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There’s great truth to the statement, “There’s strength in numbers.” Pet sitting can be lonely. And whether you are just starting your pet-sitting business or are a pet-care veteran, you have questions—and there’s no one better to help answer your questions and share in your daily challenges and joys than a fellow pet sitter.

PSI members have a network of more than 6,000 fellow PSI members and pet-sitting business owners, and PSI is always looking for ways to help our members connect with one another. From PSI’s annual conference to the private Facebook chat group, PSI is always seeking out new avenues to allow our members to find support, advice and new ideas from fellow pet sitters.

PSI’s Pet Sitter Spotlight series has that same goal. Each month, we’ll feature a different PSI member. The blog post will help you get to “know” this pet sitter and provide you with some tips and advice for your own pet-sitting business. You can view past Pet Sitter Spotlights here.

PSI members, if you are interested in being considered for a PSI Pet Sitter Spotlight, send an email to meghannevans@petsit.com.

Meet Debra Hollander, owner of Sit-A-Pet, Inc., in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

Note: Debra Hollander has been a PSI member since 1994, the year the association was founded. Over the next year and half as PSI approaches its 25^th business anniversary, we’ll be sharing stories in the magazine and on our website from members who have been with PSI since the beginning.

In 1980, pet sitting was practically an unheard-of career option. In fact, when Debra Hollander checked around to see if there were any pet-sitting services in the Washington, D.C., area, all she could find were kennels.

Debra had just gotten out of college and was working at a wine and cheese shop on the Hill when a friend gave her the pet sitting idea. Before moving to D.C., the friend had used the services of a mom-and-pop operation in Ohio where the company would come over to take care of pets. She told Debra about the idea, so Debra decided to give it a try. She thought she could advertise in local papers, but had no idea if it would work. She wondered if there was a reason why there were no local pet-sitting services—maybe people wouldn’t like having sitters come to their homes.

But Debra went forward with the idea and now explains, “I had nothing to lose. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I loved animals.”

When her first call came in to pet sit for three cats, Debra says she almost hit the roof. That was in August of 1980, and by Christmas, she had 23 clients who wanted to use her service.

“I had no business plan,” Debra admits. “I winged it, and I’m lucky it worked out.”

Debra has operated her pet-sitting business, Sit-A-Pet, Inc., for 37 years now.  She never could have anticipated that kind of longevity.

“I was really looking at it short term,” Debra said of her mindset starting out. “I was just trying to make the rent each month.”

But Debra says she was at the right place at the right time, and her business flourished.

Expanding the business

In the D.C. area, people travel a lot, and they don’t want to impose on neighbors. Debra soon learned that she would need to find help to meet the growing demand for her services. It took her a few years before she could do that—it required trust.

As she brought on Independent Contractors, they primarily worked in the areas where they lived, and the company's service area expanded.

Finding pet sitters has been the most difficult thing about running her business, Debra says. She has put ads on Craigslist and Indeed, but she finds that she has the most success by word of mouth. When she’s talking to a client, she asks if they know anyone who is interested in pet sitting. She asks other pet sitters. She even asks pet lovers she meets at parties if they know anyone who would be interested.

As a new business owner, it took about two years for Debra to build up her clientele.

“I had no competition, but then again, it was a novel idea. … I had to explain what a pet-sitting service is,” Debra recalls.

She advertised frequently, using the Yellow Pages, handing out business cards, and running ads in local papers—even The Washington Post. Now, her advertising budget is much smaller. She advertises in two local papers in D.C. and says web searches are like free advertising for her.

Devoted to her business, Debra says for years she never went away, but that is something she will never do again. She gives her managers a month of paid vacation each year. She advises pet sitters to be sure to take time off, even if they are sole proprietors.

“I know that’s easier said than done, but you have to have someone to cover you,” Debra says.

Finding her niche

Now Sit-A-Pet has three locations—Virginia, Maryland and D.C.—and probably a thousand clients, Debra estimates. The company has served almost 14,000 clients over the past 37 years. She knows, because she assigns each of her clients a number.

Debra oversees the company with the help of two full-time managers. Debra says she is still available to do visits if needed to help relieve stress on the schedule. They use about 60 pet sitters.

“I love pet sitting,” Debra says, “so that’s why I’m really happy to help out.”

Sit-A-Pet focuses on pet-sitting visits, and Debra estimates about 80 percent of the company’s pet clients are cats. If you have a certain area that you can focus on and do well, you should stick with that, she believes.

“I’ve got this niche, and I just want to keep the quality controlled,” Debra explains.

She has found that the right toy can change the personality of an aggressive or shy cat. She has been a huge fan of the Feline Fisher, which the maker has now ceased manufacturing. She says it is essentially a fishing pole with string and a small piece of denim attached to the end. You just have to be careful not to leave it out when you’re done playing.

“It just has saved so many instances where animals were unhappy,” Debra says.

Networking with others

The pet-sitting industry has definitely evolved since Debra started her business.

While she has not changed her business operations much, email and cell phones have certainly made things easier. Before, if you needed to notify a client of an emergency, you just hoped that they happened to be at the hotel when you called, Debra says.

But the biggest industry change is probably the competition.

“There’s a lot of competition, whereas in the beginning I had none,” Debra says. “And at first I was a little resentful.”

But that resentment over people shopping around soon changed. She was really glad to have the camaraderie of other pet sitters, and she saw that it was making pet sitting a bona fide business. That is what helped her in the long run, and that is what’s so great about Pet Sitters International, Debra says.

She was eager to join pet-sitting associations, and she recalls going to a luncheon in the 1990s in northern Virginia organized by Patti Moran, who founded PSI. Debra says she made lifelong friends at that luncheon, and she joined PSI when it was formed in 1994.

“I like the camaraderie. I like to commiserate with other people,” Debra says. “You’re always learning new things. You can never stop learning when it comes to this business.”