Have you always wanted to work with animals but felt limited by lack of opportunity? Maybe you envy others that manage to do what they love all day, every day, and wish you could do the same?
If this is you, read on, for professional pet sitting is a growing market that could just make your dreams come true.
There has been an explosion of self-employed pet sitters over the last few years. It’s a great job with a huge capacity for business growth and one which offers a wonderful life change for animal lovers to remove themselves from the traditional nine to five lifestyle.
The Opportunity is Vast
The more we learn about our companion animals the less we want to put them into a kennel or cage environment. Kennelled dogs usually suffer with stress and cats get very upset when other, unknown cats, are in their space.
In my local town there are four well-established pet sitting businesses and although they work together to cover the needs of local pets and their owners, they still have to turn people away. The situation is the same for every town that I know of. There are simply not enough good pet sitters to go around.
Which is why you can follow your dreams and start your own pet care business, with confidence.
The Pet Sitter's Role
Days spent as a pet sitter or dog walker are fantastic. One day you may be walking a group of dogs and watching them play and the next you may be feeding hens, fussing cats and even grooming horses. You build up a relationship with so many animals and learn plenty of things about different breeds.
Many pet sitters study dog or cat behaviour to enhance their pet care skills and some even become dog trainers, groomers or even behaviourists after pet sitting for a couple of years. It’s addictive, the more you learn about the animals with which we share our lives, the less you feel that you know.
To be good at the role of pet sitter it’s important to have common sense, a friendly nature and be calm under pressure. Some animal handling skills will come in handy too. That said, I know people that have worked in an office all of their lives but built a successful pet sitting business based solely upon experience with their own dogs.
The good pet sitter and dog walker will be insured and some prefer to be police checked, they will also have studied the physical and emotional needs of every species that they will encounter in the role.
To be successful as a pet sitter is all about simply investing and believing in yourself. The customer base is certainly out there and domestic animals are a bigger part of our lives than they have ever been before.
The pet sitter business aim is to become a great pet nanny. The key to victory is to love the animals and build trust in their human guardians. It’s a great job too, so why not leave the rat race behind and change your own life for the better. I mean, who wouldn’t want to walk in the woods or play with kittens for a living?
At the time of publishing, entering the code PETCAREB49 at checkout will reduce the price of our
Pet Care Business Diploma Course to £49.