How to become a pet sitter in India

The work is mostly ordinary and repeated: feeding at the right times, fresh water, walks, litter trays, play, medicines on schedule, and noticing when something is not right. The skill is in doing all of it reliably and calmly, in a home that is not yours, with an animal that may miss its people.

Owners are trusting you with a family member and, often, their house keys. Welfare charities tell them to meet a sitter before booking, check references and confirm the sitter has experience with any medicine or special care their pet needs. Expect to be asked, and welcome it: it is how good sitters stand out.

Because emergencies happen when the owner is away, and the first few minutes matter. PDSA's advice is to stay calm, assess the situation, give any first aid needed and call the vet, and to remember that a frightened or hurt animal may bite. The 2026 RECOVER first-aid guidelines for dogs and cats, written by veterinary emergency specialists, cover bleeding, burns, choking, heatstroke, poisoning and seizures, and are clear that almost every emergency should end at a vet.

First-aid training is not about treating a pet yourself. It is about doing the safe thing in the first minutes: cooling a dog with heatstroke, pressing on a bleeding wound, not making a poisoned pet vomit, keeping your hands out of a seizing pet's mouth, and getting to the vet quickly. Petym's process is that the sitter calls the owner and takes the pet to the nearest 24-hour vet on the city's list.

It depends on the society, which is why Petym will ask every sitter for the society's permission. The Animal Welfare Board of India's 2015 guidelines for resident welfare and apartment owners' associations say they cannot legally ban residents from keeping pet dogs, cannot bar pets from lifts or charge for their use, and should agree walking times in parks rather than ban pets. Those guidelines are about residents' own pets; they do not cover a paid service run from a flat.

Hosting other people's pets brings more dogs through the gate, the lifts and the common areas. Ask your society's committee in writing, explain how many pets you would host and how you will keep common areas clean, and keep their reply. The same AWBI guidelines ask owners and the dog walkers they use to clean up after dogs and to leash them in common areas.

Petym does not publish earnings figures here. Owners pay the price on Petym's rate card, with no booking fee on top, but the sitter's payout share is not decided yet; the payout terms will be in the sitter agreement. What we can say now is how payment will work: the owner books and pays through Petym, and the sitter is paid after the booking.

Be wary of any page that promises a fixed monthly income from pet sitting. Demand depends on your city, the services you offer, the season and the reviews you build, and festival and school-holiday weeks are far busier than the rest of the year.

The RSPCA tells owners to meet a sitter before employing them, check references, and arrange introductory sessions so the pet can get used to the carer. Cats Protection adds: check experience with medication or special care, meet at home several days before the trip, and keep a backup. In other words, owners choose the sitter who makes the first meeting easy and who asks good questions.

Good questions sound like this: What does a normal day look like for your pet? What does it eat, and when? Any medicines, and how does it take them? What frightens it? How does it behave with other dogs, strangers, the doorbell, fireworks? Who should I call if I cannot reach you? Which vet do you use?