Building a Pet First Aid Kit, Tip Number 1: Whats Your 20?

WHAT’S YOUR 20?

Know your surroundings, know your destination should you require professional help.  Remember, any time First Aid is administered the injured party should be seen by professional help.  Take the following steps to prepare your cell phone and hardcopy directories:

1. Agencies  – Animal Control Officer for the area you are in; Police Non-Emergency Numbers for the area you are in; and 911.  Cell phone programming organizational tip: eg. AWLA_ACO, PoliceNonEmerg_Arlington, PoliceNonEmerg_McLean, PoliceNonEmerg_Alexandria.
2. Veterinary Facilities – who is closest?  Who is a true 24-hour emergency facility?  Who is not!?  Don’t let the words “animal hospital” fool you!  Know who is open, who does what, and when!  And always always call first!   Cell phone programming organizational tip: eg. VET_Suburban, VET_CapitalCat, VET_Hope Center, VET_DrDanoff.
3. Poison Control Helplines
4. Finally, program personal “In Case of Emergency” or “ICE” contacts into your phone.  Your ICE list may be the first place a first responder looks to contact your immediate family in a crisis where you are not conscious.  In your phone, create a directory of ICE_Mom_EvaHaas, ICE_Sister_CindyHaas people you would want notified.

Our Safety Furst™ What’s Your 20? Card for Arlington, VA is a good example to follow for an easily transportable hardcopy directory.  They are currently available at the counter at your local Dogma Dog Bakery (both locations) and at The PetMAC on N. Kenmore on the edge of the Virginia Square neighborhood!  Tuck one away in your kit, in your glove compartment, on your fridge at home – anywhere where it may come in handy! 

FAQ: My Cat Was Just Diagnosed With A Form of FLUTD, How Do You Handle This?

Lots of people do a double take when we tell them we require a clumping litter in a basic box in order to access Loyalty Pet Care® The Cat Contented™ or The Cat Concierge™ services.  We insist that our clients learn the reasons why your veterinarian recommends you scoop the litter box once per day, although admittedly most vets don’t take the time to explain it and some in fact don’t know why its recommended!   At Loyalty® we want you to know what we train our staff to monitor during your active pet sitting projects, not just for your own assurance that we are on top of your cat’s health, but so that you can implement what we apply in your day to day management of your cat’s wellness.  We are firm in our position that we will not move forward with a professional pet sit – even at the last minute – if the following precautions are not in place.  For readers who are not Loyalty® clients, if your professional pet sitter isn’t monitoring these factors, in our opinion they have not yet reached the standard of a true professional – send them to this link and ask them to step up their game.

FLUTD is a big issue for the Domestic House Cat living a typical North American Lifestyle.  Roughly one in three indoor cats will develop some form of it, cats who are fed a dry food diet, are pure breeds, or are under stress have an increased risk from there and finally male cats are at higher risk for blockage than female cats, just by design.  In a year, Loyalty® probably sees one out of every two cat sitting clients document with us a flare up of FLUTD in one form or another, usually in a multi cat household and usually is the less gregarious of the cats within the household.  It is for this reason almost exclusively that we require one visit per 24-hours you are gone from the home for all cats, because it is so common and should a blockage occur were an infection to build behind the blockage it can kill them quickly!

Loyalty® staff are trained and well versed in monitoring of the litter box at each and every visit for all cats in our care, history of issues or not.   We can predict when there is trouble brewing usually long before the cat starts to go outside of the box – and for those cats with a history, we require that you do this too!  You just need to know two baseline tips:

1. The average cat-output baseline per 24-hours is one to two fist sized clumps of urine and one #2 (firm and formed) per 24-hour period.  YOUR individual cat’s baseline will look a little divergent from this, but not drastically unless there is a known medical concern present.  Monitor and document at each scooping session the results of the box – yes, we do mean to actually count poopies and pees and describe them as you scoop away each day and in this manner you can even learn to identify whose is whose in a multi cat household, quite easily.  As you quickly become so intimately familiar with your cats biology, you also very quickly can notice if/when something out of the norm presents itself.  I know, we are such kitty geniuses that way, you can thank us later.

2. Now that you’ve got YOUR cat’s baseline, and are tracking it each day, monitor for the outliers!  These things present similarly for all cats, particularities like spattering rather than a single, solid fist-sized clump can indicate a urinary tract infection, other FLUTD issue or the makings of a blockage in progress; excessive quantities of urine can suggest kidney issues or possibly of diabetes and a whole host of other things – when we say excessive we mean quadrants of boxes saturated!; stickiness to the urine, such that its like scraping putty from the box walls is suggestive of shedding of sugars in the urine which *may* indicate the glimmerings of type 2 diabetes; blood in the urine or stool; diarrhea for cats is a serious sign of illness unless its something that is chronic; constipation can be problematic as well.  And so on!

