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Buy us a coffee Pets and animals · PA-04
A free printable pet sitter instruction sheet — feeding, medication, walks, house rules, vet and emergency contacts, and what normal looks like.
2 pages. Choose your paper size — both versions are laid out identically, so neither one gets shrunk to fit.
Print it and write on it
Fill it in type and save
The fillable versions have real form fields — open them in any PDF reader, type into them and save. Printing help.
Give a sitter everything they need so they do not have to ring you, including the part most people leave out — what this animal is like when nothing is wrong.
Anyone leaving an animal with a sitter, a neighbour, a friend or a family member.
2 pages, in this order:
Printed under the title: Feeding, medication, the walk routine, house rules, the vet's number and the emergency contacts, laid out in the order a sitter will need them — finishing with a description of what this particular animal is like on an ordinary day.
Assume the reader knows nothing. Write it as though the reader has never met the animal, because one day that will be true. The line people most often leave out is the last one on this sheet — what this animal is like when nothing is wrong. Without it, a sitter has no way of telling an off day from an emergency.
Write-on lines: Name · Species and breed · Age · Sex · Colour and markings · Microchip number · Where the lead, carrier and food are kept
Table, 5 rows: When · Food and how much · Where it is kept · Notes
Table, 4 rows: Medicine · Amount and when · How it is given · Started · Notes
Write-on lines: Walks — when and how long · Lead, harness or both · Off lead where, if at all · Recall — honestly · Reacts to · Toilet routine
Write-on lines: Allowed on furniture · Allowed upstairs · Rooms that are off limits · Sleeps where · Doors and gates to keep shut · Other animals in the house
Ruled lines
Write-on lines: Vet practice · Phone · Out-of-hours vet and number · Owner · Reachable on · Second contact and number · Insurer and policy number · Consent to treat given to · Spending limit agreed
Ruled lines: Anything else the sitter should know
Because a sitter has no baseline. Without one they cannot tell a quiet day from a sick animal, and they will either ring you about nothing or not ring you about something. Two lines about usual appetite, energy and toileting fixes it.
It is worth agreeing one, and worth writing down who is allowed to authorise treatment in your absence. Practices differ in what they will accept from somebody who is not the owner, so it is a question to ask yours in advance.
Give the sitter the water stopcock, the alarm code and the bin day as well — a separate sheet for that is linked below, and it takes two minutes to fill in.
Put everything a neighbour, a sitter or an emergency responder would need onto one page and leave it where a stranger would look. It answers the questions that get asked when you are not there to be asked.
Get every animal in the house onto one page, so a sitter, a new vet or an insurer can be handed a single sheet instead of a folder. It also carries the feeding and medication detail that stops the wrong bowl going to the wrong animal.
Make sure anyone in the household can turn off the water, gas or electricity quickly, including people who did not move in with the property.
The same subject, with a version you can fill in on screen.
Arrival and departure times, and who handed the dog over at each end.
Who the animal belongs to while it is with you, and who to ring about it.
Where the keys, the stopcock, the fuse box and the spare bulbs are.
Who to ring, and who to ring if they cannot be reached.
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