Pet Sitting Cost

You should easily be able to charge more than you currently are! The people here who do house visits charge between $20-25 per 30 minute visit ($25-35 for an hour). They also generally add $5 per extra pet, though I think that's silly. The real cost to you is the time to get to their house; adding an extra pet isn't that much extra work for you. Lots of them charge extra for walks too

In order to have someone come to my house it would have been at least $60-75 per day, PLUS the cost of walks. No thank you! I'd hire you in a heartbeat at your prices!

I recently dog sat for a woman who (at her insistence) paid $20/visit ($60/day) for her three extremely well-behaved dogs (who basically just wanted to play fetch and snooze). I felt sort of guilty.

Usually I try to keep it around $10/visit (or walk) so $20/day but I almost always visit more than twice...I just don't charge for it haha.

I appreciate all of the opinions/experiences. What do you guys think about insurance? The other forum seems to think it's very unwise for me to watch dogs without being insured, but this isn't really a business and it's something I can only do for like 4-5 months a year. It's too late in the summer for me to really advertize now anyways, maybe I'll just tell my current "clients" to spread the word. The owner of the 12 year old want me to watch her again in August, so that's good.


Yeah, I'd be like that lol. I want to hang out with your dog longer, you shouldn't have to pay for that. And I don't want people cutting back on how often their dogs get to go out or get exercised because they can't afford it. I think I'll continue charging by the day as opposed to time/per visit.

I paid $50/day for three visits/day for my four relatively well-behaved dogs. I'd like to be able to keep that up but if I leave for like a week or more I may have to cut it down by a few bucks... lol

I charge $15/day for up to 3 visits. $20/day for 4 visits. I would charge more, but the problem I run into is competing with the local vets who board also and charge roughly $13/day.

If I were to do live-in pet sitting, I would charge at least $20/day. I have been asked before, but the most they wanted to pay was $10/day. People are extremely cheap around here.

I've been paid anywhere from $10-30 per day for actual pet sitting in my own home. I've never had a set price as I've never been in a situation where pet sitting is something super convenient. When I move into my own home, I do want to pet sit more, and maybe then I'd have a set price? I don't know!

I will pay you all the money to sit on Frodo when you get your own place

I've been payed everywhere from 20-75 per day for watching pets, always at their house because of spazcorg.

I dogsat once. I was pressured into it, by my boss at the pet hotel, because some regulars were boarding their dog for the week & they had a 10 week old puppy that didn't have her shots so she couldn't be boarded. My boss OF COURSE coerced me into puppy-sitting all of the underage pups, because she has a dog killing Pit Bull. Great. D: I had this puppy for 10 days, I got her 100% house-trained in that time, socialized her with dozens of friendly dogs, taught her perfect bite inhibition, crate trained her, and gave her a bath and nail grind before she left. Her owners gave me... $20! What. the. f. I just wanted to punch them. It cost $20 alone for their adult dog (who was a small BostonxBeagle. puppy was a Pit Bull.) to get a crappy exit bath at the hotel. His full stay cost $500. And they gave me $20 for puppy-sitting their 10 week old, for 10 days!!!

That was the last time I dogsat for anyone besides friends & family. I'd definitely ask for $50 a day, but that would include an hour or more of exercise, multiple walks, and at least 3 visits (not including gas). I'd probably charge just slightly more to stay at their home. However, this is California. A lot depends on the cost of living in your area. It costs at least $50 to board ONE dog at a decent pet resort, and get any kind of exercise. It costs $20/day for one dog to board at a vet where the don't even leave their kennel.

Well I feel cheap... My friends pay me in home cooked food -.-

:lol-sign: Well, Allie usually pays me in portraits and/or photos. Unless I'm really hurting for money

O__O Can't say I'd be giving any money to a vet if I knew they didn't take the boarded dogs out, whether I was actually boarding a dog there or not. My vet just recently started boarding dogs (used to only do cat boarding), and the dogs get out at least 5 times a day.