Completely in line with our standards as professionals in OUR industry, Loyalty® will NEVER diagnose your cat to have any disease or illness.  We document issues that present to us, during your active project we make decisions based on intake of food and water, output or the combined results of the box, and your cat’s actual vitals and behavior to determine if an emergency situation is present.   If there is an emergency, we contact you if possible and transport to your vet and if there isn’t we monitor closely, while documenting our observations for you with our recommendation you mention these observations at your next Veterinary Wellness Exam.  Your veterinarian will then know which tests to run to help him or her properly diagnose your kitty with anything present and prevent, prepare, or protect them from pain!  Your vet will also be so impressed with you!

If your cat is ever diagnosed with FLUTD, from this point forward, to continue to access our services safely AT ALL, we require that you immediately implement a clumping litter in a basic box (nothing fancy, round, lidded or electronic) and that you monitor your cat’s output in the days leading up to any project with us.  I recommend Worlds Best cat litter and a plain box like this one, and if you do not have time to buy and implement that before your project, we will do so for the cost of the litter and a $25.00 trip fee and we will set everything up for you!

We also do not permit any electronic boxes or the round domed Booda Boxes (for major design defects that are dangerous to your home and to you cat).  We only allow clumping litters.  We do not recommend any perfumes because remember, your cats nose is so much stronger than yours, not to mention they will get the litter on their coat and then go groom it off with their tongue and you don’t want them to ingest the toxins in our most detested litters like Fresh Step!

Terry Haas, CPTI
Owner

Loyalty Pet Care®
Dog Walking + Cat Sitting + Pet Safety Management
Our staff place Safety Furst™
in Arlington, VA 
Office 703.679.PAWS

Cell 703.863.0802
http://www.facebook.com/loyaltypetcarearlingtonva
http://twitter.com/#!/loyaltypetcare

Loyalty® & Safety Furst™ Designate July 3rd Petdependence Day!

Pencil it in, July 3rd, take a close look at and update all of your pet’s identification to avoid and quicken a safe return home on the 4th!

July 5th is the single busiest day in the United States for local level animal shelters and animal control offices, because July 4th is the single scariest day in the United States for our dogs and cats.  With a sense of hearing four times a human and a range of frequency exponentially broader, dogs particularly reach intolerable levels of anxiety in the moments following the start of our traditional fireworks displays and the recreational fireworks that neighborhood children adore.  Indeed, for many pets, the two weeks leading up to and immediately following Independence Day are pure stress, never knowing when the “bombs” will go off, or where!

It is for this reason that Loyalty Pet Care® and Safety Furst™ would like to have your support in designating July 3rd 2012 and every year hereafter as Petdependence Day.

The only time in Loyalty Pet Care® history that a client’s pet has become lost was in the middle of July 4th fireworks.  I don’t have to tell you how traumatic this was.  The client was on a bicycle tour of Europe, and completely unavailable, so thankfully it did not interrupt their vacation and ended well – a neighbor found Violet the startled JRT just up the street, recognized her and took her in.  From about 9:00PM forward, she occasionally called the client’s home to report her temporary domicile, completely disregarding the Loyalty Pet Care® tag I place on all of our vacation dogs that reads “On Vaca w/ Loyalty Pet Care SVCS 703.863.0802″!  She finally gave up on the client’s home number and called the Loyalty line at 11:30PM as I was on my fifth circumnavigation of the neighborhood.  Big sigh of relief!

We want to change this!  We know we can’t end fireworks so instead we challenge the entire pet professional, shelter & rescue community in the United States to raise awareness with us of this scary time for our pets by encouraging pet guardians to set aside the time on July 3rd to update pet ID tags and collars, microchip and online registration data, rabies vaccinations and local level dog licenses.  Take the time to invest in a new collar for your best friend!  Make sure it’s fitting properly, is comfortable and has all of her identification present and visible.  We also encourage checking the periphery of your property or backyard if you have one, making sure that the fenceline is secure and safe.  Check over your leashes and harnesses for any weakness and consider investing in new gear each year.  Teach your community about safe walking techniques, attaching a flat 6ft or less lead to a device that is NOT the same as your dog’s ID collar, that is preferably a force-free device for walking like the Softouch® Sense-ible™ harness!

If your pet has thunderstorm or noise anxiety this is the perfect time to look into the amazing variety of calming options available both to purchase and to practice!   Loyalty® regularly employs the use of Feliway® Cat Pheromone and Comfort Zone® Dog Appeasing Pheromones (aka D.A.P), Thundershirt®, and Bach Rescue Remedy, as well as employing the use of what Turid Rugaas first termed as “calming signals” to help communicate to your pet that there’s nothing to be alarmed by.  DC Metro Area readers can invest in one of Jaeger2, LLC’s “Get Grounded” workshops to learn brilliant force-free techniques to ground yourself so that your dog, cat, or horse can relax, too!  Search YouTube for “calming signals” and explore the wide variety of free instruction from a great many trainers and behaviorists in preparation!

