FAQ

We specialize in customized care with one-on-one attention for each pet. During the initial consultation, we will learn as much as we can about your pets, and create a unique plan for their care, in their own home. If you want to make sure your pet gets the best and most personalized care, when you can’t be there, then give us a call.

Not a problem! To get started, take a look at our Dog Walk and/or Pet Sitting Packages and let us know what you’d like to schedule by visiting our Contact Page. Please include the type of pet you have, their age, and if they have any medical problems. We will follow up with you by email to get a little more information about your pets and needs, and also ask you to verify your location to make sure you’re in our service area. If we are a good fit for you, we’ll set up a meeting at your convenience so we can come to your home, meet your pets, and get to know your routine with them. You can then ask more detailed questions about our business and services. You will also get a welcome email which will go over most of our information, how we invoice, payment policies, and it will even give you access to our pet sitting phone software we use. This is a great piece of technology! Any time our sitters visit your home, you will get a report sent to you via either the app or your email including a checklist of what was done during the visit, a note from the sitter about how the visit went, and lots of cute pics the sitter took of your pet while they were there.

The sooner the better, especially around the holidays! For new clients, we need at least three weeks between the initial contact and the first scheduled visit in order to schedule the meet and greet and set you up in our system. This also gives you time to review our client contract. We do charge a $25 last minute reservation fee when a reservation is made within 48 hours prior to the start of the first visit. Reservations are subject to availability, and we do get very busy during holidays and summer months. During those time, we suggest scheduling 6+ weeks ahead if possible as we usually close the reservations 4 weeks ahead of the holiday due to capacity.

While we do not offer overnight visits and stays, we do early morning and late-night appointments. Upon request, we will do extended evening visits (subject to availability).

For dogs, we require a minimum of 2 pet sitting (30+ minutes) visits per day if the dog has continual access between the home and yard (ie: a doggie door).  For most dogs, 2-3 visits per day are recommended. When we have our initial consultation, we will talk about your pet’s needs and tailor our plan to fit. Healthy adult cats must be seen a minimum of once every day. If you have other types of pets, we will discuss their care during the initial consultation.

During our visits, we will feed your pets, change their water, wash the food and water bowls, clean up potty areas (yard/cage/litter/etc), and provide your pets with exercise and attention. Upon request, we will also include (at no extra cost to you) things like collecting your mail, watering your plants/gardens, refilling bird feeders outside, taking out and bringing in your trash cans, brushing your pets (as long as supplies are provided), and even rotating your lights inside and outside or opening and closing curtains for security purposes.

At Fuzzy Friends, your pets are cared for by a team, not just one person. This ensures that if your regular sitter has an emergency, another trusted team member is ready to step in. During your meet-and-greet, a manager or senior sitter will get to know your pet’s routine and personality before assigning care and instructing the sitters in detail on your pets’ needs. If meeting your sitter is essential to you, we can arrange an introduction on request for $17, based on availability. We do our best to keep pets with the same sitter for consistency, though rotation may occasionally be needed depending on availability or the length of your trip.

For cats, we will scoop the litter box during every visit. We do require  clients to clean the litter completely before the firs visit. This allows the sitter to better monitor the health of the cat. Clients should have one litter box per cat plus one extra. Full clean outs should happen monthly, and plastic boxes should be changed for a new one once a year. We also have no issues cleaning cages for small animals so long as supplies are provided.

We will absolutely brush your pet if that is requested. For pets who enjoy getting brushed, our sitters have found that doing so early on in the visits is a great bonding experience. If your pet gets in a mess, we will do our best to clean them before we leave. When you get back, please visit our Pet Supply Store and check our the self “Paw Wash” spa where you can easily bathe your dogs using our state of the art supplies!

Before your trip, we require that (2) copies of your keys be made for our use. If you have a security code for your door, we do require emergency key just in case of technical issues like the door lock battery going out. If you only provide one key at the meet and greet, we are authorized to make another copy at your expense. An emergency key is also required from clients who give us garage code access for similar power outage reasons. We never want to risk your pets not being able to be cared for in your absence due to accessibility issues. At the end of your trip, we can return your keys to you at a return fee of $17 or we can keep them in a secure safe at our office for future visits. All keys are logged into our secured system so we know where the keys are at all times. The only time your key is logged out of the office safe, is prior to scheduled visits.

Our sitters are very experienced with handling a variety of alarm systems. We will ask you to show us your particular system during the meet and greet and pet sitter introduction meetings where we will also collect and verify the alarm code. If you do not feel comfortable giving us the code, please feel free to set up a temporary guest code for us. For all alarm systems that are set, the pet sitter must be able to deactivate the alarm themselves. We’re aware that some clients have the ability to remotely deactivate the alarm system, but in cases of emergency when we are not able to get in contact with you, we need to be able to deactivate the alarm ourselves in order to make sure your pets are cared for.

