What information should you leave a pet sitter?
1. How to reach you — and someone else
- Your mobile number, and whether you will have signal where you are going.
- The dates you are away and when you get back.
- A second person, local, who can be reached if you can’t. This is the item most often missing, and it is the one that matters when the sitter has a problem and you are on a plane.
- Where you are staying, if it is somewhere they could reach you another way.
2. Feeding
- Which food, by name — not “his food”, since there may be three bags.
- The exact amount, in a unit that exists in your kitchen. “One scoop, the blue one” beats “about a cup”.
- How many times a day, and roughly when.
- Where the food is kept, and where the spare is when the bag runs out.
- Treats — which ones, how many, and any that are absolutely not allowed.
- Anything about how they eat: slow bowl, fed separately from another animal, eats outside.
- Water — where the bowl is and how often to change it.
3. Medication
Be more precise here than anywhere else on the list. This is the section where a misunderstanding does real harm.
- The drug name as written on the packet.
- The actual dose — “half a 10mg tablet”, not “his tablet”.
- When, and whether with food or without.
- How it is given: in food, in a pill pocket, directly, ears held a particular way.
- Where it is stored, including anything in the fridge.
- What to do if a dose is missed or spat out. Say explicitly whether to re-dose.
- Anything time-critical — insulin, seizure medication — flagged clearly as such.
4. Routine and walks
- When they are normally let out, and how often.
- Walk times and rough length; where the lead, harness and bags are kept.
- Whether they are ever off-lead, and where. If never, say never.
- How they are with other dogs, with children, with cyclists.
- Where they sleep, and whether they are crated.
- How long they can comfortably be left, and where in the house.
- For cats: litter tray location, litter type, and how often it is scooped.
5. Behaviour, fears and hard limits
Sitters can manage almost anything if they know about it in advance, and almost nothing if they discover it at the door.
- Escape risk. Does he bolt when the front door opens? Say so first, in bold. This is the single most consequential line on the sheet.
- Fears — thunder, the vacuum, men in hats, the hallway cupboard.
- Resource guarding around food, toys or a particular chair.
- Any history of biting or snapping, and what precedes it. Do not soften this.
- House rules: furniture, upstairs, which doors stay shut.
- Comforts — the toy, the blanket, the radio left on.
- What must not happen. Foods that are dangerous for this animal specifically, a dog who cannot be walked with another, a cat who must not get outside.
6. The house
- How to get in, and how to lock up. Give this to the person, not to a document that could be forwarded.
- Alarm code and how long it gives you to enter it.
- Wi-Fi, if they will be spending time there.
- Where supplies live: food, leads, towels, cleaning things, spare bedding.
- Bins and collection day, if they are staying over.
- Anything that needs a knack — the door that sticks, the tap, the gate latch.
- Who else might turn up: a cleaner, a neighbour, a building manager.
7. Both vets, and permission to use them
- Your regular practice: name, address, phone number, and your pet’s name on file.
- Your nearest 24-hour emergency hospital, with an address. Different place, different hours, and the one that is impossible to research calmly at 2am.
- Pet insurance details, if you have them.
- Written permission: a signed line saying this person may authorise treatment up to a stated amount. Tell the practice as well, so their own record agrees.
- Any ongoing condition the vet already knows about.
8. Identification
- Microchip number, and which company it is registered with.
- Whether the registration is current — check it before you go, not after.
- Collar tag details, and whether the collar stays on.
- Recent photographs, side and front, showing size and markings. If the worst happens, this is what a flyer is made of — see what to do if a dog goes missing.
- Distinguishing marks, and their microchip or licence paperwork if you have it.
9. If something goes wrong
Tell the sitter what you want, so they are not guessing about your preferences under stress.
- When to call you versus when to just act. Be generous here — most sitters hesitate too long.
- The symptoms that mean go to the emergency vet immediately, without calling first.
- What to do if the pet gets out: who to call, which direction to search, the chip number.
- Your spending ceiling, and what to do if a decision costs more than it.
- Your backup person’s number again, here, where they will be looking for it.
The five things people always forget
- A second contact. Everything routes to you, and you are unreachable for the one hour it matters.
- The emergency vet. The regular vet gets written down; the 24-hour hospital does not.
- What to do about a missed dose. Sitters do not know whether to re-dose, and will usually guess wrong out of caution.
- The door. A dog who bolts is a lost dog within thirty seconds of a sitter not knowing.
- Permission to treat. Fine until the moment it isn’t, at a counter, with a card that isn’t yours.
How to hand it over
Format matters more than length. A sitter arriving for the first visit wants to scan, not read.
- Headings and short lines, in the order above. Time-critical things at the top.
- Something on the fridge as well as something on their phone. Paper does not run out of battery; a phone does not get left at home.
- Walk them through it once in person if you can. Five minutes at the door answers more questions than four pages.
- Keep it somewhere you can update. The sheet you print for one weekend is out of date by the next; the version that lives in one place and gets shared each time never is.
One more use for the same list. Everything here is also exactly what a friend or neighbour would need if you were unexpectedly unable to get home. Written once, it covers both — which is the argument for keeping it somewhere permanent rather than rewriting it every trip. The pet emergency plan guide covers that version.
Common questions
- What should I leave for a pet sitter?
- At minimum: your contact details and a backup person, exact feeding amounts and times, every medication with its real dose, the daily routine, your pet's fears and hard limits, where supplies are, your regular vet and your emergency vet with numbers, the microchip number, and written permission for the sitter to seek veterinary treatment.
- Should I give my pet sitter my vet's details?
- Yes — both of them. Your regular practice for anything routine, and your nearest 24-hour emergency hospital, which is a different place and is the one nobody can find under pressure. Call your practice in advance and ask them to note that this person may bring your animal in.
- How much detail is too much?
- Length is not the problem; structure is. A sitter will not read four pages of prose at 7am, but will happily scan a list with headings. Put the things that are time-critical or irreversible — medication, allergies, the dog who bolts through open doors — at the top, and the nice-to-know further down.
- Do I need to leave written permission for veterinary treatment?
- It helps a great deal. A short signed note saying the sitter may authorise treatment up to a stated amount, with your name and the practice's, removes a real delay at a counter. Tell your practice too, since their record is what they will check.
Where Woof fits
The list on this page is exactly what the Woof Pet Record holds. It is included with free Woof, and the reason to keep it in an app rather than a document is that it stays current and it can be handed over without being retyped.
When you need to give it to a sitter, Woof creates a temporary link. They open it in a browser — no account, no app — and it shows exactly the parts you chose and stops working on its own after an hour, a day or a week.
The Caregiver Pass is the version built for a whole weekend: you pick the pets, tick which of the ten sections they can see, and add the tasks from this checklist so your sitter can mark each one as they go. They can check in with a note and a photo. Nothing claims Woof verified anything — a line reads “marked done by Katie”, because that is all Woof knows.
How to get into your home is never in a share. Access instructions are excluded by the database itself, so “share everything” cannot reach them. Give your door code to a person directly; it does not belong in a link that could be forwarded.
The same record is what Woof sends your Safety Network if you ever miss a check-in — which means the work you do for a weekend away is the work that covers the day you can’t get home.
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Woof is free on iPhone. Check-ins, your Safety Network and the Woof Pet Record cost nothing and don’t expire.