Remember, your local Force-Free Professional Pet Care Business has a wealth of knowledge to share and you can locate one in your area through The Pet Professionals Guild or check out the latest issue of NOVADog Magazine for free.  You can also tap into great tools & gear in preparation via your local independent pet food & supply retailer, like The PetMAC or Dogma Dog Bakery, in our own area.

What else can you do?  Be a PetSaver™!   Take a PetTech® Pet CPR, First Aid & Care Class in your area from a Certified PetTech Instructor (CPTI) like ME!  Be that person in your community, at your dog park, and for your own pets who has the confidence, the skills and the knowledge to handle any emergency that may arise, but better yet is prepared and has prevented more from ever occurring in the first place!  You can do it and we can help!

The pets depend on us to keep them safe and stress free!  So help Loyalty® and Safety Furst™ designate July 3rd as Petdependence Day by passing this link along to everyone you know and leave us your comments and links for safety ideas below!

Stress Thresholds in In Home Professional Pet Sitting

There’s no easy way to say “I miss you, please come home.”

Early this week, I arrived on day 10 – dead middle – of two back to back projects for two cats loved by a single professional.  For the most part these two cats are well versed in being sat and do fine, but because this project was back to back with one night of mom being home before heading off again, carry on in tow, we ran into some emotional upset.  This time of year, my younger, single, professional crowd with cats have a tendency to do significant last-minute travel tossed in between hard-core business trips and I have to play the bad guy and caution them against it becoming too excessive in an attempt at preventing their pets from stressing.

I was with these two less than 48-hours prior and all was status quo.  They had mom home for about 12-hours overnight, got lots of love, but then she carted her carry one back out the door and, it appears, had some major emotional breakdowns.  By the time I arrived the following morning to start leg two of their project, I could smell trouble before I opened the apartment door.  My verbatim, names changed to protect the innocent, email to the client:

“Our first visit today was long.  Everyone appears to be fine physically and I suspect there is either challenges with the new diet, or that there is some emotional upset going on.  I arrived today to diarrhea spots in the box, outside the box throughout the LR and hall way.  There was vomiting – several different kinds (undigested food, hairball in H20 and bile) throughout the apartment including in the bedroom.  Most of what I found was dried, so with the exception of the hair ball in H20 vomit (which indicates to me emotional upset – she would have had to have been excessively grooming herself to produce as much un-formed hair in the H20 puddle – it was not a formed hairball that accumulates over time), much had to have occurred soon after you left yesterday I imagine.  I cleaned up all.  Fed, and spent some time observing them.  I needed to be sure that her vitals were fine and they were.  I stayed for well over an hour and played with S_____ while A__ hung out under the sofa with us.  I need to know if the diarrhea occurred this weekend when you were home, and if any vomiting occurred.  I need to know if you noticed any significant behavioral shifts or if you are aware of any medical concerns we may be confronting.  Anything at all that may be relevant.  Again, both are seemingly fine, I suspect one of two things if there isn’t a medical cause: new diet is not enough over the long-term and for that I can only suggest going back to a dry diet or doing two visits per day to feed the wet; or addressing stress when you travel through some other option for care – which may mean taking her with you, I know this is a challenge I’m sure to present, but if there really is nothing medical or dietary, then it has to be emotional.”

The professional pet sitting industry routinely self-promotes as being safer, more comfortable, and less stressful on your pet during travel than traditional forms of boarding and kenneling because your pet remains in their own home environment.  I agree, and to some degree this level of comfort and security can be misleading to both the pet care professional and the client.  As with anything, booze, food, exercise, you name it – there is such a thing as too much of a good thing and everything, everything, has its limitations.

Animals are sentient beings.  Each one is unique, even those of the same breed, while they may possess similar characteristics, they are true individuals.  Age, species, breed, training, health and environment all impact whether an animal is going to be an appropriate candidate for an In Home pet sitting project as well as impact how long they can successfully be sat before emotional stressors begin to manifest.  That said, there are general triggers and limits, which over the past five years I have observed time and time again, that I now refer to as “stress thresholds.”  I train my employees on these thresholds and their symptoms and do not hesitate to refer to them in caution with clients who, either out of necessity or not, travel extensively.

When I begin to train my employees on what stress thresholds are, before I have defined for them the indicators, they dependably launch into tale of experience with such and such dog who looks sadly at them as they leave each visit, or such and such cats who run to the door and impede their path.   It’s easy to understand how a person could misinterpret these behaviors as stress threshold indicators but they really aren’t.  Animals read intent in our body language like a furry Sherlock Holmes and use our own missteps and pauses to manipulate us to their own whims and who can blame them?   If you communicated non-verbally and loved and adored your people but depended on them for so much, you would too.  Nope.  The indicators of stress that I’m referring to are much more significant and not a game.  The dog who is still actively giving my staff the puppy dog eyes at farewell could go on being pet sat for days!  No.  The dog or cat who is under emotional stress has far too much weighing on their mind to be bothered with what your face is saying, they sadly are on their way to shutting down.

