023- Q and A Episode

On the podcast today we answer some listener questions regarding our favorite gear, how to handle pet aggression, and what our plans are for the future. 

Aggression

https://www.cathealth.com/behavior/aggression/1222-cat-aggression 

https://petsittingology.com/client-and-aggressive-dog/

https://www.thesprucepets.com/dogs-and-aggression-1118229

https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/common-dog-behavior-issues/aggression

https://www.petsitusa.com/blog/?p=2227

Gear

a lead by Rescue Rope Leads.

Osprey that is good). Fanny packs are coming back into style, and are super handy as well.

Tom Bihn and TimBuk2 backpacks 

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

Provided by otter.ai

Collin 0:15

I'm Collin  Meghan  0:16   and I'm Meghan. And this is pet sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about  Collin  0:21   life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet.  Meghan  0:26   Welcome to Episode 23. Today is our q&a episode. You guys submitted some questions for us. And we have some answers. So let's get to it.  Collin  0:35   A quick caveat before we get started here. Obviously, we are not experts in all of these fields. These are just our opinions. We'd love to get feedback and how you would have answered some of these questions. You can send those to feedback at pet sitter conventional com or hit us up on Facebook or Instagram.  Meghan  0:50   Our first question does come from Instagram. She said this march will be one year that I have been operating my business full time. I offer boarding daycare. Walking and pet visit, I'm so busy. The last day I had off was in September, I'm now ready to hire some help, I will be hiring a person to help with my daycare and dog walking, which I'm pretty confident about all the requirements that are needed to do. I would also like hire an independent contractor to board my dogs in their own home. I know it's doable since two other companies in my area have multiple borders. My question is, how do I find out how much to pay an independent contractor to board dogs in their own home, knowing that they must pay their own insurance. So I think this is really dependent on your area. You can look at how much other people in your area charge. And then you said backed out a rate for the insurance.  Collin  1:40   However, keep in mind that if there are a true independent contractor, they can and should be probably setting their own rate. Once you start blurring that line of how much you control of what they can or cannot charge that's really starting to become more of the territory of an actual employee to a small As tax and legal purposes go do be careful about how you start setting that rate and controlling it.  Meghan  2:05   Our next question is, what's the consensus on accepting clients with unneutered or unspayed dog and then even more specifically, walking a female while she's in her heat? I would love to hear your thoughts. I think this really depends on you and what you want for your business if you are okay with a neutered males potentially marking in your home. And if you're okay with potentially using diapers on females that aren't eat and can potentially separate them as well then that's fine. It's really all dependent on what you want.  Collin  2:36   Right? And always checking to make sure that it is okay with the clients that you have. If you have if you're taking care of other clients. If you're boarding in your home and your or in your facility. Are they okay with their dogs being around unspayed or unneutered dogs as well? And then do you have the capacity to keep them separate if you decide to take them on the second half of this question, as far as walking a female While she's in her heat, it is perfectly doable. Obviously, you need to take some precautions. So if you have a path that you walk, that you know that there are stray dogs in the area, or that there are male dogs behind fences and things like that, maybe avoid those areas when you're doing the walk, there are things that are out there to try and mask the scent of a female in heat while she's on her walk. Those can be cumbersome, and some are more or less effective than others. So really using your best judgment, keeping the dog on a on a leash when you're doing the walk, so that she's not off wandering because that's what she's going to want to do is going to go out and wander that you have good hold of that leash at all times, getting into and out of a vehicle or coming in and out of a door and maybe changing up the path that you walk so that she doesn't encounter those males that may be walking around.  Meghan  3:52   And this gets to the broader topic of what clients do you want. Are there specific breeds that you're okay with? Would you prefer a large dogs or small Dogs, or do you want ones that require medication or not? We have  Collin  4:05   another question here. Have you had a pet with a medical emergency while the owner was away? Did the owners get upset, even if it wasn't preventable? And how did you handle this? Unfortunately, we have had this happen to us. We had a client where we were doing walks a couple times a week, it was about a 20 minute walk all told, just back and forth down the road. The dog was older. And we were walking two dogs at a time we went out on a walk brought the dog back. When we got the dog inside, we noticed that the older dog was panting really heavily and was starting to become lethargic and unresponsive. The walk was not any more out