<p>Update on the pet-sitting situation. The neighbor boy came and walked/played with our dog 3x that day, and we paid him $20. He was so excited - it was just enough to round out his savings for a new electric guitar. He brought it over afterward to show my husband. Cute!</p>
<p>I have an update too. As anticipated, my D and neighbor graduated, and I encouraged my 15 y.o. son ( who initially said it was “not his kind of work”) to take on a “pet sitting job”. Problem is, I was initially told “fill three bowls and scoop cat waste”, but it turned out to include hand watering maybe 20 potted plants, (100 degrees here), retrieving mail from the community mail box, bringing in delivered packages and dry cleaning, and the garbage cans. This is way more than I expected and I will have to help him. They offered $5.00/day ; $10.00 on the 3 days they want plants watered (but I think they will need daily watering). They are good neighbors, and we will do it, but I don’t think I’d agree again. My son is a little spoiled, and I’m glad he’s doing it, but he can make $35 a game reffing soccer and likes that better. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Maybe it just depends on how close/how much effort it really is. For a child that’s not driving and can easily walk to the house to take care of the pet, is it REALLY alot of trouble? otoh, if it’s a drive across town more than twice a day that would be much worse.</p>
<p>When my boys dog sit, the hardest thing is just getting out of the house to do the job. Walking five minutes to do ten - 15 minutes worth of work three times a day is a pretty cushy job if you ask me.</p>
<p>So $5.00 sounds right? The part that threw me was the 20*+ potted plants. I avoid potted plants in my yard/house because of the watering needs. It’s HOT here (but it’s a dry heat…)</p>
<p>Havent read the whole thread, so aplogize if I am redundant. Here, a woman in the neighborhood charged about $15/visit several yrs ago (I think she has raised her rates since then to about $18/visit or so). I can certainly understand if someone has to drive to take care of someones pet, between the time and the gas, it would be pricey, but I have a little bit of trouble thinking that it should cost $36-54 a day to feed and walk the dog and or play with the pet and clean the litterbox. expecially if it is just down the street. To me that just seems a bit high. We paid a neighborhood HS kid a flat rate for taking care of our dog (walked 2x/day, fed once, etc). I forget the rate, as it was several yrs ago, but it was probably $20/day or so. </p>
<p>Our younger s is working for $10/hr driving the next door neighbor’s son to/from camp, baseball practice, etc. And DS has to pay his own gas and drive his own car. Not sure if it is a reasonable rate, but they have always been generous with our s when he babysat for them, so I am sure its working fine.</p>
<p>I pay $25/day to our teenage cat sitter to come 2x a day to feed the kitties and scoop litter.
I ask him to spend about 30-45 minutes just hanging in the house keeping the kitties company and he’s welcome to watch tv, raid the fridge etc. </p>
<p>I subscribe to the “pay well and you will never have a problem finding someone to help” school of thought. It is worth it to me to have the peace of mind knowing the kitties are happy and being well taken care of.
