Pet Sitter Instructions Template (Free, Printable)
Free pet sitter instructions template covering feeding, medications, walking, emergencies, house rules, and vet contacts. Printable one-page format. Download in PDF, Word, or Google Docs.
Free · No Signup
Pet Sitter Instructions
Fill in your details below and download a completed document — no account needed.
✏️ Use Template ↓Build Your Template
Basic Info
Pet Details
PET SITTER INSTRUCTIONS For: [PET'S NAME] Dates: [START DATE] – [END DATE] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EMERGENCY CONTACTS (keep this section visible) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Owner: ______________________ Phone: ______________________ Backup contact: ______________________ Phone: ______________________ Primary vet: ______________________ Phone: ______________________ Emergency vet (24hr): ______________________ Phone: ______________________ Vet address: ______________________ If [PET NAME] is in distress and I am unreachable, go directly to the emergency vet listed above. I authorise emergency treatment. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT [PET NAME] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Breed: ______________________ Age: ______________________ Microchip #: ______________________ Medical conditions: ______________________ Allergies: ______________________ Important personality notes: ______________________ (e.g. "Barks at other dogs on leash — keep moving calmly." / "Hides if scared — don't force interaction.") ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FEEDING ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Food: ______________________ Stored: ______________________ Morning: _______ cups / grams at _______ am Evening: _______ cups / grams at _______ pm Fresh water: ☐ Always full ☐ Refresh with each meal Treats: ______________________ DO NOT feed: ______________________ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ MEDICATIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Medication 1: ________ Dose: ______ Time: ______ How: ______ Medication 2: ________ Dose: ______ Time: ______ How: ______ Stored at: ______________________ Tip for giving meds: ______________________ (e.g. "Hide in a small piece of cheese." / "Mix into wet food.") If a dose is missed: ______________________ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WALKS & EXERCISE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Number of walks per day: ______ Duration: ______ Preferred route: ______________________ Leash required: ☐ Always ☐ Off-leash in park OK ☐ Off-leash everywhere Leash/harness stored at: ______________________ Potty breaks (non-walk): ______________________ Garden access: ☐ Safe, unsupervised OK ☐ Supervised only ☐ No garden ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SLEEPING & ROUTINE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sleeps: ☐ Own bed/crate ☐ Sofa OK ☐ Owner bedroom Crate: ☐ Used at night ☐ Used when alone ☐ Not used Favourite toy: ______________________ Usual bedtime routine: ______________________ Separation anxiety: ☐ None ☐ Mild ☐ Needs gradual departure ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOUSE & ACCESS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Key location: ______________________ Alarm code: ______ Alarm notes: ______________________ WiFi: Network: ________________ Password: ________________ Rooms off-limits: ______________________ Bin collection day: ______________________ Mail: ☐ Leave in box ☐ Bring inside ☐ Not expected Parking: ______________________ Any other house notes: ______________________ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ANYTHING ELSE TO KNOW? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ______________________ Thank you for caring for [PET NAME]. Please text/call any time: Owner mobile: ______________________
Highlighted fields are still unfilled. Fill them in on the left, then copy or print your completed document.
This template is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For legally binding documents, consult a qualified attorney in your jurisdiction.
Quick Answer
A pet sitter instructions sheet is a one-page reference document left for whoever is caring for your pet — covering feeding times, medications, walking routine, emergency contacts, house access, and anything else the sitter needs to know.
What Is a Pet Sitter Instructions?
Leaving a clear, printed instructions sheet for your pet sitter reduces panicked phone calls, prevents missed medications, and gives your sitter the confidence to handle anything that comes up. This template covers everything in a logical order — your sitter can stick it on the fridge and refer to it throughout their stay.
Fill it in completely, even the sections that seem obvious. What seems obvious to you (the pet's feeding routine, how the back door lock works) is new information to your sitter. The more detail you provide upfront, the less stress for everyone.
When Do You Need This?
What to Include
1. Pet information
- Name, age, breed
- Microchip number
- Any medical conditions
- Vet name and number
2. Feeding
- Food brand and type
- Amount per meal
- Feeding times
- Treats allowed
3. Medications
- Drug name and dose
- Time and method of administration
- Where medications are stored
- What to do if a dose is missed
4. Exercise and toileting
- Walk frequency and duration
- Where to walk
- Leash or off-leash
- Toileting frequency
5. House access and rules
- Key / lockbox code / alarm code
- WiFi password
- Rooms that are off-limits
- Bin collection / mail collection
6. Emergency contacts
- Owner primary contact
- Backup emergency contact
- Vet name, address, phone
- Out-of-hours vet
Legal Notes by State
No legal requirements apply to this document. It's an operational guide, not a contract. Use alongside a signed pet sitting agreement for full legal coverage.
Frequently Asked Questions
How detailed should I be?+
As detailed as possible. Err on the side of too much information. A section your sitter doesn't need is easy to skip; a piece of missing information (where the medications are, what to do if the pet won't eat) can cause real stress.
Should I leave this as a physical sheet or send it digitally?+
Both. Print a copy and stick it on the fridge or leave it on the kitchen counter — it should be visible without needing to unlock a phone. Also send a digital copy so your sitter can reference it easily when out walking.
Do I need a separate contract as well?+
Yes. Instructions tell the sitter what to do; a pet sitting agreement (contract) covers payment, liability, and legal obligations. They work together — instructions for day-to-day care, contract for the formal arrangement.
What if my pet needs special care?+
Add a dedicated section at the end with detailed notes. For diabetic pets or those on complex medication schedules, consider also creating a daily medication log the sitter can tick off so doses are never missed or doubled.