of the ordinary than the other walks that we had done. And so we were kind of caught off guard by this and a little shocked. We monitored the dog offered it water and it kind of just started to deteriorate. So we contacted the owner immediately at that point. We rushed the dog to the vet The event did have a full physical on the dog, he found a previously undiagnosed heart condition that had led to some severe complications. The owner was not mad about this, the owner was just as shocked as we were. And so we were able to talk to the client through this process. And we refunded that walk and the rest of the week's walk as well because we felt that was the right thing to do in that situation. Now, unfortunately, not all owners are going to be as understandable as this one was, we were very fortunate and thankful for that. In those really rough times, sometimes the best thing to do is to refund as much as possible all of it all that day or all the next day that they had booked as a way of acknowledging that something happened and that you are trying your best to make it right.  Meghan  5:51   And we learned in that situation to always be observant of the dog. That's very important. Also to contact the owner right away. If anything seems out of the ordinary,  Collin  6:01   we were also asked, What's the best way to market your dog business?  Meghan  6:06   This really depends on your business as the question says. So there can be a lot of different answers to this. There are a lot of great ways to market your business. But ultimately, it's going to be what is best for your business, if you are really Instagram savvy, and you can use all of the hashtags, and you know how to tag and post and all of that, and you have a good following on there, then maybe that's a great way to maybe that's the best way for your business to market. If you have great relationships with the vets and the groomers, and potentially other doggy daycares in the area, then maybe that's a great way. I think if we had to choose the best way to market it would have to be referrals, and word of mouth, and has been so huge, at least for us, and we know a lot of other pet sitters as well.  Collin  6:53   And that's a very unsatisfying answer, because it's an answer that you don't have a whole lot of control over. You can't exactly Tell people you can't exactly be in somebody else's conversation to remind them to refer you. Now, you can do that by providing excellent outstanding consistent service time and time again, you can also provide business cards with a discount code that they can give out so that for every person they refer, that person gets a discount on their next service that they book with you. So thinking of incentives like that, to give out to people to encourage those referrals can really go a long way.  Meghan  7:30   And this goes into the next question of what makes up a secret sauce and an industry that is so saturated. And that's true. There are lots and lots of pet sitters out there, which is great because if you need a backup sitter, there's likely one in your area, but at the same time, there is a lot of competition out there. So there are many different answers to this question. But we feel it's really important to be kind and professional. Knowing how to market yourself and how to keep your clients also knowing your limits in your personal life and in your business life as well.  Collin  8:04   And I know that the pet industry often gets viewed as being extremely saturated. And there are lots of markets that do seem to have an overabundance of pet professionals in the area. But what that should drive is a desire to dig into and find a really specific niche market that you can grow in. So maybe there are tons and tons of generic dog walkers. But how many are in an area that's focused specifically on geriatric or special needs path? That can be a great way to set yourself apart from others in your area?  Meghan  8:38   Another question is, do you guys have employees icees or just you and if you have employees, any hiring advice, or incentives, etc, it's just us which is great. So we don't currently have any employees or any independent contractors and we haven't in the eight years that we've been pezzini that may be something that we look to in the future, but for right now With our family and the way it is we are comfortable with the number of clients that we have. And just are okay with it just being us.  Collin  9:08   And as far as advice or incentives, those kind of things we actually do just as a teaser. We do have some great interviews coming up that talk specifically about employees, how to keep them how to hire good ones, to be on the lookout for that. We were also asked, Are you going to continue to stay with rover or branch out and get away from them? When we first started pettite sitting, we didn't do it to do it full time. It really was something to earn extra money while we were graduate students and we really didn't have a plan to be here eight years later. As such, we have remained on rover but we have continued to take private clients on the side as well. It's been beneficial because as we have been moving and bouncing around, we really haven't had a place that we've stayed at very long geographically. So it's been beneficial for us to be on it. Now when we do move eventually to a place where we foresee ourselves being longer. That will be the time where we're able to to branch off and go truly fully independent at that time.  