Before You Offer In-Home Boarding, Read This!

Before You Offer In-Home Boarding, Read This!

If you are currently a professional pet sitter, and you are thinking of offering in-home boarding, it is important that you are aware of the strict guidelines that need to be followed in order to ensure a safe and secure experience for your clients and their pets.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, rules and regulations have also been updated in order to provide a safe and healthy environment for pets that are boarding in homes or at facilities. If you are looking to offer in-home boarding services, this blog can help outline some guidelines and rules that you must remember to follow, especially if you’re new to the pet industry.  While the general protocols remain the same, each state has its different rules and regulations. Be sure to check in with your local authorities to ensure you are always following state guidelines.

Know Your State Laws for In-Home Boarding 

Pet Sitters International put out an article regarding websites that allow you to advertise your in-home boarding services in addition to pet sitting via the web. There are websites such as dogvacay.com and rover.com that allow you to post your pet sitting profiles to gain customers. 

When you become a member of Rover,  they offer the “Rover Guarantee”, which seems to include some level of insurance coverage for you, and the pet in case something goes wrong during a booking. Even though this might sound like it’s enough, you still need to check your state’s laws if you are offering these services or wanting to post a profile online with one of these companies because there are regulations and laws with in-home boarding!

Licencing Regulations

Before you begin to board other’s dogs in your home, please make sure you have the proper licences so you can avoid a stiff fine or even worse, jail time! For instance, the laws in the state of North Carolina are very specific. Let’s say you bring someone else’s pet into your home to care for them and you were paid for your services. If you haven’t obtained your pet boarding licence or, had a home inspection done that resulted in an approval, then you are in serious violation of the law. A lot of people may see this as something that is quite harmless, but in reality, people are getting in trouble for this. You can be fined up to $5,000 per occurrence. Now that is a lot of money!

One thing worth noting is that the state of North Carolina does allow the keeping of birds, caged pets, and fish in a home for compensation.  So before you offer any type of in-home boarding for pay, check out the laws for your state to be sure you’re fully informed.

Do Your Research

At one point in time, there had been aggressive advertising by online companies encouraging pet owners to find in-home boarding services for their pets while they are away on vacation, or to keep their pet in a safe place for a short period of time. This caught the attention of a lot of people, and thus, the idea of in-home boarding became “trendy.”  Offering in-home boarding services and offering pet care is not something to be taken lightly. There is certainly more to being a pet care professional that is beyond just following a trend. Dogvacay.com has plenty of sitters to choose from that offer boarding in their homes,  but they may not be insured or have had not had the proper inspections and or licensing to be legally housing and keeping your pets. With that said, states have taken note of this trend and are cracking down on their enforcement of kennel regulations and in-home boarding.  

If you have any questions or concerns about what you should do, contact your state’s Department of Agriculture, to get clarification on your state’s regulations as they are the best resource for educating you for your specific area.