Who pet sits?

[Anonymous]

Out of curiosity- I've talked to a few families who are looking for dog sitters, but they want to pay like $30-40 per day but also want the dog sitter to be at their home for most of the day and to sleep there at night. Outside of a service (which would presumably charge much more than they're paying) who has so much time free to be on call day and night when a family goes out of town?

[Anonymous]

College students

[Anonymous]

I do this regularly, not on call all day because I work but I do stay over. I call it house sitting, even though I am mostly there for the dogs. I bring in the papers and mail and make it clear that the house is occupied. Nice way to make some extra cash and stay in some really nice homes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do this regularly, not on call all day because I work but I do stay over. I call it house sitting, even though I am mostly there for the dogs. I bring in the papers and mail and make it clear that the house is occupied. Nice way to make some extra cash and stay in some really nice homes!

So this is what I am trying to do, but the dog owners keep telling me they really want someone to stay near the house all day long to let the dog out multiple times. If you were available for jobs like this, you couldn't hold a full time professional job, so I was wondering for whom (other than a nearby college student with a flexible schedule and a car) such an arrangement for be profitable.

[Anonymous]

Why do you have to stay near the house? If the dog's owners need you to let the dog out at, lets say 8am, 1pm, 5pm, and then again at 9pm, how is it their business where you are otherwise? How does your being near their house when you aren't in it benefit them? Its not like the dog can call you and say "hey dogwalker, I need to pee. Can you come on over and let me know now?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you have to stay near the house? If the dog's owners need you to let the dog out at, lets say 8am, 1pm, 5pm, and then again at 9pm, how is it their business where you are otherwise? How does your being near their house when you aren't in it benefit them? Its not like the dog can call you and say "hey dogwalker, I need to pee. Can you come on over and let me know now?"

Apparently the owners work from home or part time, and it's not just once during the middle of the day. They want the dog to be let out at 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, etc. or whatever, or they want someone home all day so the dog doesn't get "lonely."

[Anonymous]

I use a dogsitting service and I pay $17 for each 15 minute walk. If someone were to spend the night it would be an additional $50ish for them to spend the night, not including the costs of the walks during the day. The people you are talking to want to seriously underpay you for the going rate in this area.

How many walks do they expect for $30-$40/day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you have to stay near the house? If the dog's owners need you to let the dog out at, lets say 8am, 1pm, 5pm, and then again at 9pm, how is it their business where you are otherwise? How does your being near their house when you aren't in it benefit them? Its not like the dog can call you and say "hey dogwalker, I need to pee. Can you come on over and let me know now?"

Apparently the owners work from home or part time, and it's not just once during the middle of the day. They want the dog to be let out at 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, etc. or whatever, or they want someone home all day so the dog doesn't get "lonely."

$30-$40 is WAY underpaying you for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you have to stay near the house? If the dog's owners need you to let the dog out at, lets say 8am, 1pm, 5pm, and then again at 9pm, how is it their business where you are otherwise? How does your being near their house when you aren't in it benefit them? Its not like the dog can call you and say "hey dogwalker, I need to pee. Can you come on over and let me know now?"

Apparently the owners work from home or part time, and it's not just once during the middle of the day. They want the dog to be let out at 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, etc. or whatever, or they want someone home all day so the dog doesn't get "lonely."

I am the poster who does this regularly and I have never had a family that was as uptight about it I guess. Unless you are training a puppy, dogs don't need to go out every two hours. Perhaps they should find someone who is retired or find a doggie daycare place and spend some more money?

Most people I work for, work themselves or are busy taking kids to activities all day. All of them expect that I will care for their animals appropriately around my work schedule...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you have to stay near the house? If the dog's owners need you to let the dog out at, lets say 8am, 1pm, 5pm, and then again at 9pm, how is it their business where you are otherwise? How does your being near their house when you aren't in it benefit them? Its not like the dog can call you and say "hey dogwalker, I need to pee. Can you come on over and let me know now?"

Apparently the owners work from home or part time, and it's not just once during the middle of the day. They want the dog to be let out at 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, etc. or whatever, or they want someone home all day so the dog doesn't get "lonely."

$30-$40 is WAY underpaying you for that.

I have a FT job and based on the pay offered, I assumed that this was for evening, night and morning care and not spending all day at their home. I assumed that the owners worked full time and had an arrangement with a dog walker or a neighbor or something like that. I was surprised to hear the level of service and time commitment they expected for such a low rate.

[Anonymous]

OP here- I just posted- so the point is this is why I asked, because I was curious to know who they were hiring for these positions.

[Anonymous]

My neighbor pet sits for me and my dog goes to stay with her. I think the owners want their dogs not to be lonely.

[Anonymous]

My dog walking service charge $80 for an overnight stay. They also offer 3 visits a day, and that's $60.

[Anonymous]

My pet sitting company doesn't do overnights but we make multiple visits which equal out to be between $60 and $80 for visits through out the day. This is what we do for a living and operate in a specific service area.

[Anonymous]

i actually have someone currently house-sitting for free - she needed a place to stay in the city for awhile; my dog needed a sitter. it worked out. the catch is that we continue to pay our dogwalker for regular midday walks and for occasional doggie daycare so that pup has lots of exercise and our sitter can live her life.

before we found the sitter through a friend of a friend, we looked into our dogwalking company and some sitting services. some do overnight stay, some do not. rates ranged between 30-80/day. i imagine the folks who do it either do it for a living or work parttime from home or are students or otherwise have flexible schedules. lots of people do.