Meghan  10:05   This leads right into the next question of what are your goals and plans for your own future in Petcare and is connecting with other professionals through making the podcast helping you with these goals. So our goals and plans for our own future, and pet care are that we want to continue to grow like we set our goals episode, we want to reach 100 clients this year. And so hopefully, we can do that. we're well on our way to do that. And so for the future, we aren't quite sure where we're going to land  Collin  10:33   but we know that we want to remain in pet care and continue to grow and provide excellent service and continue to take steps to becoming more and more independent.  Meghan  10:42   And so yes, this podcast has been a great way to connect with other pet professionals. And we hope that you guys have learned a lot as well.  Collin  10:50   It's really been inspiring and helped motivate us to continue to go to continue day after day in the in this industry that can be so hard. It's been very uplifting. To hear everybody's stories and all of the great advice and tips that everybody has been providing,  Meghan  11:05   and ultimately to know that we're not alone in this, that there are so many other pet care providers, and we're all here to lift each other up and to be a good community.  Collin  11:19   Have you heard about time to pet Claire from acting critter sitters as this to say  Unknown Speaker  11:23   time to pet has honestly revolutionized how we do business. My sitters can work much more independently because they have ongoing access to customer and pet information without relying on me. I save hours upon hours of administrative time on billing, processing payments and generating paychecks.  Collin  11:40   If you are looking for a new pet sitting software for your business, give time to pet a try. As a listener of pet sitter confessional, you'll get 50% off your first three months when you sign up at time to pet.com slash confessional  Meghan  12:00   We received a few questions about aggression. So the first one is, what do you do when you accept a job and the animal becomes aggressive towards you? The one person had said, I recently experienced this. I took a job watching two cats, one cat was fine, and the other was 26 pound male that started growling and hissing at me while I was there, puffing charging at me trying to lunge at me. By the third visit, he chased me out of the house and then became a two person job, my husband accompany me to the visit, and the cat was intimidated by males. He stayed under the bed and growl the whole time but did not come out. So that is how I got through the job. Do you recommend telling the owners what was going on while they were away or when they get home? I told some of it while they were away, and the rest afterwards and I don't want to take this job in the future because he's so aggressive towards.  Collin  12:47   So unfortunately, dealing with aggressive cats is a pretty common tale that pet sitters have and this scenario has a lot of questions that I would like to ask to follow up in how did the Had the cat act during the meet and greet, who all was present? And what were those scenarios? How long were you able to interact with the cat at that time, I also mentioned that this aggressive cat was a 26 pound male, as the male been neutered or not. They would also like to know what's going on there. There are two basic types of aggression in cats, there's play aggression. And then there's a status related aggression. And this is kind of sounding more like a status related aggression where the cat is trying to exert dominance or control over a situation where it's feeling out of control and scared. There's several things that you can look in to doing that. And you know, obviously, the first one is prevention, avoiding if at all possible, those situations that puts you in those kind of contact. You also want to look into ignoring this kind of behavior. I remember we had a house it where the owner flat out told us, the cat is going to hate you and the cat is not going to come near you and if it does come near you, it's going to attack you I don't know why we took on that one. But we did. And I did have to fend off the cat with a broom a couple times. And eventually though, through ignoring the behavior and only allowing interactions on my terms, I made huge leaps and bounds with that cat by the end of this day. You also look to avoid physical correction. Typically, a lot of people will initially lash out and try and boot the cat on the nose or to hit the cat, those kind of things. You never want to escalate those kind of interactions ever. Now, I will say that sometimes the aggressive behavior in cats can come out because the cat is in physical pain. A lot of times it's very common that they have dental diseases, arthritis, skin problems, those kind of things that can drive them to these kind of sudden aggressive behaviors. That would be my first concern is is this cat healthy and physically well, so it may be time to seek out veterinary or behavioral assistance. And yes, absolutely. Be reporting this consistently during the day, and following up afterwards to talk with the owners, and maybe working towards doing a few smaller sets to try and build a rapport with the cat. So you can continue to sit them just on better terms.  Meghan  15:16   But as the questioner had said, if you don't want to take on the cat anymore, then don't, you don't have to your safety comes first before the cats before the dog, your safety comes first.  