Moose sat in the front window this morning and watched me cross the street with somebody else's house key and a bag of cat treats. If a 70-pound hound can look betrayed, he did. He knows exactly where I go on weekends now, and he does not approve.
This month we started pet sitting for neighbors. It's the easiest side money we've found so far. Here's who we've watched, what we charge, what we've learned and why Moose has not been invited to any of it.
It started with Gloria, who lives in the other half of our duplex. She went to Kansas City the first weekend of June for her granddaughter's graduation and asked if I'd feed her cat. I tried to say no to her money. Gloria put an envelope on my counter and walked out, and the next morning there was a rhubarb pie on our step.
Word got around, the way it does on a street like ours. The second weekend I watched Pepper, a 14-year-old beagle two streets over, while his people went to a wedding in Hannibal. The third weekend was six hens at a house at the end of our street, while the family went to a ballgame in St. Louis. This weekend it's the cat across the street, which belongs to a young couple camping at Long Branch.
What we charge
We kept it simple: $20 a day per household, whatever kind of animal it is. That covers up to two visits a day. The cats and the chickens get one visit, about 20 minutes. Pepper got two, morning and evening, about half an hour each with a slow walk around the block.
Most jobs run Friday evening to Sunday evening, which we count as two days. So a normal weekend is $40, and four weekends in June makes $160.
The extras have been nice. The chicken family told us to keep the eggs, and we came home with 14. Gloria's pie lasted two days.
Per hour, it isn't much. A cat weekend takes about two and a half hours of my time, counting the walk-through with the owner and dropping off the key, so around $16 an hour. Pepper's weekend was closer to four hours, so $10 an hour. But it's all within a few blocks of home, I'd be out walking anyway, and nobody needs me to show up in scrubs.
What we learned
- Walk through the house with the owner the day before. Where the food is, which door sticks, what the thermostat should be set on.
- Write a card for each pet: what food, how much, any medicine, the vet's number and the owner's cell. I tape it inside their cabinet door.
- Text a photo after every visit. People relax so much faster when they can see their cat eating.
- Keep keys on their own ring with a tag that has a first name on it and no address.
- Take one household per weekend. We still want to make Sunday dinner at my parents' place.
Pepper takes a heart pill and a thyroid pill twice a day, and his owners were nervous about leaving him. I count pills for a living, so I put his weekend doses in a pill organizer with every slot marked and sent them a picture before they left town. His owner told me later that was the moment she stopped worrying. It's nice when the day job comes in handy.
Why Moose is not invited
Moose is a good dog. He is also a 70-pound red hound with a voice you can hear from the highway. Pepper is 14, a little wobbly on his back legs, and does not need a large stranger leaning on him. The cats would move out. And I'm fairly sure Moose would look at six hens in a backyard and see a buffet.
So Moose stays home. He gives my jeans a long, suspicious sniff every time I come back, then lies down by the door with a sigh you can hear from the kitchen. Tyler takes him for an extra walk on pet-sitting weekends, which helps with the sulking.
The money goes on the Extra tab in the sheet like everything else. Since January, 25% of all our side money goes to the tax bucket first, pet sitting included, because it's income even when it comes from the lady next door in an envelope. The rest goes to the house fund.
We already have Pepper again for the Fourth of July, Thursday evening through Sunday evening. That's three days, so $60. He's scared of fireworks, so I plan to be sitting on his kitchen floor for the loud part on Saturday night. Tyler says he'll come with me. I think he mostly wants to meet the beagle.
