The Purrfect Nanny & Purrfect Pet Health Blog

Imagine you are prepared for your trip out of the county. Everything is taken care off, you made sure your passport is up to date, the tickets are ordered and last not least it’s time to pack your luggage and leave for the airport.  You know you are leaving behind your best friend, your little dog and you think he’s well taken care of. You leave him behind with someone you feel he’s safe with - a friend or a cheap pet sitter found on Craigslist with no professional background. You can also call it a “one man band” Think twice!

Today I want to tell you about the importance to hire a professional pet sitter - instead of leaving your pet in the hand of a friend, neighbor, or unprofessional person.

We at The Purrfect Nanny, as well as most of our fellow pet sitting company owners in the Atlanta area are aware of the great responsibility which comes with taking care of our client’s pets. Many, just like The Purrfect Nanny have a great backup system, where we can check daily if our sitter made it to your home, or if we have to send someone else to back up for the sitter assigned to your pet. You might wonder now, why I’m writing this particular BLOG.

Let me tell you a story and you will understand! A few days ago we received a call from North Side Hospital in Sandy Springs, just outside Atlanta. We were asked by a nurse if we could back up for someone who has been in the hospital for 4 days and he now revealed to them, that he is currently house and dog sitting for a lady who is on a trip outside the US. I was very reluctant to say yes, because of us not having a legal contract to enter the home of the client, it could be difficult. However, once the wonderful and concerned nurse told me that the dog has been looked up in a bathroom in the home for 4 days, I said, I will take care of it.

My thoughts were running wild how to organize it, without stepping over the legal boundaries. I informed my sitter Gretchen, who just lives 4 miles away from the hospital and we made a plan. She would pick up the key from the hospital and let the house/pet sitter sign the legal contact, so we can enter the home. We were considering calling the police and let them know what’s going on and asking for help by entering the home. Shortly after we learned that the home was a apartment in a huge complex. Therefore we could eliminate calling the police and turned for help to the apartment management. Since we did not have consent from the owner of the home, they did not give us authorization to enter but they went in and brought out a little Maltese. The dog was in real bad condition but luckily he was alive.

Later I received two calls, one from the concerned nurse, inquiring about the condition of the dog - she was anxious because she had not heard back from us at this point and almost at the same time from my sitter - who just finished up business in the apartment complex. Both parties told me how upset they were about the attitude of the house/pet sitter in charge. He was questioning what could be possible wrong with the dog. He did not comprehend that the dog could have died or gotten very sick. This person was obviously NOT a pet person at all.

The moral of this story is - the only way to make sure your pet is taken care of is by hiring a professional service.

Now, you probably wonder, how do we make sure our sitters makes it to the home every day and does not end up in the hospital without us knowing about it. First of all, all our sitters at The Purrfect Nanny have either a spouse or a room mate. In case of an emergency this person would let us know. Second, we have a recording system in our pet sitting software, which requires every pet sitter to sign for the sittings done daily. We would surely get suspicious if those sitting had not been marked off by the sitter.  Therefore always have a full overview about the sittings being done - or we can act accordingly. If a sitter gets ill and can call us, we have a back up system - there are always other sitters who can take over.

And this is the big difference between a unprofessional and a professional service!

What will you choose the next time you go on a trip?

Here are some links to other professional pet sitting services which come highly recommended:

Buckhead Pet Pals
Atlanta Pet Sitting

Feel free to contact us if you need more info and about our own availability at your location.