When you plan to go out of town for any vacation over any length of time, taking care of your pets is one of your biggest priorities. However, it can be difficult to know what to do.
Are you looking for overnight pet sitting? Do you need someone to help with cat or dog separation anxiety because you’re leaving your home overnight for the first time, or do you need another service that encapsulates all your pet’s needs?
Use these tips to determine how best to utilize vacation pet sitting services in your home.
Caring for Your Pets in Your Home
When you search for pet sitting in Chicago, you are likely looking for someone who will either visit your home one or more times per day or stay overnight in your home while you’re away. In the past, a pet sitter was a regular person, perhaps with a full-time job, who took time out of their day to care for your pets for short durations while you traveled for work or pleasure.
But these types of independent, informal pet sitters are most often not equipped to deal with all of the issues that may arise while pet parents are away. They typically plan to come in, get the job done, and head out. That works for some pets, but it will not work for all pets.
Speaking of independent cat or dog sitters, it’s important to note that proper pet sitting companies have contingency plans on the off chance that their pet sitter or dog walker has an emergency. Independents, meanwhile, do not. For peace of mind, it’s always best to seek out a company with a large staff able to provide last-minute coverage as well as an office staff who’s constantly monitoring and managing the team out in the field seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.
How to Handle Separation Anxiety in Pets When You’re on Vacation or On the Road
There are a few things to keep in mind when you have anxious pets.
- Dog anxiety and cat anxiety are completely different. Anxious dogs often become extremely overactive and even destructive. They don’t know what to do, and for lack of a better phrase, they “freak out”. Anxious cats tend to hide and may not come out even for their preferred positive stimuli, like food, treats, or toys.
- You must create a plan for your pet sitter. When your pet sitter comes over, it helps if you leave instructions for them that include:
- Pictures of the pets with their names and descriptions
- Locations of supplies
- A general schedule for each of the pets
- Contact numbers for the family, including neighbors or friends nearby that are designated as emergency contacts
- Address dog and cat separation anxiety before the trip. When you take steps to manage your pet’s anxiety, you should have done everything before the trip and explained it to your pet sitter.
If your dog wears a thunder shirt, the pet sitter needs to know why. If your anxious cat tends to hide under a bookcase no cat should fit under, they need to know this, too. Planning ahead also means you left food and water in places where pets hide, covered/removed/protected items in the house that could be damaged, or even crated your dog when you left until the sitter arrived.
Consider Overnight Pet Sitting Services as the Superior Alternative
Pets thrive when they get consistency, and they experience quite a lot of consistency during the week and on the weekend. They know your schedule. If there’s a pet sitter staying in your home, your pets get the attention they need while you’re gone and the schedule doesn’t feel as though it went out the window.
This is especially helpful for dog sitting because dogs, unlike cats, cannot be left in the house for long periods of time. On the other hand, if you have a couple of cats, they might have a perfectly nice time in the house with several full water bowls and an automatic feeder, though it’s still imperative to have someone check-in on their wellbeing no less than once a day while you’re away.
In short, tailor your requests to your pets. Every home and every pet is different.
Find the Perfect Pet Sitter Today
Whether you need a cat sitter, dog sitter, or dog walker in Chicago, remember that you should meet with a new pet sitter in your home, make certain that they are equipped to handle your pets, that they’ve met your pets, and that they can follow through on the schedule you and your pets require. It’s possible to manage separation anxiety in dogs or cats without removing them from their familiar surroundings and kenneling them during your vacation. Your pets will thank you for it, and they’ll have a new friend.
Featured image credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/dog-labrador-pet-canine-companion-1861839/
