Most pet owners face the same dilemma before they go on holiday or a business trip: what should I do with my pet? Since it’s often impossible to bring our beloved friends with us, the best thing we can do is arrange for someone to look after our pets while we’re away. However, that issue raises many questions.

Finding the right person to take care of your pet can be quite difficult because you need someone you can completely rely on to look after not only your pet, but possibly your home too. So, what is it that you can do to ensure you have the right person for the job?

Ask around

Asking people who have experience with pet sitters, such as your vet or a friend who also has a pet, is one of the easiest and most efficient ways of finding the right person. The vet can probably recommend someone they have already worked with, which means your pet will be well looked after in case of a medical emergency.

Your friends or fellow pet owners can also be useful, since they would never recommend someone they have had a negative experience with. This kind of recommendation is always more reliable than one you might receive on paper.

Ask the right questions

There are a lot of things you need to find out before you hire someone. Luckily, you can find some of the most important ones online, but you need to make sure that you add some that are specific to your situation.

What is essential is to find out whether your prospective pet sitter is properly trained, if they have written proof of commercial liability insurance coverage and how they plan to spend the time with your pet.

References and certificates

If your potential pet sitter provides references, you should definitely contact the people who have already left their pets with them. Find out how they really feel and if there were any problems. A reliable pet sitter is bound to have a list of clients and pet care services that can vouch for them.

You might also want to contact a national agency which deals with training and certifying pet sitters, since they will be able to give you a list of experts in pet minding who live close to your home.

Make sure you have a back-up

One thing that a reputable pet sitter should be able to do is to provide a backup housing plan, in case they suddenly become unavailable to look after your pet. You can expect that a good pet sitter has a solid professional relationship with an equally reliable boarding facility, since their reputations depend almost exclusively on the quality of the service they provide.

Draw up a contract

If you choose to have someone come over and stay at your place while you’re away, you have to be aware that they will have access to almost all your belongings, which is why you need to double-check the contract and make sure that its provisions contain all the agreed-upon services.

Let your pet meet its new friend

Even though you might have selected a true professional, the most important thing is how your pet feels about them. Organise a visit before you leave home, so that the pet sitter and your furry friend can meet and spend some time together. Watch them interact and if you see that everything is going smoothly, you can relax and start packing for the trip.

Finding a reliable pet sitter is very important if you want to be able to completely focus on work or having fun while you’re away from home. In order to achieve this goal, you should simply follow these simple tips and prepare everything well in advance. Once you find the right person to look after your pet, you’ll be able to skip this procedure the next time you are planning a trip away from home, because you’ll already have a trustworthy person only a phone-call away.