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<\/a>After deciding exactly where to go on vacation, perhaps the most difficult decision facing families these days is whether or not to bring pets along on the trip.<\/p>\nAlthough there are entire websites devoted to traveling with a pet, flying or driving across the country can be a traumatic experience for most domestic pets and their owners.<\/p>\n
Critter Sitters, 315 Lemay Ferry Road, offers an alternative, though, for vacationing families and business travelers who are worried about leaving their pets behind.<\/p>\n
For a modest fee per visit, a sitter will stop by a client\u2019s home and take care of their pets on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe allow a pet to stay in a familiar environment, where they feel secure and are able to keep the routine they are most accustomed to,\u201d said Tammy Tvetene of Critter Sitters.<\/p>\n
Tvetene and her sister, Cindy Berndt, co-own this South County-based business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both are from households with multiple pets,\u201d Tvetene said. \u201cAbout eight or nine years ago, we ran into a situation where we needed pet care because the whole family was traveling together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found a pet sitting service that was listed under \u2018Kennels\u2019 because they (pet sitting services) really weren\u2019t popular at that point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The sisters used the service, thought it was a great idea for a business and started researching the possibility of opening their own pet sitting service.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a \u2018Critter Sitters\u2019 in Kansas City. We called the owner and got some information about how she was running her business, the size of the business, the number of employees and how long it took to get started,\u201d Tvetene said.<\/p>\n
In addition to caring for pets whose owners are out of town, approximately one-third of Critter Sitter\u2019s business is midday doggie walking.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to be for customers who are in-town, but just working long hours. That\u2019s a trend we continue to see grow because as people are forced to work longer hours and drive further and further to get to work, there\u2019s a need in the middle of the day for someone to let the dog out,\u201d Tvetene said.<\/p>\n
Sitters employed by this service always do a \u201cget acquainted\u201d visit with the owners and the pets before starting a new assignment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you had a teacher come to your house before the first day of preschool, you\u2019d want the child to be on it\u2019s best behavior,\u201d Tvetene said. \u201cThe owner is trying so hard to make sure the pet is on its best behavior, but the pet is going to do what the pet wants to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tvetene said that since it\u2019s pretty easy to read the body language of dogs and cats, their most unusal \u201cget acquainted\u201d meetings involve birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had some funny situations where we\u2019ve gone in to meet a bird and the owners are happy and say \u2018The bird likes you. The bird is sitting on your shoulder,\u2019\u201d Tvetene said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then the bird doesn\u2019t want to go back in its cage. The bird decides he\u2019s going to hang out and visit for a while,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to enter the house as subtly as possible and just king of blend in. For any of the animals that are shy, we make sure the owner shows us all their special hiding places,\u201d Tvetene said.<\/p>\n
Even after a successful first meeting, some pets still get upset that their owners have left them home alone with someone new.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a customer\u2019s dog that chewed the couch apart,\u201d Berndt said. \u201cGenerally, it\u2019s not the first time the pet has done that, so the owners aren\u2019t surprised, but we find ourselves in the position where we are trying to apologize for the pet\u2019s behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because Critter Sitters caters to customers who view the sitter as something like a child\u2019s nanny, unusual requests can become the norm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took care of a dog where the owner asked that when I feed the dog, could I sit down at the kitchen table and maybe eat a little something myself because the dog liked to each when other people are eating,\u201d Tvetene said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a little Chihuahua who wouldn\u2019t come inside unless you yelled \u2018Hot Dog!\u2019 That\u2019s what made the Chihuahua come inside because that was his treat\u2014they gave him a little hot dog treat when he was a good boy,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n
Berndt said that although they laugh about situations and requests like these, they really are grateful to have the kind of customers who spoil their pets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gotten to the point, eight years into this, that nothing surprises us. We\u2019ve heard it all, from the Wedgwood china dishes that the dogs eat out of to making sure that \u2018General Hospital\u2019 is on because my dog likes the soap operas,\u201d Berndt said.<\/p>\n
Critter Sitters is insured and bonded and belongs to Pet Sitters International, a membership organization for professional pet sitters.<\/p>\n
The company charges $15 per visit for domestic animals, and $1 per visit for each additional animal. The service area includes West, Mid and South County.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of our sitters have been with us a very long time and the people who work for us do this because they truly love animals. This is not something you do to get wealthy,\u201d Tvetene said.<\/p>\n
Although she finds it rewarding providing a useful service to pet owners, Tvetene said there are the occasional drawbacks to this line of work, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we\u2019ve been in business for eight years now, we\u2019ve had pets that we\u2019ve taken care of for four, five, six years that have died. If it\u2019s an animal that you\u2019ve walked every day, five days a week, and that animal dies, you\u2019re feeling like you\u2019ve lost one of your own pets,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n