As pet sitters we get TONS of last minute pet sitting requests (24-48 hours notice) and though we always try to be there for our clients, sometimes we aren’t able to facilitate those requests. Why? Last minute scheduling.
At a minimum you should schedule your pet sitting visits at least a week in advance when it’s not a holiday, at least 2-4 weeks when you will be needing visits during a holiday period. What is the point to scheduling early?
First and foremost it greatly increases your chances of your pet sitter having availability. Pet sitting is scheduled on a “first come, first serve” basis because we only have so many hours in the day and can’t be everywhere at one time. If you get on the books far in advance, you don’t have to worry about your sitter being available or not.
Secondly, it is courteous. Contrary to popular belief pet sitters do have lives outside of taking care of everyone’s pets all day. We have friends, family and other personal obligations that we do our best to schedule around our pet sitting visits. When a last minute request for pet sitting comes in, often times in order to meet those needs your pet sitter has to give up something they had already planned.
And lastly, this may seem obvious to some of you but pet sitters have more than just one or two clients. Our company alone (which is relatively small in comparison with other pet sitting companies) services 130+ pet families. It takes a lot of work to keep sitters available and manage all of our client requests so that we don’t have to say “no” to anyone. Scheduling in advance allows us to accomplish this.
While we, and the vast majority of pet sitters, do our bests to accommodate last minute requests we so greatly appreciate and value the clients who take the time to be prepared and schedule their pet sitting services 1-4 weeks ahead of time.
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