Collin  15:28   tagging along with this, there was a question about dogs being aggressive to you and how to handle that. So again, there is a lot to be asked about this. What situation are you encountering the dog? How much exposure Have you had to the dog previously? Is this a brand new behavior? Or were there some warning signs beforehand? If it is brand new behavior, I would be concerned about physical well being of dog just like with the cat. What scenario is new what has changed in the area what has changed recently out of the interact during your meet and greet? Have you done a meet and greet? A lot of that can go in to diagnosing exactly what's going on? Is the dog being territorial, protective possessive of stuff? Is it out of fear it is the dog being cornered. A lot of things can go into, quote unquote, aggression towards somebody. And so understanding your role in that, first and foremost, above and beyond what the dog is experiencing, you really have to know how you are contributing to that. And so there's a lot to think through whenever a dog is being aggressive, because you are playing a major role in that. Obviously, you should be communicating this as we just mentioned with the owners the first time that happens, and then continually throughout and then doing follow ups with them to work towards a better resolution. So as far as how to exactly handle the dog being aggressive, I would want to know some more information as far as the exact scenario before we talk about some specifics.  Meghan  16:56   We also got several questions about specific products that us. So the question was what products have you found that you have used the most and keep with you at all times, Pacific leashes, toys and also what are some great and simple snacks to keep in the car besides or gain. So if you've listened to our earlier episodes, we had a code for or game which has some off awesome protein shake, including vegan ones, as well as protein bars. We also recommend individual size trail mix and small boxes of raisins. Granola bars are also good and apples Of course, anything that's  Collin  17:29   very simple, small, easy to grab and store.  Meghan  17:33   If you need a fork and a spoon to use it,  Collin  17:35   that you're probably not going to eat it and you're putting yourself on the back but  Meghan  17:38   as far as leashes go, we also always have a lead on hand by rescue rope leads. They are made by Jen, a fellow pet care provider, and they have proved to be very durable and truly a lifesaver when a client only has a retractable leash because we have vowed to not use those anymore.  Collin  17:55   And sometimes you can't help it when an owner comes up or only has access to a retractable least we have really loved using this they are insanely versatile. As well as Megan mentioned, really durable and adaptable to different dogs in different walking style.  Meghan  18:11   Since we predominantly do boarding and daycare, we have also invested in a meal a vacuum. So yes, if you heard of me late, yes, they are expensive, but they are so worth it after eight years, and finally broke me and we bought one. So we have no more hair and our house. It is great.  Collin  18:30   But we do have hair until we vacuum and then it all goes away.  Meghan  18:35   Another question about products was if you use one, what is your favorite bag to carry when you are walking dogs. So as we just mentioned these days, we don't typically get requests for walks. We do a lot of daycare and boarding but when we do they aren't hikes or long walk or beach walks, which I would like but so we just carry our phone in our pocket and we usually have the poop bags on the leaf attached to the leaf. However, a little Shoulder sling bag is really good and they've got several on Amazon. There's one made by aspray that is really good. Also standing pack that coming back into style. And they're super handy as well. You just put them around your waist and you're good to go.  Collin  19:14   If you're looking for a true backpack with tons of storage capacity or is very versatile and rugged, we really like both Tom Ben and timbuk two backpacks. Neither of those backpacks are truly a backpacking, hiking kind of backpack. They're more large industrial kind of school backpacks, but they've got tons of pockets and expandability and will last a really long time.  Meghan  19:38   Our next question comes from Instagram, it's how do you handle over protective pet parents and parents that are constantly walking. So this can be a tricky one because over protective pet parents are sometimes not the easiest to deal with and a little high maintenance for us. We we have clients that are like this, and we have come to expect that they're going to Want updates and pictures about their pet every four to five hours. And so it is a little stressful. But I now I know to keep sending updates to them, and it seems to be keeping them happy  Collin  20:15   as far as the constantly watching you component to this question, if they are monitoring your comings and goings, and letting you know that they are doing that through video or through text kind of thing, if you're not comfortable with that, you don't have to continue to take them. Many people are moving to having video cameras, both on the outside but also more and more on the inside of their home too. So they can monitor and see what's going on. And this can go hand in hand with having pet parents that are overprotective. So I would be curious, what are the being over overly protective about? Is it when you're arriving or when you're leaving? Is it how you're handling the pet? Is it how the walk is going? All those kind of things when every You do respond or interact with them, you can kill them with kindness. Not literally, obviously, but not reciprocating the kind of interaction that they are giving you. And always being the professional and putting forth that best attitude at all times, letting them know that you have things under control that while they're in your care they're being well watched out for and sending those cheerful, bright, beautiful pictures and updates throughout the day.  