I had to board Gonzo several years ago and needed to get him somewhere QUICK. I took him to my then Vet's boarding facility, and they acted like he'd get out a lot for exercise. When I picked him up he had pee all over himself, he smelled like something I've never smelled before... never. The white on him was stained yellow. And he has never had an accident. He also slept for days straight, I heard tons of barking from outside, they refused to let me see the kennels, and they didn't return any of the bedding/blankets/toys I brought with him. I'm sure they were covered in pee/poo. I asked if he was walked and they just skirted around the question, like "oh yes they get lots of TLC!" Then I found out after calling that they didn't consider it "safe" to walk the dogs outside of the facility, so yeah, he didn't leave his kennel and was probably going nuts the whole time.

The Vet that I worked at briefly kept the dogs in TINY kennel runs. A German Shepherd could barely turn around in one, and couldn't take a step forward. Small dog kennels were tiny cages. The dogs were taken out twice a day for one minute, to a bush, in a parking lot. Most of them just went to the bathroom in their kennels and barked non-stop from frustration. And it was an upscale vet and boarding was like $30 there! All summer, the tiny kennel room is filled with 20+ dogs, and they rarely even get looked at.

Ewwww yah, like, they didn't even bathe him to *try* and cover it up before bringing him to you? :yikes:

Pretty sure my vet only has like 5 dogs max, due to room and time LOL

That's what happened the first time Yoshi bloated and I had to leave her at the vets overnight.

When I came to pick her up a few days later she smelled HORRIBLE. It didn't smell like she just had an accident and laid in it. It smelled like the first day she was there she had an accident and she laid in it for all the days she was there

I may trust vets for medical stuff but definitely never to watch my dog.

LoL. I'm just such a horrible cook that when my friend who knows how to make all these traditional Asian dishes offers me dinner/lunch instead of payment I always jump on it.

Srsly Yoko.

The more Vets I know, the more I realize most don't care much about anything beyond vet care. I have only seen one Vet (my Vet) that actually has facilities to EXERCISE the dogs. A Vet of all people should understand that dogs desperately need exercise and plenty of potty breaks to be healthy & happy. Most Vets are located in parking lots with maybe a bush or two. Where do the dogs go to the bathroom? Where are they walked, around a parking lot?

I was anti-boarding after that experience, until I worked at the pet hotel. Even then, $40 a night only gets your dog a kennel and 2 potty breaks in a small room. You had to spend $20 more a night to get your dog in a playroom during the day to exercise. We went above and beyond all of that and gave every dog hours of potty breaks and playtimes in the playroom, whether their owners paid for it or not, and kept every kennel clean with clean bedding. But I heard that the other pet hotels around the country don't do anything extra for the dogs. There are REALLY nice boarding facilities, like Wag, but most are like $100/dog/night if you want them out of their kennel most of the day.

I think I'd opt for a petsitter if I had to, but I'd feel comfortable boarding at a really nice pet resort if it came to that. Besides the fact that I'd be paying a lot more money. I don't think I'll ever have to do that, as I have family & friends that love my dogs. They do enjoy a day at dog daycare occasionally.

Same here

I could even see on her back legs where they had tried to brush out poo before bringing her out to me. I was pretty horrified. Yoshi sounds like your dog she will hold it forever and never has accidents.

There have been a couple times where she didn't go out all night then the next day and held it until that evening so I know she had to have been in the little cage for a long time because Yoshi hates having accidents and even more hates getting it on her.

When they brought her out to me she literally jumped into my arms.

It's sad that I trust these people to do risky surgery on my dog but I can't trust them to do small basic pet care things for her. There has only been a couple times she has had to stay over night at a vet and every time after that I show up multiple times the next day to check on her.

I would love it if someone paid me in home cooked meals!

Make me a couple casseroles to thaw and i'd be good as gold

My friend makes me home made teriyaki chicken and fried rice... >.< Thinking about that makes my can chili I ate tonight depressing.

Let's just say that I take care of my friend's animals -- at the really good friend rate. It's 27 miles round trip, usually feeding horses that have to be tethered individually so they won't fight over food, trying to keep the goat from tripping me or ripping my pants with his horns or knocking the buckets of feed out of my hands, figuring out how he's managed to get into the back yard fence (he goes through the dog door into the house) then there's feeding all the house dogs -- usually at least four, then the kennel dogs, between 10 and 15. If she's got a litter planned it usually manages to work out where she has an emergency medical trip that hits shortly after they've been whelped (probably stress and lack of sleep), cleaning the kennels, getting the kennel dogs out to run for awhile . . .

$10 a day

But in the summer I get to use the pool