As true professionals, we already actively monitor baseline wellness of every pet in our care through very finite data points: behavior; food and water intake and output; and general vitals.  Pets who are being cared for in their own homes anywhere from once to four times per day, while their humans travel, cannot be cared for safely without active monitoring and tracking of these data points.  If your professional pet care provider is not tracking and monitoring these things, you need to approach them and ask why not and potentially seek another provider.  No, when pets start to stress emotionally from a too extended project or too many interruptions in their environment, the signs are significantly more dramatic and will raise like a white flag in the height of battle.  They may include, but are not limited to the following and I have ordered these by least to most significant:

• softening of stools
• decreased appetite or thirst
• vomiting
• diarrhea
• inappropriate urination, defecation or both
• increased vocalization with caregiver, particularly with cats
• increased solicitation of touch or physical nearness to caregiver, even constant holding or petting
• excessive vocalization in caregiver absence as evidenced through neighbors or the property manager
• use of calming signals through excessive grooming as evidenced through vomit
• use of calming signals through excessive grooming as evidenced through hair loss
• use of calming signals as above compulsively leading to hot spots – common areas are paws, legs and just above the nose where the licking has cause a half-moon blister or raw spot

Indicators at the beginning of this list up to diarrhea are early signs that an issue may be in development.  A pet who inappropriately urinates or defecates in the home is not a candidate for In Home professional pet services for a wide variety of reasons – they are not house trained, they are too young, they have health concerns which require additional monitoring, or they are not emotionally able to be home alone.  I work with my staff to address any other environmental issues that may be a cause of anxiety, such as the client coming home unexpected and leaving again, or multiple parties coming and going on erratic schedules.   It must also always be kept in mind that medical causes are a concern that must be considered first, and pet sitting clients have an obligation to their pet care professional not to mention their pet to take them in for regular wellness exams.  Around the midpoint of this list the indicators are progressing into serious concerns and it is at this stage that the client, no matter their preference, must be contacted and notified of the signals.   Those indicators in the list from excessive vocalization on are critical concerns which the pet must be relieved from the sit immediately, either by bringing them to the sitters home or the sitter staying in the client’s home with the pet or of course, the return of the client.

It will benefit anyone looking to hire a professional pet sitter, or work for a pet sitting business or start one of their own to know what to observe and establish safe limitations for both cats and dogs.  Beginning with the minimum requirements and assuming the pets are healthy, mature adults of each species: cats must be seen once every 24-hours you are away from the home; dogs must be seen once every 12-hours – however in my practice I require dogs to be seen three times each day with the PM and AM visit the following day being no more than 12-hours apart.  I know of other practices who require four visits per 24-hour period for dogs.  With this baseline schedule, the average cat and dog can sustain a one week project with no emotional distress.  Ten days seems to be the emotional limit for dogs in my practice with a fourteen day project being the longest I will approve and only after I have established intimate knowledge of the pet and routine.  I can and have gone for up to 28 days for multiple cat households, but I do not like doing it and I do see emotional upset usually around the start of the third week.  Clients coming home in the middle of a project or several smaller projects staggered cause a significant spike in emotional stress as evidenced above.  Erratic schedules of sitters or friends and family also cause a significant spike in emotional stress and can and will severely impact the success of the pet.

I am not aware of any professional pet sitting businesses or even of trainers or behaviorists who have conducted controlled studies of these issues but I would love to see them take place.  I also encourage both my peers in the industry and pet parents to share their experiences on this subject – I’m sure I haven’t covered all the possible scenarios.

Step 1. Meet The Professional In Home Pet Care Industry

With no brick and mortar storefront and no white coat or clicker to identify us, how does the average pet parent know they are working with a pro?

OUT OF THE WHELPING BOX

Its obvious that pet sitters have their roots in informal, across the fence arrangements with neighbors, friends, family and even the kid next door.  This birth is not unique to the pet sitting industry, and its definitely not unique to me personally.  My former career was in archaeology.  I’d guess that 50% of all professional archaeologists did a little pilfering of artifacts along plowed fields or shorelines when they were kids, sparking an interest that grew into a passion and eventually a career – one in which they have all sworn an oath now, to never “loot” any site again.  Why?  Because the private collector learned through education and experience that the value of shared knowledge outweighed the value of the self-serving destruction of that knowledge.  In archaeology context is everything – and once you’ve ripped through the soil to get at the artifacts you have destroyed the context and it is irrecoverable.  It is only through systematic, documented removal of data (the artifacts, the soil features and their associations and relationships to one another and to other sites throughout the region or world) that we can continue to learn about the unrecorded past.

