Impact of Covid-19 on the Pet Care Industry
As many local businesses are in a financial free fall due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the professional pet sitting and dog walking industry is no exception. Your local pet care businesses rely on clients who travel, as well as clients who do NOT work from home, for their income. Clearly, the travel bans and orders to work from home are preventing these business owners from making a living and potentially laying off staff.
While you are supporting many of the wonderful food-related local establishments that are working hard to service us, while remaining compliant with all the CDC and statewide mandates, please consider supporting your local pet care providers, as well.
How can you help?
1) If you had to cancel your travel plans, which meant canceling your pet sitting reservations, inquire about purchasing gift certificates for future pet sitting or dog walking services.
2) Continue to use your dog-walking service, even when you are working from home. This keeps your pet on his regular routine and keeps your dog walker in business! Ask your dog walker for “curbside pickup & drop off” of your dog. This way they do not have to enter your home.
3) If you’d like to walk your dog while you are working from home, do this but consider continuing to pay your pet sitter. Remember, you had already budgeted for these dog walks and if you are working from home, you still get paid (but your pet sitter doesn’t).
Your pet sitter or dog walker is likely such an integral part of your pet’s regular schedule and, in many cases, feels so much like family, that you may not even think about what they offer as a business. But your pet sitter is more than your trusted pet-care provider—he or she is also a VERY small business owner, and business owners have been hard hit by this pandemic.
In weeks—or months—you will be able to resume your regular work schedule and re-schedule trips you’ve canceled. When this happens you will need the services of your local professional pet-sitting or dog-walking business—but will they have remained in business during the interim?
Please continue to support and use the services of your local professional pet sitters and dog walkers. Peoples’ livelihoods (and your continued access to reliable pet care) are depending on it!
Cited: PSI, petsit.com