We can absolutely do daily walks! Depending on your pet’s routine, we can even schedule multiple walks per day, weather permitting. We do adjust dog walk times depending on season and weather due to temperatures that are unsafe for your dogs. From late Spring to Autumn, dog walks are not scheduled after 10am due to the heat.

As long as you don’t mind watching pet sitters that occasionally sing to your pets, haha. We are there to do our job and we are not concerned about your cameras, nor would we ask that you remove them. It is helpful to know where the cameras are, so that we can avoid accidentally bumping them while playing with your pets.

Feel free to call our office Monday thru Saturday between the hours of 9AM and 4PM and on Sundays between 12PM and 4PM. If we do not answer the call, it’s because we are out on pet sits, so please leave a voicemail. Most of our sitting appointments begin around 7AM and our last appointments of the night end at 9:45PM. We are available 7 days a week and on holidays.

All sitters go through a background check, using a professional background check company called Acutrack.

Yes, we are bonded and insured. If you would like to discuss in detail, please give us a call.

Absolutely. We will go over dietary restrictions and medication administration during our initial meet and greet.

Our sitters are trained to administer most common oral and injected medications as long as the pets are willing. However, we do not offer intravenous fluids. During our meet and greet, we ask our pet parents to go over the pet’s routine for us, so we can take notes about any medications and how they are administered.

We prefer that the pet parents provide the pet treats because you know what your pets likes. Most of us keep rabbit or kangaroo treats on hand which generally are good for dogs with allergies. At the meet and greet, we ask if you pet has any allergies so we can be on the lookout.

Occasionally this is a service that is requested. Feel free to give us a call and we can give you a quote.

In non-emergency situations, we will contact you through our visit reports to alert you that your pet’s behavior has changed or we noticed something new that may be medically related. In the case of an emergency or at your request will then make every effort to take your pet to your preferred veterinarian that we have recorded in your file. If your veterinarian is not available, then we will take your pet to another clinic or pet hospital.

The meet and greet is there to make sure the sitter and the pet get along to avoid most behavioral issues. We do our best to make sure that each pet and household is suitable for our company. We want to be your perfect match when it comes to pet sitting to avoid any potential problems. In the case that there is an accident during the pet sit, depending on the circumstances, it would be investigated, and the owner would be contacted for follow-up.

During our initial meet and greet, we will get a look at your home and yard and ask if your pet has any escape tendencies. If, in the very rare case that your pet does escape, we will contact you immediately to update you on the situation and then exhaust all our resources in locating your pet. We prefer that all pets in our care have collars and tags with names and addresses and updated microchip information.

We do request that you include a local emergency contact on your file for situations like this. In case of emergencies, we try our best to get to your home.

If you are pleased with the service your sitter provides, we offer a space in our invoicing system for you to leave them a tip if you’d like to.

Each appointment is custom-tailored to the individual so almost no two clients are the same. If you’d like to see a listing of our prices to get an idea, please check out our Pet Sitting Page.

Payments for service are auto charged to the card you place on file 3 days before the start of the first visit (unless you’ve paid the balance before then). At reservation, a 50% deposit is required and auto charged upon approval of the request. Routine monthly dog walks are invoiced on a bi-weekly basis and set up on autopay. This means your payments will be automatically processed every two weeks. (For walks from the 1st to the 14th of the month, payments will be processed on the 15th. For walks from the 15th to the 31st, payments will be processed on the 1st.)

If your dog is outside of your home and yard, they will always be on a leash, no exceptions.

We will determine what works best for the dogs. It may be time-related if there is a need to do separate walks. It would be something to discuss during the meet and greet.

Dogs and cats are our most common client pets, but we also care for most common household pets (including reptiles, caged birds, fish, rodents, and chickens). However, there are some exotic pets that we do not care for including house bunnies, some hybrid animals (savannah cats / wolf dogs) would have to be reviewed before appointments could be scheduled. Horses can be cared for but there is limited availability. Please ask and we will look at our schedule. If you have any questions about a pet that is not listed, please Contact Us.

We love ALL breeds of dogs. There is often a bit of stigma surrounding certain larger breeds of dogs, but our sitters get so excited when they find out they get to pet sit for those breeds. Each pet is evaluated during the meet and greet to see if they will work with us. Anny new pets added to the household will need their own evaluation, and puppies may need to be evaluated as they grow.

Absolutely! Depending on their normal routine, we will make sure your dog is taken care of. During walks, we follow your guidance in avoiding any streets or houses known for problems (ie: barking dogs outside), and if another dog is spotted on a walk, we will turn and take an alternate route.