Believe it or not, the Professional In Home Pet Sitter has a similar genesis.  Many began under the table, informally, but through education and experience, have learned how to maintain and in many cases improve, the the health and well being of the pets under their watch.  The genesis of this Industry from the domain of the kid-next-door, to true professional status has raised the bar for pet care across several sectors (I can even argue quite effectively to include the veterinary industry, and I will, in a separate post) and created a thriving market where once there was none.  I wonder how many jobs have been created by professional pet sitting and dog walking businesses over the past five years, which by the way, not that I have to remind anyone, have not been the best economic years in memory, but I digress!

The Industry is negatively impacted by the consumer’s inability to accurately identify a true professional and this is an area where each individual and business practicing has an obligation towards public outreach and education.  If a consumer on the caliber of Nancy Kerns, editor of The Whole Dog Journal, can be confused by and unable to identify a true professional in our field as evidenced in her recent blog post, then we clearly have a big problem.  The damage that sub-standard methods of care and over-casual attitudes delivered through the inexperienced layperson (no matter who they are) can be directly linked to the misunderstanding that a large sector of potential clients have of who we are.  This damage is caused by, but not limited to, the acceptance of inappropriate pets, people or arrangements conducive to a successful – stress free – project (eg. taking on a dog who suffers from Separation Anxiety Disorder); disruption of the pet’s normal environment which is the key factor to a successful In Home pet sitting project (eg. introduction of a new pet, not-of-the-household to the environment); lack of steady construction of a timed, consistent, reliable routine with the same people performing the same tasks which the pets quickly learn to predict, find comfort in and thrive on.  The minutia that a professional pet sitter or business manages, once you have experienced one, will astound you.  Sure, I can get grandiose and over-dramatic, but for the purposes of making my point I liken it to the seeming simplicity of an Olympian, which you know full well has spent endless hours in practice and recovery to get to where they are, to make what they do seem so effortless.  So, let’s help you make the right choices by arming you with the knowledge that you need before you hop in that Red Top Cab bound for IAD on a prayer that all will just “be okay.”  I want you to hop in that cab with quantifiable, qualifiable Quality Control measures which you know the caregiver possesses and will apply and which you can access during your active project as proof that your pet is getting the very best of care with their best interests as top priority!  Let’s get started!

ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP

The Industry is about 30 years young.  In Industry growth terms, and in my opinion based on Nancy’s knowledge of us, we are still pulling ourselves from the whelping box, repeatedly, and that ain’t right.  There is no mandatory licensing board, but there are several professional pet sitting industry associations.  As with any Industry, one of the goals of an association is to set a standard, ethic or code of conduct for all to follow.  Now, there are true professionals who are not members of any of the Industry associations, and I personally know of several who I regularly refer clients to, but the consumer can look to these associations as a starting point in their search for a professional who cares enough to align themselves with evidence for the minimum threshold for professionalism.   While the general summary of what membership means includes that the business has a formal contract for services; holds “care, custody and control” liability insurance specific to the pet care industry; is a legally registered business with their local, state and federal income tax offices; abides by all of the applicable animal codes of their locality; appropriately interviews, hires and manages their work force (as employees or ICs); and conducts themselves in an honest, courteous and professional manner.   Membership in an association alone is no guarantee of a successful experience.  You can and should explore the standards of the three largest Industry associations (NAPPS, PSI and APSE) in greater detail through the following links:

• NAPPS
• PSI
• APSE

ASSOCIATION CERTIFICATION

This is the closest thing this Industry has to formal licensing.  Each of the three associations above offer Certification Programs comprised of board developed coursework & examinations to educate and identify an even higher level of professionalism of a business or individual.  Typically, certification is identifiable by the consumer through a badge or other documentation on both the business’ profile page at the Association website and their own website.  Loyalty® is a NAPPS Certified business and I can attest that the coursework and examinations are thorough and well developed, setting the stage for the In Home pet care professional to assess and monitor the baseline wellness of each individual species they offer care for.  Part of the reason I chose to go with the NAPPS Certification was because members of my local Arlington County Public Schools System utilize the NAPPS Certification Program in their Animal Sciences Vocational program and they fought hard with the Education Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia for this particular program in spite of costs, because it provided the correct – verifiable – education for their own coursework.   This is a good thing for a business to have, but again, its not everything and even this plus membership is no guarantee of a successful experience.

