Pet Sitter Instructions: The Template That Covers Everything (2026)

Every pet sitter has the same story: a warm handoff, a wave goodbye — and then, at 7 pm, the realization that nobody mentioned whether the cat gets wet food at night, where the spare litter lives, or what “he sometimes gets weird about the stairs” actually means. The gap between what owners know and what they write down is where sitter problems live.

The fix is a standing instruction sheet — written once, updated occasionally, handed over in minutes. Here’s the complete template, section by section. Copy it, fill it in, and your next handoff takes five minutes instead of a frantic voice memo from the airport.

Section 1: The Pet, On One Line Each

For each animal:

• Name, species/breed, age, weight (weight matters — it’s the first thing an emergency vet asks)
• Microchip number and collar/tag status
• Temperament in one honest sentence: “Friendly but food-possessive around the other cat.” Honesty here prevents incidents; flattery causes them.

Section 2: Feeding — Exact, Not Approximate

The #1 sitter question category. Kill the ambiguity:

• What: brand and product, wet/dry, where it’s stored, where the backup bag is
• How much: in grams or the actual scoop that lives in the bag — “one cup” means four different things in four kitchens
• When: times, not vibes (“7:30 and 18:00”, not “morning and evening”)
• Treats: what’s allowed, daily maximum, and the hard NO list (chocolate, grapes, xylitol for dogs; lilies even as flowers in cat homes)
• Quirks: eats only when alone? Bowl must be away from the other pet? Free-feeder or vacuum-eater? Write it down.

Section 3: Medications — the Zero-Ambiguity Zone

If your pet takes anything, this section is the whole reason the document exists:

• Drug name, dose, exact times, with food or without
• How to administer — hidden in a treat, direct pill, liquid syringe — and the fallback if refused
• What a missed dose means: “skip and note it” vs. “call me” vs. “call the vet” — the sitter should never have to guess the stakes
• A dose log the sitter marks off. “Did I give the morning pill or am I remembering yesterday?” is a genuinely dangerous question with twice-daily meds. A shared checklist — paper taped to the cupboard, or a medication tracker both of you can see — removes it entirely.

Section 4: The Daily Rhythm

Pets don’t relax for sitters because the sitter is nice; they relax because the routine survived the owner’s departure. Map a normal day: wake and walk times, meal times, litter scooping, play rituals (“ten minutes of wand toy after dinner or she yells”), bedtime and where everyone sleeps. For dogs: leash location, route, on-leash-always or park exceptions, recall reliability (be honest), and reactivity notes — “crosses the street when he sees skateboards” is gold to a sitter.

Section 5: House Rules and House Logistics

• Allowed/forbidden zones; door and window discipline (which is the escape-risk door?)
• Where everything lives: food, litter, cleaning supplies, towels, carrier, first-aid kit
• Wi-Fi, alarm codes, trash day — the house half of pet sitting
• Quirks with hardware: “the balcony door doesn’t latch unless you lift it” has ended badly in more than one sitting story

Section 6: Emergencies — Decided in Advance

The section you write hoping it’s never read:

• Your vet: name, address, phone, and whether they have your card on file
• Nearest 24/7 emergency vet with address — the sitter should not be googling this at 2 am
• Poison control number for your country
• Your authorization: a signed line like “I authorize treatment up to €X in my absence; contact me at +…, backup contact: …” — clinics move faster with consent in hand
• Warning signs specific to your pet: the flag list for a senior cat differs from a puppy’s; three bullet points from your pet’s history (“watch for: straining in the litter box — he has urinary history”) beat a generic list
• Where the first-aid kit lives

Section 7: Communication Contract

Mismatched expectations sour more sittings than any pet behavior does. Agree on:

• Update cadence: daily photo? Text after each visit? Only if something’s off?
• What’s worth an immediate call vs. a note in the evening summary
• Your time zone and unreachable windows, and the decision-empowered backup person locally

Making It Stick: The Living Version

The paper version of this template has a known failure mode: it’s accurate the week it’s written, and quietly wrong within months — the dose changed, the food changed, the vet moved. By sitting #3, the sitter is working from fiction.

This is exactly the problem a shared pet app solves. In PokiPaw, a family group with a join code or QR gives your sitter time-limited access to the real thing: current feeding notes, the actual med schedule with dose-by-dose check-off, vaccine records if a vet visit happens, emergency contacts, and a care calendar with tasks that get marked done — so “did the 6 pm feeding happen?” has an answer from three time zones away. Per-pet roles mean the sitter sees and logs what they need without owning your whole setup, the same system that organizes multi-pet households day to day. When the sitting ends, access ends.

Whether digital or paper: write it once, keep it current, and hand every sitter the same complete brief. Your sitter does better work, your pets keep their routine, and your vacation contains zero airport voice memos.

Download PokiPaw and hand your next sitter a live handbook instead of a stack of sticky notes — join code in, everything current, nothing forgotten.