Questions to Ask a Dog Sitter Before You Book

Ask a dog sitter about their experience with dogs like yours, where your dog will sleep and how long they will be alone, how they will follow your routine, what they do in an emergency, and how often they will update you. The checklist below covers all five topics in fifteen questions, and the sections after it tell you what a good answer sounds like.

Key takeaways

• Five topics matter: experience, home and safety, routine, emergencies, communication. Everything else is detail.
• Ask open questions ("what would you do if…") instead of yes/no questions. You are listening for specifics, not reassurance.
• Ask them at a meet-and-greet, with your dog present. On SitterNation the sitter usually proposes one through the first booking with a new sitter.
• The most reliable sign a stay went well is your dog's behavior on the day after pickup, not the greeting at the door.
• Price is the last filter. Reviews, the answers and your dog's reaction come first.

Checklist

1. How long have you been sitting dogs, and how many stays like this one have you done?
2. Have you cared for a dog like mine before: this size, this age, this temperament?
3. Who else lives in your home, and are there other pets or children?
4. Where will my dog sleep, and where will they be when you go out?
5. How long will my dog be alone at most in a day?
6. Is your yard fenced, and how do you handle doors, gates and walks?
7. Can you follow my feeding schedule, and can you give medication if needed?
8. What do you do when a dog will not eat, or has an accident indoors?
9. Which vet would you use in an emergency, and at what point do you call me?
10. What is your backup plan if you get sick or have to cancel?
11. Has a dog ever been hurt or sick in your care? What happened, and what did you do?
12. How often will you send updates, and in what form?
13. What do you need from me before the stay: records, food, gear, written instructions?
14. How many dogs do you host at the same time?
15. What is your cancellation policy, and exactly what does the booking include?

Print the list, or use the pet sitter interview checklist to tick questions off as you go.

What experience should a dog sitter have?

Years of experience matter less than experience with your kind of dog. A sitter who has hosted a dozen calm seniors may be a poor fit for a one-year-old Border Collie who needs two hours of work a day, and a sitter who runs with high-energy dogs every weekend may not notice a French Bulldog overheating on a July afternoon.

So ask question 2 first, and make it concrete. "Have you looked after a reactive dog who lunges at other dogs on leash?" gets a more useful answer than "do you have experience with difficult dogs?" Listen for a story. Good sitters answer with a specific dog and what they did; weak answers are general ("I love all dogs, they all love me"). On SitterNation the sitter's profile lists the breeds they have cared for in past stays, so you can check the answer against the record.

What should I ask about the sitter's home and safety?

For boarding in a sitter's home, questions 3 to 6 are the ones that prevent most problems, and they are the ones owners skip because they feel intrusive. Ask them anyway.

Who else is in the home. Other dogs, cats, children and housemates all change the stay. A resident dog who guards food is a problem for a dog who eats slowly. A toddler is a problem for a dog who has never met one. None of this disqualifies a sitter; it just needs saying before you book.

Where your dog will be. Ask to see the room where your dog will sleep and the space where they will spend the day. You are checking for the ordinary things: a door that closes, nothing to chew that matters, a spot that is not a garage or a basement.

Time alone. "How long will my dog be alone at most?" has a number for an answer. A sitter who works from home might say "never more than two hours"; a sitter with a part-time job might say "four hours, twice a week". Both can be fine. "It depends" is not an answer.

Fences, doors and walks. A fenced yard is only as good as its gate latch. Ask how the sitter walks dogs they do not know yet, and whether they ever let dogs off leash. If your dog is an escape artist, say so now.

Before the meeting, check what the profile already answers so the time goes on what it cannot. On SitterNation, a sitter's profile shows their reviews and star rating from past bookings, the services and rates they offer, whether they are home full-time, the dog sizes they accept, whether they take puppies and whether they give oral or injected medication. The sitter proposes meet-and-greet times through the booking and you accept one. Bring the questions above, or print the pet sitter interview checklist, and write the answers down; it is easier to compare two sitters on paper than from memory.

How do I make sure my dog's routine is followed?

Dogs cope with a new place far better when the day runs the same way. Write the routine down before the meeting: feeding times and amounts, walks, where they sleep, what they are allowed to do and anything they are not allowed to do. Hand it to the sitter and ask question 7 against it: "Can you do this, exactly?"

The honest answer is sometimes "mostly". A sitter who walks at 6:30 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m. is fine. A sitter who feeds once a day when your dog eats twice is not. Decide in advance which parts are fixed and which can flex, and say so.

Medication is a fixed part. If your dog takes pills, drops or injections, ask whether the sitter has given that form of medication before and how they make sure a dose is not missed. On SitterNation, sitters who give oral or injected medication say so on their profile, and you can filter the search by medication before you ask.

Question 8 ("what do you do when a dog will not eat?") tells you how the sitter thinks. The good answer is calm and staged: wait a meal, try hand feeding, watch water intake, message you if it goes past a day. The weak answer is "that never happens with me".

