means nothing more than they paid the fee to become a member
• Insurance and bonding – It may seem odd to have this on the list of things that don’t matter when searching for a pet sitter but let me explain. Yes, a pet sitting company should carry insurance and bonding but this shouldn’t carry much weight on your decision. Carrying insurance and bonding simply means that they paid the fee to carry insurance – there are no other requirements to obtain pet sitter’s insurance so technically being insured doesn’t mean the company is trust worthy.

What does matter when researching a pet sitting company:

• Online reviews – Sites like Angies List, Yelp or even Google Places are great places to get reviews on the company you’re interested in. The company cannot change the review and customers are free to speak their mind about the experience they had with the pet sitting company. *A note about Yelp: if you’re searching on Yelp to find reviews on any company, be sure to check out their “filtered” reviews. Many times companies have multiple reviews that are hidden simply because they haven’t written many reviews on Yelp. To find out more about how to find a company’s filtered reviews check out this article.
• Length of time in business – Like insurance and bonding, this topic shouldn’t carry a lot of weight on your decision but it should be a factor to consider. If a business has a history of being unreliable and untrustworthy, they won’t be able to stay in business for a substantial amount of time. Businesses that have been able to stand the test of time are more likely to be trustworthy and reliable.

There are MANY factors that go in to deciding what pet sitting business is right for you but I hope that this article has at least helped you scratch the service with some things that can point you in the right direction!