Even with the most diligent pet sitter watching your pet, accidents can happen. When leaving your pet with a sitter, it is important that you leave him or her with the information needed to seek the proper care for your pet. Here are some suggested information you should provide to your sitter. 

Medication List

If there is a medical emergency with your pet, the sitter will need to provide the veterinarian with information about any medications that your pet is taking. To make it easier for both the sitter and vet, you need to keep a list of all the medications your pet is currently taking. 

In addition to listing the names of the medications, you need to include the purpose for them, dosage, and whether or not you have to rely on special methods to feed the medication to the pet. For instance, if you have to place medications inside of food to get your pet to ingest it, write it down. 

Veterinarian Information

In an emergency situation, the sitter might not have time to contact you to find out which vet to use. To ensure your pet gets emergency care as soon as possible, provide a preferred vet contact list. Your regular vet should be the first listed. 

You also need to include an emergency vet or animal hospital that can be used in the event that your regular vet is unavailable or it is after hours. 

As an added measure, consider leaving a consent form that authorizes the emergency vet or animal hospital to treat your pet if you are unavailable to give your consent. In the even that immediate payment is needed, you can also authorize the payment be charged to a credit or debit card that you leave in the care of the sitter. 

Current Health Information

You can provide the sitter with a written statement that details your pet's current health. For instance, if your pet suffers from epilepsy, the sitter needs to know. 

By writing down this information, you not only give the sitter the details need to care for your pet, but also an easy-to-reference form for the vet. 

A veterinarian, like Robert Irelan DVM, can help you determine if there is any additional health-related information that you need to provide to your pet sitter. If so, be sure it is available to the sitter before you leave him or her in charge of your pet.