If you’re a dog or cat owner, you know exactly how much care and responsibility are involved in caring for your favourite pet. This is exactly what makes Petsitting such a lucrative business—not everyone has the time to give their pets the care they need, and that’s where you come in. Petsitting apps make it easier to find pet sitting jobs, connect with owners and interact with them, and keep track of your pet sitting hours, billing, and expenses. We’ve prepared a curated list of the Top 6 Petsitting apps on iOS and Android to help you take care of those adorable balls of fur. Read on to find out more.
Read: Best Pet Monitoring Apps for Android and iOS
Best Dog Walking App to Make Money
1. Fetch Pet Care
Best for: personalized, higher-end petsitting opportunities
While platforms like Rover focus on ease of availability, Fetch Pet Care recognizes that the best pet sitters might not just be the ones that happen to be nearest. Fetch Pet Care emphasizes on quality—if you sign up as a Pet Care Provider, you’ll have to undergo special training. Moreover, all your petsitting assignments will be supervised by Fetch Pet Care’s local Pet Care Coordinator. These coordinators hand-match you with your perfect petsitting assignment based on your interests and pet experience to ensure that petsitting will be as seamless as possible. Because of its premium approach, Fetch Pet Care is only available in a limited number of US locations—major cities like LA and New York City, but this isn’t an opportunity you’ll be able to capitalize on if you live in a smaller city.
Pros:
- Personalized experience matches you with the most appropriate pet owners
- Training is a valuable addition that can come in handy during future petsitting work
Cons:
- Only available in select cities and towns
- Application, selection, and training process are longwinded.
2. Rover
Best for: Local dogsitting opportunities
Rover is one of the largest petsitting platforms in the world—it recently merged with DogVacay to increase its reach even more. Rover has over 200,000 sitters on its roster. With such a high density, chances are your potential dog owners will right in the neighborhood, making the experience more convenient for you as the sitter and for the owner. The app allows you to stay in touch with owners by sending them status updates, videos, and photos of their pet. Rover also makes it easier for you to promote yourself as a Rover sitter through Rover cards, which give clients details about yourself so that they can come to a quick decision. It is hard to become a Rover sitter, though. Less than 20 percent of applicants make it in.
Pros:
- Large community size means that clients will likely be nearby
- Rover cards make it easier to promote yourself as a petsitter
Cons:
- Less than 20 percent application success rate makes it hard to join
3. Wag!
Best for: Paid dog-walking gigs
Petsitting isn’t the only way to make money from caring for pets. Dog-walking is another great way to earn some extra money while being close to animals you love. The Wag! app connects dog walkers with pet owners. Unlike petsitting, you’re only responsible for a walk, which can be as little as 15-30 minutes a day. Wag! features GPS tracking to allow owners to monitor the exact route of your dog walk for their peace of mind and also allows you to send notifications to them when your dog, er, takes care of business. While the application process isn’t as stringent as with Dog Hero, you will still have to go through a test that involves your situational awareness, knowledge of dog harnesses and more.
Pros:
- Dog walking is an ever more flexible way of earning cash than petsitting
- Dog walks are GPS-enabled for monitoring and peace of mind
Cons:
- None
4. Dog Hero
Best for: International dogsitting gigs if you’re traveling
You don’t have to be in the US to get a great dogsitting gig. International dogsitting is a great way to earn extra money while spending time in countries you love. Dog Hero is a Latin America-focused dog-sitting app. It connects dog parents with over 16,000 dog hosts in Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. Dog Hero has a very stringent selection process, though—thy reject over 80 percent of potential sitters so you need to ensure that your accommodations are up to scratch. Dog Hero lets you interact with the owners by sending pictures and videos of their dog to them throughout the day.
Pros:
- International dogsitting opportunities
- Messaging with the owners allows you to keep in touch about any issues in real-time
Cons:
- Very stringent selection procedure means less than 20 percent of applicants become dogsitters
- Currently only available in three countries
5. Pet First Aid – Red Cross
Best for: Emergencies situations with the pets you’re sitting
It always helps to be prepared, and never more so than when someone entrusts their pet’s lives to you. The American Red Cross’s First Aid for Care app provides you with key information about giving dogs, cats, and other pets immediate first aid in case they exhibit life-threatening symptoms. The app recognizes that the most important thing is to get access to professional help as soon as possible: to this end, it uses geolocation to help you find the nearest veterinary hospital and also has a dedicated function to call the vet. This is a must-have reference app for all pet sitters.
Pros:
- Gives basic first aid information for most common pets
- Quick access to professional help
Cons:
- Some of the guides can be very wordy, with fewer images, defeating the purpose of rapid first aid
6. Precise Petcare
Best for: Managing your petsitting business
Most of the apps on this list place emphasis on the pet owners themselves. They’re platforms for owners to connect with potential pet sitters like yourself. Functionality for the petsitters themselves is incidental at best. How do you keep track of your petsitting gigs? This is exactly what Precise Petcare is for. It’s an app designed for petsitters to keep track of their business. It has powerful scheduling features built for both sitters and managers of petsitting agencies. Apart from financial aspects, such as support for invoicing, it allows petsitters to keep track of walking routes through geolocation, and create pet care journals—a nifty feature if your petsitting agency requires you to write about the experience.
Pros:
- Powerful calendar-based scheduling features
- Invoicing and payment tracking functions make petsitting payments more convenient
Cons:
- None
Closing Words
These were our picks for the best pet sitting apps. They all have different strong points: Rover’s large community makes it easier to find a petsitting gig, while Dog Hero will help you earn extra while you’re abroad. Wag! is a great option if you’re just looking to do a bit of dog-walking. Lastly, Precise Petcare is a mini-ERP solution that’ll ensure that you never lose track of clients and billing. Which Petsitting app did you find the most useful and why? Let us know in the comments below. And if you’re a petsitter, chances are you’re also a pet owner. Check out our selection of the best pet apps for seasoned pet owners.
