Having been a pet sitter for over sixteen years makes for great dinner party conversation. People listen in awe as I relay some of our ‘nightmare’ stories and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told I should write a book. Some of our stories are downright unbelievable. I assure you, we can’t make this stuff up!
As in home pet sitters we get a lot of the usual requests like opening/closing the drapes, bring in the mail, etc. every once in a while we run across something that just leaves our jaw on the floor.
What are some of our horror stories?
Go get a cup of coffee and get ready to be amused (or horrified).
First up is a client who had one cat. She requested we leave the back door WIDE OPEN 24/7 so her cat could come and go as he pleased. As you can imagine, we were VERY uncomfortable with this request and made sure she signed the contract to show we were not responsible for anything that could happen. We asked her if she wasn’t afraid of critters coming in and eating all the food? Imagine our surprise when the client gave her “I’m home” phone call when she complained there was no food left for the cat because something had come in and eaten it all?
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We had a client who had gotten a new puppy, a jack russell terrier. She requested at night that I baby gate the puppy and her older dog (a bulldog) into the laundry room at night.
When I came in the next morning it looked like a ticker tape parade had gone through!
The puppy had peeled off and shredded all the wallpaper on the walls in the laundry room!
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We had another client with three cats who had one litterbox the size of a shoe box. We diligently scooped that box every single day and made sure everything was pristine on the last visit. She called to complain that 1) the box hadn’t been scooped all week because she counted only one bag of dirty litter in her trash can. Well, that’s because rather than use a bag every day we scooped into the same bag all week and then disposed of it at the end of the sit. 2) She also complained that her litterbox wasn’t clean when she came home. She had three cats using one box and arrived home 36 hours after our last visit. Of course it wasn’t clean! She’s lucky they used it at all and not the floor!
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I once had a client whose dog I absolutely adored. The client accused me of not walking her dog but instead just letting her out in the yard. Her evidence for this claim?
She counted the shopping bags under the sink and none were missing.
She said there was no way I had walked the dog and picked up the poop. I am a pet sitter. I probably have 46 bags in every pocket of every jacket I own! No bags were missing because I used the ones in my pockets!
As you can see, we meet all types of people and some are very hard to please. We do our absolute best though!
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