Pet Sitter Spotlight: Kimberly Morrow, Ashmont Farm Pet Waggin

The professional pet-sitting industry has changed a lot since 1993, when Kimberly Morrow opened her pet-sitting business, Ashmont Farm Pet Waggin, in Sherborn, Mass.

“When I first began it was myself and one other person covering all the surrounding towns,” Kimberly recalls. “Now there’s about 30 pet sitters in every town at least.”

Prior to pet sitting, Kimberly was a vet tech for about 10 years, and she went back to school to become a respiratory therapist. There was a lot of upheaval in medicine at the time, she says, and employees didn’t know from day to day whether they would get laid off.

After reading about how pet sitting was an option, Kimberly got Patti Moran’s book, Pet Sitting for Profit, and started pet sitting part time. It was a hectic period in her life. Kimberly was working a 50-hour work week at the hospital and pet sitting in the off hours. But the pet-sitting business took off a lot quicker than she expected, so she decided to pursue it full time. She liked the idea that if she made it or didn’t make it, it was on her, and she was not at the mercy of someone else to tell her whether she had a job tomorrow.

Kimberly is proud that she was able to make a go of professional pet sitting when everyone “poo pooed it.” Most people just hired neighborhood kids to watch their pets back then, she said.

“I was able to prove that you can do it and you can do a better job than the kids and I’m worth the money,” she says.

Running her business

Kimberly joined Pet Sitters International in 1994—the year the association was founded. She had been searching for bonding and insurance for her pet-sitting business, but when she talked to her insurance company, no one had heard of such a thing. She was able to get access to group rates through membership with PSI.

Kimberly’s experience as a vet tech certainly proved beneficial when she started pet sitting. As a vet tech student, she studied animal behavior, anatomy, pet first aid, etc.

“All of that has definitely come into play at one time or other with pet sitting,” Kimberly says.

What got Kimberly the most business in the early days was her yellow labs. There was a local paper that published business profiles if you took out an ad, and the photo of her labs that ran with it drew people in. Kimberly says to this day, she still sometimes sees the picture posted on a long-time client’s refrigerator.

“It’s a really good picture,” she says with a chuckle.

Now she has a website, which has also generated a lot of clients.

These days, Kimberly relies on a computer and cell phone as must-have tools for her business. She got rid of her landline.

Evolving over time

When Kimberly’s business first ramped up, her mother quit her job and worked for her, and her dad retired and worked for her. She had about 250 clients then. After her parents passed away, Kimberly and a part-time sitter handled all of the assignments.

Kimberly realized that she didn’t want to work from 6 in the morning until 8 at night anymore, so she brought her numbers down and now has about 100 clients. Still, she completes as many as 20 visits a day during the busy seasons. She has a part-time sitter, and there are a couple of people she can pull in for help in an emergency.

Back in 1993, Kimberly considered her service area rural—borderline suburban. Now, it is very suburban. School vacation weeks are hectic, but the summer is not so bad and has balanced out because of the area she is in. Kimberly says it is a fairly affluent area, and many of the residents have second homes now, so a lot of their pets go with them in the summer. She gets a good amount of summer assignments from bordering towns.

Kimberly used to care for large and small animals, but now she primarily sticks to dogs, cats, pocket pets, birds and chickens—no more horses and goats. She says more and more people have gotten chickens.

Handling every situation

Kimberly’s business offers pet sitting and dog walking, and she does a couple of play groups Monday through Friday. For her regular, existing clients, she can provide transport if a pet needs to be taken somewhere like the groomer or veterinarian. She found that it is not really a good idea to pick up a pet that doesn’t really know you.

“You want a relationship with that animal before you do that,” she explains.

As a professional pet sitter, Kimberly takes pride in being able to handle anything that gets thrown her way. For example, a few years ago, she was pet sitting a cat, and when she came back the next day, she realized that there had been a fire in the house (apparently caused accidentally as a result of another service provider). Kimberly called the fire department and got them to look for the cat, which they were able to find upstairs using a heat sensor. They resuscitated the cat and got him to the veterinarian.

Kimberly says everything turned out okay—the cat survived and is still her client. And when word got out about how she handled the situation, it actually generated a lot of customers for her.

Offering advice to pet sitters

The most difficult thing about running her business has been working long hours at certain times of the year.

“Try and schedule yourself some down time if at all possible,” she advises pet sitters.

Her other advice is to always be bonded and insured and to use a contract, but make sure to ask clients where they are going and what is the best way to contact them there. Their cell phone may not work in the mountains, for example, so what is the best way to reach them?

“Always have a business credit card,” Kimberly advises, in case you need to put some money down at a veterinarian’s office or emergency clinic in the case of an emergency.

She also advises: “Price yourself fairly, but don’t underprice yourself trying to get business. It doesn’t work.”

Finally, if you don’t want your business to get big, have at least one or two people who can step in to help in an emergency, Kimberly says.

“It’s not as easy as people think if you do it the right way,” Kimberly says of pet sitting. “It can be very demanding. When everybody else is having a good time, holiday, summer, that type of thing, you’re working at your hardest.

“But if you love animals and you’re interested in that, I think it’s a good way to go—and if you want to be self-employed.”