PET CPR & FIRST AID CERTIFICATION

As a Certified PetTech® Instructor (CPTI), I insist that you should expect any potential care provider and all of their employees or independent contractors (ICs – I will discuss the difference briefly in a separate post, because it is relevant but not central to your decisionmaking process when choosing a business) be not just Certified in Pet CPR, First Aid & Care, but know how to prevent emergencies from occurring and be well practiced in an established protocol that all agree to follow in the event that an emergency does take place with your pet.  From experience, all professional pet sitters will encounter an emergency situation and it is only a matter of time before it happens.  This is not because our work is riskier for the pet than say, boarding or kenneling, it is because our pets do develop health concerns in their lifetimes, which because they are animals, oftentime mask the symptoms until the very last minute.  All Loyalty® employees are full PetTech® PetSaver™ Certified and I have written and practiced emergency protocols in place for every individual pet cared for in our practice.  This is a simple step to take that creates confidence in all involved parties – the business, the workers and the customer, and therefore reduces risk.  How do I mean?  Anytime you plan for emergencies, you raise awareness of environmental risk factors and thereby reduce the occurrence of the emergency taking place at all.  A prepared business will also be well versed and able to point out risk factors to you, the client, in the In Home meeting – providing you significantly higher value for your dollar.  Most importantly, your pet care professional must understand what a healthy baseline for the species with which they work actually looks like as well as service specific protocols so that the care delivered, no matter who the provider is, is of a consistently high quality for the business as a whole.  Finally, the PetTech® program is particularly unique in that we also train with the basic life saving skills a protocol called Knowing Your Pets Health™ or for short “The Snout-to-Tail Assessment.”  The Snout-to-Tail is designed to teach the pet guardian how to practice, document and learn their pet’s baseline health from, you guessed it, snout-to-tail, but at the same time you are practicing taking their vitals and learning what your pet’s unique baseline is – you are also conditioning your pet to not just tolerate, but enjoy being cared for – making your veterinary professional adore you, but best of all, you are reducing your pet’s ability to hide illness from you because you will become so intimately familiar with their baseline you will be able to tell at a glance if something is “off.”  If you combine association membership, association certification and pet cpr & first aid certification and protocol, you are well on your way to identifying a great candidate for hire, but that’s not nearly all you need to take into consideration and even still, will not guarantee you a successful experience.

NOT A FORD ASSEMBLY LINE

Remember, no matter how much we, the Industry, want to standardize ourselves for the betterment of all, this is still a personal service and a trust-based business.  For you to succeed at employing our services you must be willing and able to establish and build a long-term, cooperative partnership with whichever business you select.  Likewise, the business or individual you move forward with must approach you with the expectation that you will be a repeat customer, will repeatedly go over their policies and procedures with you prior to moving forward, and talk you through anything that you do not understand.  But it is also critical that you understand and accept the fact that our policies are in place for very specific reasons and that to ask us to bend the rules on any given policy places not just our relationship but your pet at risk.  We are going to provide our highly personal services for your individual pet, home and expectations within the structure of our policies.  Respect the policies, know what they are before you move forward and ask the questions you need to ask early.  This is all for the benefit of your pets, who will only become more secure and reliable at being sat when their care is delivered in a consistent, predictable routine with individuals with which they can establish relationships.  Allow us the time to build a relationship with you and with your pets.  For more on the minutia related to this topic, please see my post on shared sits and e.o.d. visits.

Being a trust-based business is a bit trickier to define for you – the obvious is that we have access to and perform our services in the privacy of your home and our workers are in most cases unsupervised in the traditional sense.  Let me be perfectly clear here,   “unsupervised in the traditional sense” does not mean unaccounted for.   You should anticipate that the business has in place very specific and redundant Quality Control measures that are employed consistently by all workers to assure the administrators of the business and yourself that your pet is being well cared for in your absence.  How do you know what the measures are?  Ask the business during the interview process.  What are good examples of these kinds of measures?  Great question, and the easiest answer – but not the only answer – I have, is does the business employ a professional pet sitting software to manage client data, staff schedules and project invoicing?  There are several on the market that have, over the past decade or so, been developed that really do wonders to create an efficient system and process of documentation, verification and you guessed it, Quality Assurance that visits are completed, as required by YOU, at the times agreed upon.  Loyalty® employs Power Pet Sitter.  I personally have less faith in any business larger than a sole proprietorship (one person outfit) that does not employ a third party vendor like Power Pet Sitter to support their operation.  But that can’t be the only measure and redundancy is essential to any QC program.  My team are required to maintain paper schedules of all assigned projects and to check off their visits in both the online software via smartphones as they complete their visits (for me to manage remotely via Power Pet Sitter) and in their paper schedules.  At the home, my team complete a Journal of visits, with each visit dated and timed and a detailed record of the visit events and results completed.  This is important not just for you on your return home as evidence of the relationship we are building and maintaining with your pet, but it is also important as a benefit to the baseline health and well being of your pet and moreover it is critical to us as the caregivers who work with mutiple pets in a given day, as a record of where things may start to be stressing a pet or signs of illness crop up, should they, during your project.  Again, please see my other post on shared sits and e.o.d. cat sits for more detail on our tracking of baseline health.  During active projects where clients travel, you have access to your primary sitter during our normal business hours to check in, either via cell phone, text message or email.  We can and will document for you our visits with photographs, emails or text messages at request – we don’t do this as standard procedure because we do not want to interfere with your trip, but we do want to provide them should you wish to have the additional relief.  We always, always encourage you to reach out to your primary sitter anytime you are wondering how things are going.  We don’t want you for one moment to be concerned or worried and the easiest way to resolve that is to just ask.

