Dog Sitter Handoff Checklist

Leaving your dog with a sitter, a friend, or the grandparents is a trust exercise on both sides. You are trusting them with a family member. They are trusting you to explain a routine that lives mostly in your head.

Most handoffs fail on the second part. The sitter is capable and caring, but the briefing was a rushed conversation in the doorway, half a page of notes, and "call me if anything comes up." Three days later the dog has eaten fine but at the wrong times, the tick treatment nobody mentioned is overdue, and the sitter has sent four polite texts asking things the note did not cover.

This checklist is the doorway conversation, written down properly. Copy what fits, ignore what does not, and hand the whole thing over before you pack.

The essentials: what a sitter must know

Start with the information that keeps your dog safe and fed. This is the part to write down even for a one-night stay:

Feeding. Which food, how much, how many meals, at roughly what times. Where the food lives, and the one-line rule for treats. If your dog bolts food or guards the bowl, say so.
Water and potty rhythm. How often your dog needs to go out, the usual signals, and the last-thing-at-night routine.
Walks. How many, how long, on-leash rules, and anything behavioral a stranger should know before the first corner: pulls at bikes, reactive to certain dogs, afraid of thunder.
Medication and health. Any medication with dose and timing, plus anything currently being watched (a healing paw, an upset stomach). If a dose lands during the stay, make it impossible to miss.
Contacts. Your number, a backup person nearby, your vet's name, address, and phone, and the nearest emergency vet for after-hours. Add your pet insurance details if you have them.
The quirks. Every dog has two or three. The couch rule, the mail carrier opinion, the fact that he will absolutely eat the bin bag if given ninety seconds alone with it.

Hand over the routine, rules and all

A list of rules tells a sitter what to do. The routine tells them when your dog will expect it, which is what actually keeps a dog settled while you are away. Dogs read rhythms, so the closer the sitter stays to the usual day, the calmer the stay.

The easiest way to hand over a rhythm is to show the actual record of a normal week: when meals really happen, when the long walk usually is, when he naps. If you keep a shared care log, this part is already done. In PawLog, a sitter you invite sees the household's live log, so the real routine, with times and names, is right there instead of reconstructed from memory onto a sticky note.

Inviting a sitter takes one link, they can join from any browser without installing anything, and it costs nothing: family sharing in PawLog is always free, and a sitter counts as one of the up-to-6 caregivers a household can have.

During the stay: visibility without hovering

The best during-stay arrangement gives you reassurance without turning the sitter into a correspondent. Agree on it up front.

A setup that respects everyone's time:

The sitter logs care as it happens: meals, walks, potty breaks, any medication. A tap or two per event.
You check the log when you feel the itch to ask, instead of texting. Fed at 8:05, walked at 12:40, all visible with names and times.
Texts and calls are reserved for actual questions and actual news, which keeps them meaningful.

This is kinder to the sitter than "send me updates," because logging as you go is easier than composing summaries, and it is kinder to you, because the answer to "is everything okay?" is always one glance away rather than one unanswered text away.

Coming home: close the loop

When you get back, the record does one more job: it tells you exactly how the stay went. You can see whether meals stayed on schedule, whether the midday walk survived the rainy Tuesday, and when the last potty break happened before your flight landed.

Thank the sitter properly, ask about anything that looked unusual in the log, and note anything worth adjusting for next time (the evening meal drifted late every day, so maybe the printed 6 pm was never realistic). Each stay makes the next handoff shorter, because the checklist and the record both improve.

The short version

A good sitter handoff has three layers: the safety essentials written down (food, meds, contacts, quirks), the real routine handed over rather than described, and a shared way to see care happen during the stay without a text-message treadmill.

A shared log covers the second and third layers almost for free. If several people regularly care for your dog anyway, our family dog care page shows how the same setup works day to day, sitter or no sitter.

Frequently asked questions

What should I write down for a dog sitter?

At minimum: feeding (food, amount, meal times), potty and walk rhythm, any medication with dose and timing, your contact details plus a nearby backup, your vet and the nearest emergency vet, and your dog's specific quirks. For longer stays, add the actual daily routine on top of the rules.

How does a sitter use PawLog without installing an app?

You send an invite link and the sitter opens it in any modern browser on their phone or laptop, no app store needed. They see the household's shared log and can record meals, walks, potty breaks, and medication as they happen.

Does adding a dog sitter to PawLog cost anything?

No. Family sharing is always free in PawLog, on every plan, for up to 6 caregivers in a household. A sitter simply joins as one of those caregivers, and you can remove them after the stay.

How do I get updates while I am away without pestering the sitter?

Agree that the sitter logs care as it happens instead of sending summaries. You check the shared log whenever you want reassurance, and texts stay reserved for real questions. Everyone gets visibility without a reporting chore.