Our cats are very friendly and sociable and they like having the company :-)</p>
<p>Thanks sarha ! My neighbor has 3 cats (2 in, one out) and 2 dogs (one blind and deaf, one a 1401b “puppy”). While my son needs a “wakeup call” about what some people have to do for money, I’m not sure we would push him to do this for $5.00 again.</p>
<p>So it looks like the going rate is more like $20-25/ day (from our and others experiences) for at least 2 visits a day? I thik the # of pets and chores expected would also be worked into the equation. Shrinkrap- you s took care of all those pets for $5/day? He needs a raise!</p>
<p>We pay $10 a day for son’s friend to watch our dog and our son gets $10 a day when he sits. Kennels around here charge $20 a day.</p>
<p>My D did it in the past, although she says with fewer pets. A graduating senior two doors away did it most of the time. Those families are pretty close and have a “menagerie” of their own. My son didn’t start yet. We did a “walk through” (and got a spreadsheet!!) yesterday. As I said, we (he’ll need help) go through with it, but any suggestions about how to say “it’s not worth it” to the neighbors? FWIW, this is a somewhat well to do neighborhood, and they are probably the" well-to do-ist."</p>
<p>
Did they become so well to do by being so tight with their wallets?? Wow. Frugal is putting it lightly :)</p>
<p>DS could say that he expects it will take him about an hour to do all that is expected of him on each visit (which seems reasonable from your description). To pay him so significanlty below the minimum wage isn’t very reasonable. Does your s have any other job offers he can compare to? If he’s making say $7.50/hr babysitting, he can simply indicate that he thinks it is reasonable to pay him for his time at a comparable rate. $5 a day for all that he is expected to do borders on slave labor :)</p>
<p>Just got his ref license (soccer). I think he’ll get about $25.00 per 45-90 minute game, and that’s why he thinks pet sitting is “not his kind of job”…Not that threats and assaults are worth $25.00either.</p>
<p>H says next time “just say no”, but if it was me, I’d want to know how much it was worth. Thanks for the input all!</p>
<p>We are not well to do, but I pay my pet sitter $10 a day and round up if hairball clean up was involved! The dog goes to her trainers home as she needs lots of exercise and I could not leave her alone in the house all day. The sitter comes by once a day to bring the mail and newspaper in, scoop the litter and feed the cats. Once a week the trash can needs to be rolled to the street (about 40 feet) and then returned to the garage. </p>
<p>I figure a babysitter is $10 a hour, and while the pet sitter isn’t here more than 10 minutes, she does walk here from her home down the street. I can’t see paying her much less that that; otherwise it isn’t worth it to her. My husband’s feeling is the extra money means more to her to receive it than it does to use to lose it. I can not board the cats, so $10 a day is cheap to me. I pay $17 a day for the dog to stay in the home of her puppy trainer, which is a great price as the kennels here charge more for her to be locked in a run for all but 15 minutes a day! The dog thinks she is away at camp as she has playmates all day and 7 acres to roam; at home she is is only out on leash, so going to the trainer’s is like heaven to her.</p>
<p>I’m surprised your neighbors are unaware that $5 is quite cheap for the amount of work they expect your son to do.
Who have they used to pet sit in the past? I’d be surprised if anyone has pet sit for them more than once for $5.</p>
<p>Who have they used to pet sit in the past?</p>
<p>My D, but she’s the kind of kid that left me out of it. To be fair, that’s what I used to Ps for my Guinea Pigs, but that seems much simpler.</p>
<p>Our kids took turns walking our neighbor’s lonely pit bull for $5 a day while they were at work. The older ones gradually tired of it, but the youngest loved it (I’d go with her). Now that the dog is away at vet school with their son, she really misses the income, though must admit she blew part of it on Webkinz…</p>
<p>If we go away, we pay a local woman $50/day to stop by and take care of our three dogs. She comes 4X/day. Luckily we don’t go away that often. Boarding them around here would be even more.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, if your S has any interest in other house-/pet-sitting jobs, he could make a simple half-page flyer with name, phone, nice adjectives about him, list of things he’s willing to do (trash, dog walking, bring in the mail, turn on lights, etc.) and list an hourly rate ($8-$12?) or per-task rate (half-hour dog walk, $5) on the flyer. He could hand the flyer to your neighbors “In case there’s anything else you need taken care of while you’re away”, and then tell them he estimates the time required each day will be XX hours, “which would be $X per day; does that seem fair to you?” He could also ask for permission to water the plants every day if needed, “I didn’t want to do it without your permission since it would cost you more.” If he can negotiate these points on his own, my hat is off to him. The soccer gig is certainly more lucrative despite the occasional wacko parents (spoken as a long time soccer mom).</p>
<p>We are very fortunate that one of the assistants at our vet’s office does pet sitting on the side. We have 2 indoor cats and one requires a shot 2 times per day (diabetes). Our pet sitter comes twice a day and charges $15 a day. It’s nice because if something should come up, they know our pets well and have all their records readily available.</p>
<p>My son gets $40 a day, but plays w/or hangs w/the dog for at least 3 hours a day.</p>
<p>Kennels cost between $25-45 a day.</p>
<p>Hey, thanks zipyourlips ! ( and everyone else for that matter). I am flattered to be among your first responses, or perhaps you do all your posting in the cafe? Have your kids done any reffing?</p>