Questions to Ask a Dog Sitter Before You Hire

By Jessica Ennis, DVM, CVA

Travel · August 19, 2026 · 6 min read

Ask a dog sitter about vet authorization, medication routines, and emergency protocol before you ever hand over a leash.

A ten-year-old dachshund named Biscuit stopped eating on day two of a five-day stay. Not dramatic, not an emergency — he just left his bowl full at breakfast and again at dinner. The sitter noted it, texted a photo of the untouched food, and asked whether that was normal for him after his owner traveled. It wasn’t an emergency call. It was the right-sized response to a small change, and it’s the kind of judgment you cannot verify from a five-star review.

That’s the case I make to clients weighing a sitter: hire on the answers to specific questions, not on the star rating. A polished profile tells you a sitter is popular. It does not tell you what they’ll do if your dog refuses food, slips on the stairs, or won’t take a pill hidden in peanut butter.

Start with vet authorization, not personality

Before anything else, ask whether the sitter will get a signed authorization from your veterinarian on file. Pet Sitters International recommends exactly this: a form on record with your vet’s office confirming the sitter is authorized to act on your behalf, so the clinic doesn’t have to track you down mid-flight to approve bloodwork or a sedation protocol. Ask directly — “Do you use a vet authorization form, and will you fax or email it to my clinic ahead of the stay?” A sitter who has never heard the term is not necessarily unqualified, but it tells you they haven’t thought through the worst day of a five-day booking.

Ask, too, what happens if your regular vet is unreachable. A sitter working a holiday weekend needs a fallback — an emergency clinic address already saved, not one they’ll Google at 11 p.m.

What training actually means, and what it doesn’t

“Certified” gets used loosely in this industry, so ask what the certification covers rather than whether one exists. Programs through Pet Sitters International and the American Red Cross for pet sitters and dog walkers train on first aid, CPR, and early recognition of illness — spotting the dog that’s quieter than usual before it becomes a crisis, not just responding once one is underway. Ask when the certification was last renewed; pet first-aid knowledge, like human first aid, has a shelf life, and a sitter who took a course five years ago and never refreshed it is functionally starting over.

I’d rather hire a sitter with two years of unglamorous, consistent home visits and a current first-aid card than one with a decade of experience and none. Experience without a plan for the bad day is just familiarity.

The question that separates a sitter from a boarder

Ask what a typical day looks like at your dog’s actual address versus a facility. This matters more for a stiff-jointed senior or an anxious dog than most owners realize. A widely cited study out of the University of Lincoln and the Royal Veterinary College, covered by ScienceDaily, found that dogs boarded short-term in kennels showed elevated cortisol compared to their home baseline — though the researchers were careful to note that a cortisol spike can reflect excitement as much as distress, so a kennel stay isn’t automatically a bad one. Still, for a dog who startles at new dogs barking down a row of runs, staying in familiar rooms with a familiar routine is often the gentler option, and it’s worth asking a sitter directly how they’d keep that routine intact — same walk route, same feeding time, same spot on the couch.

If you’re still weighing a sitter against a kennel at all, our guide on whether to board a senior dog or hire a sitter walks through that decision in more depth, and the comparison of in-home sitters, drop-in visits, and daycare is worth reading before you commit to a format.

Medication, mobility, and the questions owners forget to ask

If your dog takes a joint supplement, an anti-inflammatory, or anything on a schedule, ask the sitter to describe back to you exactly how and when they’ll give it — not just “yes, I can do meds.” I’ve had owners assume a sitter understood “twice daily with food” only to learn afterward the dog got both doses at once because the instructions were vague on paper. Ask what they’ll do if the dog spits out a pill, and whether they’ll tell you the same day or wait until pickup.

For a dog with arthritis or reduced mobility, ask about stairs, slippery floors, and how far they’re willing to carry or support a fifty-pound dog who can’t manage the porch steps after rain. This is a small, unglamorous detail that predicts a lot about whether a sitter has actually cared for an older dog before.

What I tell clients before they book

One of the clients I see most often is a couple with a twelve-year-old Lab mix who travels for work every few months. The first time they hired a sitter, they didn’t ask about medication timing, and the sitter — kind, well-reviewed, inexperienced with arthritic dogs — gave the joint supplement once instead of twice for four straight days because the bottle didn’t specify. Nothing dangerous happened. But the dog was visibly stiffer by day three, and the owners came back to me asking what went wrong. Nothing had gone wrong exactly; nobody had asked the right question up front. Since then, I tell every client with an older or medicated dog to write instructions down, confirm the sitter has read them back, and ask what the sitter will do the moment something looks off — before the booking, not after.

Reference checks matter here too, but ask for a recent one, not just a favorite from years ago, and ask the reference a pointed question: “Did anything ever go sideways, and how did they handle it?” The answer to that tells you more than “would you use them again.”

Bonding, insurance, and the meet-and-greet

Ask whether the sitter carries liability insurance and is bonded. This protects you if something in your home is damaged or your dog is injured under their care — it is not a comment on their skill, but it is a baseline professional safeguard worth confirming before anyone has a key. And always insist on a meet-and-greet at your own home, not a coffee shop. Watch how your dog responds when the sitter kneels down, how the sitter reads a dog who backs away, and whether they ask you questions unprompted — about the stairs, the neighbor’s dog, the spot your dog guards. A sitter who asks good questions of you is usually the one who’ll ask good questions of your vet, too.

The bottom line

Hire on specifics, not vibes. Ask about vet authorization, ask what their first-aid training actually covered and when, ask how they’ll keep your dog’s routine intact, and ask them to repeat your medication instructions back to you before you leave. If a sitter answers those clearly and without defensiveness, that’s a better predictor of a good week than any number of stars next to their name.

If travel logistics are next on your list, our guides to dog car restraint safety and flying with a dog cover the other half of the trip.