Meghan  21:28   Also, this should be talked about at the meet and greet. So usually you can tell the meet and greet if the pet parent is going to be a little hands on and a little high maintenance, because they'll want to tell you every single little detail and they'll want to go on and elaborate with stories.  Collin  21:44   These are the parents that hand over the booklet of care versus the hand scratch note on the back of a napkin.  Meghan  21:50   Yeah, which is appreciated as a pet care provider because I want I do want to know everything about your pen so I can better serve them  Collin  21:58   asking ahead of time. What are their expectations for updates? offering state? I send three to four updates a day and see what kind of response you get from that. And then go from there. So we received a question about juggling different kinds of services. Do you think doing pet sitting for younger dogs, while still doing your regular dog walking as fair, dogs could be alone for up to six or seven hours. However, the owner said that is fine.  Meghan  22:23   If the owner says it's okay, and you've got it in writing, and you as the pet care provider are okay with it, then do it. So but if you are uneasy about it, then don't do it. But if they are large dogs that need lots of exercise, or if they are puppies that are still potty training or need lots of interaction during the day, and it's probably not a good idea to leave them alone for that a long time.  Collin  22:45   Yeah, so I'd want to know, what are we talking about as far as what does young mean? And if you can time it so that you have your drop in visits, and, you know, in the morning and then six hours later you're doing another one and in between? You're doing Other walks and things like that another drop ins as long as the owners okay with it and you are fine with it, I would do it.  Meghan  23:07   This is where scheduling is very important and knowing each dog and what they need is also crucial. One of our final questions is tips for handling and unwarranted bad review and unfriend like Maya. I think in this situation and in all situations, being kind and professional. Depending upon the platform that it was on, it was on Facebook or Google, you may be able to respond and you can refute the review in a respectful way with correct grammar and punctuation in the heat of the moment. You may want to sound off on them, but potential clients will be able to see this review if it is left up there. So being as professional as possible is so important. You may be able to get the review taken down if it was a really nasty one. But always been respectful  Collin  23:55   also know that really, truly unwarranted bad reviews that are typically written as screeds, or very long manifestos, people can read and see through those. If you go on Amazon, you can read product reviews. And you can tell this person didn't even know what to expect when they got this service or this product, or this person just had it out for this company from the get go. If you can see those differences in quality of reviews, trust in know that other people can as well. So just because you get an unwarranted or bad review, or having a consistently unfriendly client, I know that those kind of interactions can be seen openly and reliably by people on the outside as well.  Meghan  24:39   And if you have an unfriendly client, then don't take them on again. You don't need that in your life. You don't need that stress. And so just say no the next time that they want you to provide care for their pet,  Collin  24:50   it may be very tempting to consistently have a full book throughout a week or a month. But having one really bad unfriendly client is as Megan said, Not worth the stress or effort in your life. And then I think our final and most important question that we've saved for last, what is the origin of energy itself.  Meghan  25:09   And with that, we thank you for listening to Episode 23, which was all about Q and A's. So we are planning on doing another q&a episode coming up. And so we thank you guys so much for submitting these questions. And we hope that you'll continue to be submitting questions to us and we will do another q&a episode. We also want to thank our sponsor time to pet  Collin  25:31   next week, we're super excited we have a pet photographer coming on talking all about photos to meet and exceed your expectations. If you have follow up or feedback that you'd like to send back to us some of those questions you'd like to have us answer on the next q&a episode, send them to feedback at pettifer confessional calm. We're also on Facebook and Instagram at pet sitter confessional or on Twitter at PS confessional and we want to thank you so much for tuning in this week.

Keywords: dog, pet, questions, cat clients, owner, wall, confessional, people, day care, pet sitter, care provider, aggression, sitter, walking, boarding