What should a sitter do in an emergency?

Questions 9 to 11 are the ones you hope never matter and the ones you will be most glad you asked.

The vet. The sitter should be able to name the emergency clinic they would drive to and roughly how far it is. Give them your own vet's details and your preference for emergency care; on SitterNation this sits in your pet's profile where the sitter sees it before the booking starts.

When they call you. Agree on the line. Most owners want a call for anything involving blood, vomiting more than once, a limp that lasts, or a dog that will not get up. Most sitters want permission to go to the vet first and call on the way if it is serious. Settle this before the stay, not during it.

The backup plan. Sitters get sick, cars break, family emergencies happen. A professional has a named person who can step in, or will tell you plainly that they will call you to collect your dog. Either is acceptable. No plan is not.

Their history. Question 11 is the one most owners find awkward. Ask it. A sitter who has done this for years has had something go wrong at some point, and the useful part is how they handled it.

Vaccination records belong in this conversation too. Many boarders ask for them, and so do some sitters; the vaccination guide covers what they ask for and why.

How will the sitter keep me updated?

Agree on the rhythm and the channel. "A photo and a line every evening" is the most common arrangement for boarding; drop-in sitters usually send a note after each visit. Say what you want, and ask whether that works for them.

On SitterNation, updates go through in-app messaging during the booking, so photos, questions and anything urgent are in one place that both of you can find later.

Watch two things before the booking: how quickly the sitter replied to your first message, and whether they asked you questions. A sitter who wants to know your dog's age, habits and quirks before saying yes is doing their job; one who accepts within a minute without asking anything is filling a calendar.

What are the red flags in a pet sitter?

Green flags before you book

• They ask more questions than you do, and the questions are about your dog.
• They offer to show you where your dog will sleep without being asked.
• They have a clear answer for emergencies, including a vet by name and a backup person.
• They say no to things: a second dog they cannot manage, a date they cannot cover, a medication they have not given before.
• Their reviews mention specific dogs and specific situations, not just "great sitter".
• Your dog relaxes in their presence during the meeting. Not every dog will bound over; a dog who stops watching the door is relaxed enough.

Red flags before you book

• Vague answers about emergencies or alone time ("I'd figure it out", "not long").
• They will not let you see the home, or the meeting has to happen somewhere else.
• They host more dogs than they can describe to you, or cannot say how many they host.
• Slow, evasive or very short replies before the booking. It does not get better after.
• Pressure to book or pay outside the platform. That removes the booking record, the messaging history and the protection the platform provides.
• They dismiss your instructions ("dogs don't really need that").

One red flag is a reason to ask the question again; two is a reason to keep looking.

Signs your dog enjoyed the stay, and signs they did not

The greeting at pickup tells you very little; most dogs are thrilled to see you either way. Watch the next 24 to 48 hours instead.

Good signs: normal eating and drinking by the second meal, normal sleep, normal bathroom habits, a loose body and a wagging or neutral tail, and, at the next handover, a dog who walks toward the sitter or at least past them without hesitation.

Signs worth a conversation: refusing food for more than a day, accidents indoors from a dog who is reliably house-trained, hiding, clinging to you more than usual, or pulling away from the sitter at the next meeting. One of these after a long stay can be ordinary adjustment. Two or three together, or any of them after every stay with the same sitter, mean the fit is wrong.

How do I read a sitter's reviews?

Count the dogs, not the stars. Twenty 5-star reviews that each say "amazing, would book again" tell you less than five that each describe a different dog and what the sitter did for it. Look for owners whose dogs sound like yours.

Read for repeat bookings. "This was our fourth stay with…" is the strongest sentence in any review, because the owner has had three chances to change their mind. And read the oldest and the newest: a sitter whose early reviews mention a quiet home and whose latest mention "lots of dogs around" has changed what they offer.

What to say in your own review

When your turn comes, write the review you wish you had been able to read. Name the service and the length of the stay. Say what the sitter actually did ("sent a photo every evening", "gave eye drops twice a day without fuss"). Say how your dog was afterwards. Say whether you would book again, and why. Four sentences like that help the next owner more than a paragraph of adjectives.

How do I choose between two good sitters?

When two sitters have answered everything well, use three tie-breakers in this order.

1. Your dog's reaction at the meeting. The dog is the one staying there.
2. The match of home to dog. A quiet single-dog home for a nervous dog; a home with a confident resident dog for a social one; a fenced yard for a dog who needs to run.
3. Price, last. Rates vary more by what is included and how many dogs the sitter hosts than by quality. Here is what boarding currently costs across our sitters:

If you are still deciding between a sitter's home and a facility, the pet sitting vs boarding guide sets the two side by side, and the dog boarding cost guide explains what moves the price. If you have chosen a sitter and this is your dog's first stay away, the first-time boarding guide covers the week before. And when you are ready to look, browse pet sitters near you: every profile lists the sitter's home setup, the breeds they have cared for and the medication they can give.