Questions to ask a pet sitter before you book

Before you hire a pet sitter, ask about insurance, bonding and background checks, hands-on experience, what happens in an emergency, how often you’ll get updates, how your keys and home are handled, references, and exactly what’s included in the price. Ask every sitter the same questions, in person if you can, and write the answers down. Clear, specific answers are a good sign. Vague ones are worth a second look.

This guide walks through each question, why it matters, and how Hope answers it for her own business, so you have one honest example to compare against.

Start with a meeting, not a booking

The standard advice is simple: interview several candidates, and always check credentials and references. The best place to do that is your own home, with your pets in the room. You’ll learn more from how a sitter greets a nervous dog than from any profile.

How Hope answers: every new client gets a free walkthrough before the first booking. Hope or one of her sitters comes to your home, meets your pets, goes over their routine and answers your questions, and you can ask for Hope herself. What you share becomes a written care plan. After that, you’ll know who’s coming before every visit. If you want to get ready for that meeting, the pet care plan checklist lists everything worth having on paper.

1. Are you insured?

Insurance protects you and the sitter if something goes wrong in your home or with your pet. Ask what kind of coverage the sitter carries. Don’t assume someone found through a friend or an app has it.

How Hope answers: yes, Hope’s Loving Pet Care is insured.

2. Are you bonded or background-checked?

Bonding and background checks are separate things from insurance, and not every sitter has them. If they matter to you, ask directly and ask what each one covers.

How Hope answers: ask Hope directly at the walkthrough. She’ll give you a straight answer to this, and to any question about training or certifications.

3. What experience do you have with pets like mine?

General animal love isn’t the same as experience with a senior dog, a diabetic cat or a pet who hides from strangers. Ask for specifics: which animals, which conditions, and for how long.

How Hope answers: Hope has many years of hands-on experience. She started volunteering at Francis Veterinary Hospital in Golden at 14, cleaning exam rooms, helping with X-rays and observing surgeries. She specializes in blind and deaf dogs, feral cats, diabetic pets and pets with cancer, and she has raised her own dogs, Misha and Oreo, since they were 8 weeks old. Every sitter on her small team is a close friend she has personally vetted and trained to her own standard of care. You can read more on the About Hope page.

4. Can you handle my pet’s medication?

If your pet takes medication, ask exactly what the sitter is comfortable doing, and how doses and times get tracked.

How Hope answers: Hope follows medication schedules as part of the written care plan. Tell her what your pet needs at the walkthrough, and she’ll tell you honestly what she can do.

5. What happens in an emergency?

Ask what the sitter does if your pet gets sick or hurt, if something breaks in the house, or if they can’t reach you. A good sitter has your vet’s number, an emergency contact and a plan before the first night.

How Hope answers: your vet and emergency contacts go into the written care plan at the walkthrough. If something seems wrong with your pet or your home, you hear about it right away. Hope is accountable for every visit, and if a mistake is made, she owns it.

6. How often will I hear from you?

Updates are the difference between enjoying your trip and checking your phone every hour. Ask how often, by what method, and whether updates include photos.

How Hope answers: on overnights you get at least one text and photo every day, and you get one after every drop-in visit. First-time clients get a morning and an evening update.

7. How do you handle keys and my home?

A sitter will have access to your house while you’re away. Ask how keys and any alarm codes are handled, and what the sitter does in your home beyond pet care.

How Hope answers: talk through keys and access at the walkthrough so it’s written into your care plan. On every overnight, your sitter does a photo walkthrough when they arrive and when they leave, cleans the spaces they used and strips the bed. They also bring in mail and packages, waters plants, turns lights on and off and takes out the trash.

8. Can I talk to past clients?

References tell you what a sitter is like on day five of a long trip, not just at the first meeting. Ask for them, or read reviews from real clients.

How Hope answers: you can read what her clients say on the reviews page, including families with blind, deaf and diabetic dogs and a feral cat.

9. What’s included in the price?

Two quotes for “an overnight” can cover very different things. Ask what the rate includes, what costs extra (more pets, holidays, short notice) and what the full stay will cost.

How Hope answers: overnights are $120 a night for one dog, and new clients pay $100 a night for their first stay. New clients also get 20% off their first booking of drop-in visits or walks. For other pets and services, use the house sitting cost calculator or the pet care cost calculator. Hope confirms your exact rate at the walkthrough, before you book. Every service is listed on the services page.

The questions a good sitter should ask you

Interviews go both ways. The Pet Professional Guild’s checklist for clients lists what a careful sitter should ask you before a booking: home access and alarm codes, emergency and backup contacts, your vet, medications and allergies, feeding, walks, sleeping spots, and where a cat likes to hide. If a sitter doesn’t ask about these things, that tells you something too.

More answers are on the FAQ page, and the rest of Hope’s pet care guides cover costs, boarding and getting your home ready for a sitter.