100% DISCLOSURE

Finally, one of the most important ways in which we ensure successful sits is through a policy of “100% disclosure”.  We are going to tell you if your pet is under stress.  We are going to limit project duration and not permit you to book services again if we find that your pet does not do well being home alone.  We will recommend other types of services should this occur.  If your pet is ill, you or your emergency contact will be the first to know.  Pets can be accident prone, unpredictable – and of course we feel they are sentient – beings, and we are in no way going to mask or ignore any issue that is present.  We make a promise to you to, like your veterinary professional, do no harm and keep their best interests as our first priority.

A MATURING INDUSTRY

As with any Industry, if people are involved we must create philosophies to operate by.  This kind of categorization helps us to clarify boundaries not just for the potential customer but also for the potential member of our workforce.  At the very heart of the Professional In Home Pet Care Industry sits the mantra “an extension of you.”    This mantra means that as professionals, we will deliver our services to your pets as directed and instructed by you and we will LOVE and serve them as an extension of you in your place when you cannot be there.  While I do believe that the sentiment “extension of you” has a place in my practice, Loyalty® additionally outlines to the potential client and more importantly the potential worker that the focus of our business is in the Force-Free, Positive-Reinforcement based realm, exclusively.  As a component to our mission statement, we refrain from engaging in any use of positive punishment, or the tools & devices that prohibit the strengthening of the human-animal bond through pain & intimidation.  We have, in our years of operation, experienced too much evidence on the side of force-free, positive reinforcement based techniques to benefit our customers – the pets and the people – to ever agree to perpetuate ineffective methods of “control.”   With the help of our newest, non-core association membership in The Pet Professionals Guild, we have been able to more accurately advertise our business as being force-free,  dedicated to strengthening the human-animal bond, while creating a safer community of pet guardians in everything that we do.

ENOUGH ABOUT US, LET’S TALK ABOUT OPTIONS

Hopefully I have helped put the Industry into better perspective without delving into everything we are not, but it is always important to keep in mind this is my opinion.  You are going to use what you know to determine a good provider for you and in Step 3 I will get into the nitty gritty on how to do that – a worksheet for you.  In the meantime, let’s sort through your options for care with a summary of what options you actually have, since we may in fact refuse to provide you service!

Coming Soon: Hop to Step 2.  Determine Which Professional Pet Care Services are Right for YOU

How TO Hire a Professional Pet Sitter in 3 Easy Steps.

Your pets deserve this vacation as much as you do, so keep their best interests at heart when planning your next one and hire a TRUE professional.

I am a big fan of The Whole Dog Journal (WDJ) and have been since 2007 when one of my very first mid day dog walk clients shared an issue with me.  Thoughtful, scholarly articles on everything to do with canines, my favorite species!  Over the past five years, I’ve referred to my library of three-ring-bound WDJs to offer insights on topics with my employees, my clients, my friends, neighbors, family and peers not to mention myself.

I was saddened to read WDJ Editor Nancy Kerns blog post on her recent experience with what she calls a “house sitter” for her menagerie.  As the owner of a professional pet care business, it’s no surprise to me the results she had based on the facts she outlined.  Relying on friends and acquaintences can be a safe bet, if and when you make sure you are covering all of your bases yourself and the person you are investing in has your best interests at heart and not their own – but anyone who has traveled and attempted this knows how challenging thinking out every last detail can be.  The feeling that this person is doing you a favor can keep you from directing and designing the type of care that is most appropriate for your furry family, even when your gut and heart are clamoring for your brain to speak up.

This is where hiring a true professional provider guarantees the most effective method, but only when you know first  how to select the appropriate type of service for your pets and second, how to identify the true professional.  I’m going to help you here.  As a true professional provider, its my mission to to pre-qualify you, your home, your needs and most importantly your pets for the services you are interested in, and turn you away if any of these components are not a good match.  If I do turn you away, I will explain the reasons why and then point you to the type of care that IS appropriate for your unique situation.  So, let’s get to it – you’ve all got vacations to plan.  This series of blog posts will be delivered in the following steps:

Step 1.  Meet the Professional In Home Pet Care Industry

Step 2.  Determine Which Professional Pet Care Services are Right for YOU

Step 3.  Interview, Select & Partner with a True Professional for the LONG TERM Wellness of Your Pets

At the end of the next three posts, you will be able to confidently discover, partner with and benefit from the correct service for your unique situation for a vacation or business trip of any length in your area and as a result you will also help reinforce the quality of the professional pet care industry as a whole because you will anticipate and as the consumer, demand, the utmost of professional care for your own furry family now that you know what that is.

