Drop-in pet visits in York
Pet visits in York, half an hour or a full hour.
A visit is half an hour or an hour at your house, once, twice or three times a day. I do everything your animals need and then leave them to it, in their own rooms, with nobody travelling anywhere.
Good for a dog having a break in a working day, a puppy who cannot go the length of an afternoon, and for rabbits, guinea pigs and the smaller animals in the house. If your cat is the reason you are here, cat sitting is written up on its own page. If you would like someone there through the night, that is an overnight sit, and a night in your house is £50.
What a visit costs
£1530 minutes
£2260 minutes
The same price whatever day of the week it is, bank holidays aside. Visits stay within about five miles of York, because that is what I can genuinely manage twice a day with the A64 in the mix. Just outside it, ask anyway.
Thirty minutes is thirty minutes
Booked from when I arrive, not from when I set off.
A half-hour visit is a real half hour and it is a busy one. It covers a cat properly. It covers a dog who is having a break in a day they can otherwise manage. What it will not do is stretch: if the tray needs scrubbing, the tablet gets spat out twice and somebody has been sick behind the sofa, something in that list gets the short end of it. So book the hour when the list is long, and I will tell you when I come round if I think you have booked the wrong one.
In half an hour
- Let myself in and take a proper minute to say hello
- Food down, water changed, bowls washed
- Litter tray emptied and topped up, or a toilet break in the garden
- Medication as prescribed and written down
- Around ten minutes of attention: a brush, a game, a lap to sit on
- Post picked up, doors and windows checked, lights and curtains as you left them
- Photos and messages while you are away
An hour buys room for
- All of the above, without one eye on the clock
- A walk for a dog, at their own pace
- A cat who takes twenty minutes to decide the sofa is safe again
- Two or three animals who have to be fed in separate rooms
- Medication that needs patience, a tablet refused twice before it goes down
- An accident cleared up properly, floor and all
- A young animal who needs wearing out before being left again
It is your house and your animals, and I stick to what we have written down. Nobody else comes in with me.
How many visits a day
More on cats specifically-
One visit a day
Enough for a confident adult cat with a clean tray, a full water bowl and no medication, over a short trip. A dog needs more than that, and so does a fortnight.
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Two visits a day
Morning and evening is what most of the cats I look after end up on. It splits the day properly: food is fresh twice, the tray is seen to at both ends of it, and anything wrong in the morning gets picked up the same day.
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Three visits a day
Worth it when medication has to be given at intervals, or for a young animal who cannot go the length of a day. Worth comparing, though: three half-hour visits comes to £45 a day, and for £50 I am in the house all night.
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A dog on their own all day
If your dog should not be on their own all day, an overnight sit is what I would suggest, even though it is the more expensive one. I would sooner tell you that than take a booking that leaves them on their own too long.
An agreed window, morning and evening.
When I turn up
Two visits a day means two agreed windows, a morning one and an evening one. The round runs in the same order every day, so your animals land in roughly the same part of their window each time, and the gap between morning and evening stays wide enough to be worth having.
Traffic in York does not respect a diary. If I am going to fall outside a window, you will hear from me before it happens.
Some medication has to land at an exact time, not anywhere inside a window. If that is your animal, say so when I come round. It changes the shape of the round, and occasionally it means I am not the right person for the fortnight you are asking about.
Keys, your vet, your emergency contact and what you are happy for me to authorise all get written down before the first visit. The questions people ask about all of that are answered in full, and there is more detail on the overnight page.
Visits stay within about five miles of York, because two a day only works if I can get between the houses twice. Overnight sits reach about fifteen miles out. Everywhere I cover is listed with the parking and the access that genuinely change how a visit works.
Every booking starts the same way, with a free introductory visit at your house. What the first visit involves.
Questions about visits
All questions and answersIs this dog walking?
Not quite. A walk can happen inside an hour-long visit as part of that visit, and walks are part of an overnight sit. What I don’t run is a walking round with a repeating weekday slot.
Half an hour or an hour, which should I book?
One cat, a clean tray and no medication, and half an hour does the job. A dog, several animals in separate rooms, or medication that needs coaxing, and I would book the hour. If you are not sure, tell me what you have when you send your dates and I will tell you which I would pick.
Can you come at the same time every day while I’m at work?
Ask me before you assume it. A repeating weekday slot depends on what else is in the round, and I would rather say no than say yes and hold it for the first week only.
Do I need to be there for the first visit?
You need to be there for the introductory visit, which happens at your house before any booking. Access is arranged then, in whatever way suits the house. After that, no.
Tell me your dates and I’ll tell you which visit to book.
Dates, your postcode, what animals you have and whether anything needs medication. I usually reply the same day, and if half an hour is enough I’ll say so.