Hiring a Pet Sitter? Here’s What to Write Down First

A friend once came back from a weekend away to find her cat’s insulin had been given at the wrong time for three days straight — not because the sitter was careless, but because «twice a day» was the only instruction she’d left, with no actual times written down.

The Core Info Every Sitter Needs

• Feeding: what, how much, how often, and exactly when — «twice a day» is not the same as «8am and 6pm,» and the gap between doses matters more than people expect, especially for pets on medication
• Medication: name, dose, timing, and what it’s for — a sitter who knows why a pill matters is far more likely to notice if something seems off
• Emergency vet contact: name, phone number, and address — not just «our usual vet,» since a sitter unfamiliar with the area may need the actual address typed out, not assumed knowledge
• A backup contact: someone reachable if you’re unreachable (flight, no signal, different time zone) — this is the detail most commonly skipped entirely

Details That Seem Obvious Until They’re Not

• Where food and supplies are actually kept, not just «in the kitchen» — specific cabinet, specific shelf
• Any behavioral quirks that could read as an emergency but aren’t (a cat that hides for hours after a stranger enters, a dog that always paces before a storm)
• Anything the pet is not allowed to have — a well-meaning sitter offering a table scrap that happens to be toxic is a common, preventable scenario
• Whether the pet is allowed outside unsupervised, and for how long

What to Do If Something Goes Wrong

Write this down explicitly, even if it feels excessive:

1. At what point does the sitter call the emergency vet versus wait and monitor
2. Whether they’re authorized to approve vet treatment up to a certain cost, or need to reach you first
3. Where a spare key or entry code is, in case they need to leave and re-enter quickly

What to Do This Week

1. If you already have a sitter lined up, check whether your current instructions include actual times, not just frequencies
2. Confirm the emergency vet contact is current — clinics change hours, sometimes close
3. Write down feeding and medication details even for a sitter who’s watched your pet before; memory fades faster than people expect over a few months

Making the Handoff Easy

The instructions that actually get followed are the ones a sitter can glance at without calling you to clarify. Mochi’s records already have the feeding plan, medication schedule, and vet contact stored per pet — sharing that directly with a sitter (or exporting it) means you’re not rewriting the same information from memory every time someone new steps in.