Hop to Step 1.  Meet the Professional In Home Pet Care Industry

Dogs are American; Cats are French and We’re Ambassadors of Interspecies Introductions

© Meghan Gay Photography

Turid Rugaas is one of my professional heros.  For several years now I have been using her theory of canine “Calming Signals” in my professional pet sitting and dog walking business and in recent years I am convinced the use of her theory is keeping my staff safe from harm and my clients pets comfortable and at ease.  This proven use has time and time again, impressed and surprised potential new clients at our In Home registration meetings and started our relationships with the pets – both dogs and cats in fact – off on the right paw.  If these first meetings were between Ambassadors of Nations, the use of Turid’s Calming Signals are the bow in Japan, the double check peck in Europe, and the firm handshake in North America.  As ambassadors of species, I quickly discovered that learning to speak canine & feline via the language that they use through body language, is pivotal to gain the trust of an unfamiliar pet.

This is the first theory I teach to my team.  I quickly follow a basic introduction to Turid and her Calming Signals with my own demonstrations for both cats and dogs, some YouTube clips from favorite +R trainers like this one by Dogmantics  - and then we head out on some rounds and apply what we’ve learned in practice.  There are two major components to our technique: eye contact/head position and body positioning/movement.  They are each slightly different for cats and for dogs.

EYE CONTACT & HEAD POSITION.

Most casual human societies agree that it is impolite or downright rude to avert one’s eyes when meeting for the first time.  We naturally want to make a connection with those we engage so to stare directly into another person’s pupils is considered natural and appropriate.  We’d feel strange if someone we were engaged with was averting their stare: are they mad at us?  do they not like us?  is there something wrong with our hair?  is there something wrong with them?

Dogs, by comparison, view direct eye contact as an invitation to actively engage: depending on several variables that include our own body language and the dogs own temperment and history, this engagement could be mistaken by the dog as an aggressive challenge OR an invitation to roughhouse and play.  A dog we have never met before will undoubtedly be confused by a direct stare from us and only a highly human connected dog will be able to easily overcome their confusion.

Cats are even more sensitive to the direct gaze.  For cats, any direct gaze is a threat, even for cats with whom we are intimately familiar.  Do some get used to it?  Probably, but in my work I have often felt that individual animals, both cats and dogs, have varying abilities to interpret our human body language…or in other words, have varying ability to speak “human.”  Cats are much less naturally inclined to learn our intent, which makes understanding their calming signals a great asset.  Cats, at a stare from a person, will turn their eyes away.  If you are a favored human, some may send you a little love letter which is passed along via a little succession of slow eye blinks and a half lidded direct gaze, usually closed or punctuated by turning the gaze away.

BODY POSITIONING & MOVEMENT.

When dogs meet and wish to show friendly intent to one another, they approach each other in wide arcs keeping their bodies loose and wobbly, while making themselves appear smaller, less threatening to one another.  Think of their head and tail as forming the start and end of a wiggly “C” shape as they wiggle and waggle and wobble towards eachother in big happy arcs.  They may toss in some of Turids signals – a paw lift, a lip lick.

When dogs show unfriendly intent, they make themselves appear larger, raise their head, prick their ears forward, align their bodies like an arrow with a straight spine, do not wiggle, waggle or wobble and move with purpose directly towards the other.  Do keep in mind, I’m generalizing here.

Cats move in calm arcs, not a lot of wobble or wiggle, but they definitely utilize indirectness with one another and with us while still being close by and engaged.  They show their engagement with their ears and by positioning their heads in our general direction.  To disengage or ask to be disengaged a cat will turn their head away from us or leave the room.

What I train my team to do takes practice!  The first step is to remember that even though dogs and cats are not usually making direct pupil to pupil eye contact with us, they are always engaged with us as they monitor our every move through their expert peripheral vision.  So I train my people to practice the same.  Get in the habit of never making direct eye contact by always looking at either the cat or dog’s shoulder or the floor near their shoulder/head while maintaining your face position towards them.  Your face position towards them is the equivalent of their ear position towards us.  It shows we are engaged with them.  Dogs, after we’ve begun to form a bond with them and they “know” us, forgive eye contact and are often adept at speaking “human.”  Cats are not.  Look on cats as the French of the animal kingdom.  They expect you to speak their language because it is the language of love, non?  the most beautiful language there is, a song!

Body positioning and movement for cats is simple: never walk to them, make yourself small and let them come to you.  Walk in arcs around them, maintain your head in their direction (or completely ignore them) and go on about your business.

Body positioning for dogs is much more complicated.  The Loyalty technique is to present the side of our body, bend at the knees and back with hands between the thighs, head lowered but tilted to the direction of the dog, loose spine, happy high pitched voice and a whole lot of butt wiggle thrown in for foolish measure.  Eye contact is at dogs’ shoulder and like cats, always allow the dog to approach you, never directly approach the dog.  Always remember, pets who are afraid or in pain can and will bite you, even if you have an established relationship with them.  Respect their fear instincts for “fight or flight”.   They posses only those two options to fear.  Always allow them flight and the decision to approach you first to keep yourself and others safe.

This is what I train, but explore Turid’s theories yourself and come up with your own!  A little understanding and creativity go a long way with our furry friends and set the stage for trust at first glance giving you a greater chance of love at first sight!