3 Overlooked Things to Share with YOUR Pet Care Person
The sometimes hidden beneath the surface of your everyday life home and pet-related details can be the most important pieces when the person you have watching your pets arrives to care for your four-legged family members. What’s funny is that these can throw a person off quicker than your dog can get to the door or your feline hide upon hearing the doorbell!
Here are three key pieces of information to pass along to your pet care provider visiting your home:
1. Provide a list of who will be at your house while you are away and on what days/times this includes your:
· pool service person,
· house cleaner,
· pest person,
· lawn service,
· someone remodeling, and even
· family members that may drop by
It can be quite shocking when someone appears in your home while we are there with them or we arrive to a vehicle in your driveway when you are gone as we do not know whether the person in your house is meant to be there and if they are, only you know what they look like. If it throws us off, your pets will sense the change in us.
2. Changes you have noticed in the last 3 – 6 months with your pets:
· Has there been any changes in behaviors whether in general or with other pet siblings? Favorite spots or new spots, spending more time alone or in another room, engaging less or more; Are they bringing things into the house when they didn’t use too,
· Anything you have noticed physically with them (i.e. marks, lumps, etc); do they get allergies from the grass, eat nervously when changes in people, pets, or pet care people shift, changes in health, shifts in distance or pace when out walking
· Do they respond to loud noises, thunder, storms, lightning, fireworks, smoke from fireworks, doorbells, other dogs / people when walked or at home; did they always or is this something new
· What is your typical routine with them that they are accustomed to and has it changed in the last 3 months; have you noticed any changes in them as a result
· If they are new to your household, how long have you had them, what were the previous circumstances involved in a previous home or situation that may surface with you away? Is this their first time being at home without you overnight?
3. Summer months or Seasonal changes
· Do your pets eat differently – less or more? Act differently?
· Do you have a pool timer – is it automated; is there a level at which more water is to be added to pool – is it automated or manual?
· Does your front, back or other door that is to be used stick or swell in the summertime? Is it harder to lock or unlock? What is your technique (do you have to pull the door towards you to release it before pushing it open or is there another tip or trick)
· Do you have unique door locks that appear to be open yet will lock behind the person?
· Is everything working properly?
The quirky house stuff that you think only occurs when you are home – can and often will occur when your pet care person is in the house. Yes, that door that occasionally locks you out due to a malfunction – yep that one too!
Set everyone up for success…and make your pets happy and heard.
