Questions to Ask a Dog Sitter Before You Hire

By Jessica Ennis, DVM, CVA

Destinations · August 23, 2026 · 6 min read

The questions to ask a dog sitter before you hire reveal more than any five-star review.

The Question Most Owners Forget to Ask

Most people vet a dog sitter the way they’d vet a house cleaner — check the reviews, confirm the price, pick a start date. That approach misses the one question that actually predicts whether the arrangement holds up under stress: what happens on the day nothing goes according to plan. A sitter can be perfectly pleasant during a fifteen-minute meet-and-greet and still have no real answer for a dog that won’t eat, a storm that triggers panting and pacing, or a gate left unlatched by a delivery driver. The interview most owners run screens for likability. It doesn’t screen for competence under pressure, and that’s the gap this guide is built to close.

I’ve sat across the kitchen table from a lot of clients weighing this decision, and I always start the same way: tell me what you’re actually worried about, not what you think you’re supposed to ask. The real worry is rarely “will my dog get fed.” It’s “will this person notice if something is wrong before it becomes an emergency.” That’s a different skill set than dog-loving, and it’s worth interviewing for directly.

What “Bonded and Insured” Actually Covers

The Myth

Owners hear “bonded and insured” and treat it as a blanket safety net — as if it covers everything from a scratched floor to a mid-visit medical crisis. It doesn’t, and treating it as a full-coverage guarantee is the most common misread I hear in exam-room conversations about travel plans.

The Reality

Bonding is a financial protection against theft or dishonest acts by the sitter; insurance typically covers liability for property damage or injury that happens during a visit. Neither one obligates the sitter to have training in animal first aid, neither one tells you how they’ll handle a dog that’s vomiting at 2 a.m., and neither one is a substitute for asking what emergency plan they’d actually follow. Professional standards bodies like the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters exist partly because “bonded and insured” became a marketing phrase before it became a meaningful credential — ask to see documentation, and ask what it does and doesn’t cover, rather than accepting the phrase at face value.

Health and Emergency Protocols Worth Confirming

Vaccination and Illness History

If your dog is headed to a boarding facility, daycare, or group setting as part of the sitting arrangement, ask what vaccination proof the facility requires and when your dog last received it. The American Veterinary Medical Association notes that respiratory illnesses like kennel cough spread easily anywhere dogs mix, which is exactly why reputable boarding and daycare operations ask for current records before intake — a sitter working in a group environment should be asking you the same question, not waiting for you to bring it up.

For an in-home sitter with no group exposure, current vaccines still matter for a different reason: if your dog needs urgent care while you’re away, a vet unfamiliar with the case will move faster with proof of vaccine status already in hand.

What Happens If Something Goes Wrong

Ask this plainly: if my dog seems off, what do you do first, and at what point do you call the vet without waiting for me to answer my phone. A sitter who has a real answer — your regular vet’s number, a backup emergency clinic, a plan for transport — has done this before under real conditions. A sitter who says “I’d just wait for you to call back” hasn’t thought it through, and a dog with a fast-moving problem doesn’t have hours to spare.

One case has stuck with me for years. A nine-year-old Labrador named Duke, about seventy pounds, started refusing his evening meal on the second night of a four-day sit — the owners were in Sedona for a wedding. The sitter noticed within an hour because she knew Duke’s baseline: he was normally finished eating before she’d set the water bowl down. She called the emergency line the owners had left, and by the next morning Duke was seen and treated for a mild gastric upset that resolved with supportive care over 48 hours. The outcome mattered less to me than the mechanism — she caught the change because she’d been told exactly what “normal” looked like for that dog, and she knew who to call the moment it didn’t match.

The In-Home Trial Visit Sequence

I tell clients to treat the first meeting as a working audit, not a courtesy chat. A useful sequence looks like this:

1. Schedule a 20–30 minute visit with the sitter present and your dog in the home environment, not neutral ground.
2. Watch how the sitter approaches your dog — rushed, calm, does the dog choose to move toward them or away.
3. Walk through the actual care routine out loud: feeding times, medication if any, leash handling, door and gate habits.
4. Ask the emergency-plan question directly and note whether the answer is specific or vague.
5. Request two references from current clients and actually call one.

A short trial visit like this exposes mismatches that a polished text-message exchange never will. It’s a small time investment against a multi-day commitment.

Questions About Daily Routine and Communication

Beyond safety and health, the day-to-day questions determine whether the arrangement is actually pleasant to live with. Pet Sitters International recommends asking how often you’ll get updates and in what form — a photo, a text, a check-in app. Ask what happens if the sitter is sick or has a family emergency mid-assignment; a solo operator with no backup plan leaves you stranded. Ask how they handle a dog that’s anxious about a visitor in the house, since separation-related stress can look different from ordinary excitement, and a sitter who recognizes low-stress handling cues will adjust pace rather than push through. If your trip involves travel logistics beyond the sitting arrangement itself, our Getting Started With Dog Travel guide covers the broader prep checklist worth working through alongside this one.

When the Answers Don’t Add Up

Here’s where I take a clear position, because I think owners get talked out of their own instincts too often. If a sitter can’t give you a specific answer to the emergency-plan question, that’s disqualifying on its own, regardless of how warm the reviews read or how much your dog seemed to like them at the meet-and-greet. The counterargument I hear most is that a great personality match matters more, since a relaxed sitter keeps an anxious dog calmer than a nervous but technically prepared one. There’s truth in that — a dog that won’t settle with a stranger is its own real problem. But personality and preparedness aren’t actually in competition; a good sitter interview screens for both, and I’ve never seen a case where genuine competence came at the cost of warmth. The sitters who ask you detailed questions back are usually the same ones who notice a missed meal within the hour.

So which matters more to you: the person your dog liked on sight, or the person who had a real answer when I asked what happens if something goes wrong? Most owners, once they’ve sat with both questions side by side, already know which one they’d rather be relying on at 2 a.m. in a hotel room three states away.

For related context, read Should You Board a Senior Dog or Hire a Sitter?.