So, You Love Pets Do You?
Try Looking After Others With
Your Own Pet Sitting Business !
A Career AD: Flexible hours, Promising salary.
Holidays negotiable. Be your own boss. No experience
necessary.
If you spotted the above ad in the Help Wanted section of
your local newspaper would you laugh, "Too good to be true"?
But it is true! Have you always said, "I'd never have the money
or the skill to start my own business." But you do! One of the
easiest businesses to start and operate requires very little
money. The only necessary skills are patience, time, and lots
of love. The business? Pet-sitting!
Jackie McDonald owner of Jackie's Pals in Houston, Texas,
started her pet-sitting business after working eight years in a
doctor's office. "I wanted to do something I enjoy," she says.
"I love animals and I find this work is very calming." Mcdonald
spoke with other pet-sitters in her area and discovered how
busy they all were. She felt her neighborhood could support
another pet-sitter. She was right. Mcdonald just completed a
very busy and successful holiday season.
Pet-sitting involves going into someone's home and caring
for a pet when the owner isn't available. The service can
include plant watering and mail and newspaper pick-up. The
focus, however, is on the animal. Pet-sitting saves a client
and the animal the aggravation of dealing with a kennel.
Clients expect a variety of services: feeding, watering, liter
box cleaner, pill giving, and especially some Tender Loving
Care for a lonely animal who misses its master.
ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES
Owning a pet-sitting business has many of the same
advantages of owning any business--you are your own boss, you
set your own hours (depending on the number of clients you
serve per day), and your paycheck will be limited only by your
willingness to work. McDonald especially enjoys the flexible
hours. "I also work out of my home," she says, "and that's a
big advantage," Another advantage of pet-sitting is the
opportunity of getting to know some real characters: Missy, the
cat that only eats facing north (a real example, believe it or
not), or Rufus, the blue-footed Amazon parrot who refuses to
stay in a cage. Your list will be endless. McDonald describes
the pleasure she finds in meeting both pets and their owners,
"Ninety-nine percent of the people are very nice. Most are
concerned about their pets or they wouldn't call me. And the
animals love me no matter what."
As with any business,pet-sitting has a few disadvantages as
well. If the business is to succeed, long hours and hard work
is necessary. "this is not a get rich-quick scheme," McDonald
says. Holidays will be especially busy. Servicing fifteen pets,
each two times a day is not an unreasonable expectation. This
doesn't leave much time for football viewing on New Year's Day.
Unless you're a real animal lover some of the tasks can be
unpleasant: Who wants to clean a litter box twice a day for two
weeks? But that wildly wagging tail or the purr of a lonely
animal that greets you at the door does make it worth the
trouble. So do those paychecks at the end of the Christmas
holidays. "you must truly love animals," McDonald advises, "or
you won't enjoy this business."
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