Finding a petsitter: chronic illness edition

March 21, 2024 6:19 AM

Where should I find a petsitter for a cat who needs daily meds?

We've just learned that our beloved nine year old cat (pet tax) is going to need to be on once-daily steroids for the remainder of his life due to a chronic inflammatory respiratory condition. Our past strategies for cat care when traveling aren't great now -- we probably shouldn't board them because we don't want to risk viral exposures, given his condition, and we don't want to burden our friends with daily pet torture (he is super resistant to taking these drugs, poor thing). So we need to hire someone who's good with medicating cats, but we've never done that before. How do you find a pet sitter who's competent with this type of medical need? How should we screen them? And what's the going rate? We're trying care.com but are looking for other possibilities too.

posted by eirias to Pets & Animals (16 answers total)

Ask at your vet’s office if any of the techs are interested in pet sitting.
posted by corey flood at 6:25 AM on March 21 [16 favorites]

I think you might find better luck on rover.com. There isn't a really easy way to search for words in their descriptions or reviews, but my search found a bunch of vet techs and fosters on there, so they are likely to be unfazed by pilling cats.

We've been down the daily pill route a few times with a few different senior cats, and we did find that ours eventually chilled out and get a lot less of a pain in the butt. I hope that comes true for you too.
posted by advicepig at 6:27 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

This doesn't directly answer your question, but by chance is the steroid prednisolone? My one old cat has lung cancer, and needs this for palliative care. Our vet gave a us a choice - daily pills or an injection, which we've done about every month or two (whenever we hear him cough again, that's when we inject him). We now administer this ourselves at home, which is much less stressful for the cat - it's also not that hard (lots of YouTube videos explaining how to do it).
posted by coffeecat at 6:29 AM on March 21

Also not directly answering your question but many steroids for cats are also available as a cream you rub on the skin inside their ears--ask your vet if this one is one of them and if they know a compounding pharmacy that will do it for you. It's much less intimidating for a petsitter and generally easier on the cat (unless they really hate having their ears touched).
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:40 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

Seconding the suggestion to ask if a vet tech can pet sit. I've done this several times in the past with aging pets.
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:43 AM on March 21

Yes, what kind of medication is it? Inhaler, pill, something else?
posted by esker at 6:57 AM on March 21

Response by poster: Hi all - thanks for the responses so far. It is a prednisolone oral suspension. I don’t know whether administration by ear will work for this indication, but it seems worth asking, as he doesn’t mind that at all (we’ve also been administering an appetite stimulant that way as his weight was declining precipitously). He seems unpillable, and he won’t touch food that’s been adulterated with meds (or any wet food), so he’s otherwise kind of a tough customer. The only other option the vet offered us was inhalable meds but they said not yet (? Maybe he needs to stabilize and have the dosage dropped first). The indication is chronic bronchitis paired with lymphoplasmacytic rhinitis, which if I’m understanding the notes correctly is in that idiopathic space translating roughly to “hell if we know.”

The good news is the steroids made the scary paroxysmal coughing fits disappear completely, in just a couple days. And he sure eats now! But we’d like to get a sitter lined up so we can go see the eclipse next month.
posted by eirias at 7:18 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

My cat has been on steroids (both oral and inhaled) for over 10 years and has other meds too that he gets twice a day. I only use professional pet sitters that are bonded and insured because that's my preference. I've had luck with members of Pet Sitters International, and the website has a search feature (https://petsit.com/locate). Going rate is usually $20 per visit, but I've had some professionals charge $40 per visit because of the # of meds my cat is on. If you're in the Pittsburgh area, please DM me and I can share my incredible sitter's info.
posted by pumpkinlatte at 7:45 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

If you have Rover where you live, there are sitters available to either stay at your house or visit several times a day, and they will specifically say if they have experience with giving medication.
posted by anotheraccount at 7:46 AM on March 21

I found a petsitter on Rover is an RN for our cats. One of them gets a pill twice a day and IV fluids once a week so she was able to deal with the whole thing easily enough. I did pay a LOT of money, basically $70 a day for a week, which is more than a regular pet or house sitter charges, but that's what I get for having old cats.
posted by fiercekitten at 8:14 AM on March 21

I use Meowtel for my cat sitter. It's a cat specific petsitting site and I absolutely love my pet sitter I found there. Mine was very good at medicating my elderly cat and had described her experience in her profile. The rates vary by sitter and visit length (roughly 30-40 a visit), there are options for different lengths and numbers of visits per day.
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 8:35 AM on March 21

My licensed bonded petsitter in California was also a long-time friend so that was easy, but seriously just ask. Most professional sitters/walkers will do various medication administration, some even advertise specifically with expertise in things like injections or blood glucose monitoring. If it's going to be a fight or it's a bunch of meds or they're complicated, they may charge you a bit extra, but honestly I'd charge extra too if my pets would only pay me.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:00 AM on March 21

I also found my cat sitter on Pet Sitters International which allows me to see that she is licensed, bonded, and certified in first aid, but she was actually the second sitter I found through that site -- the first one was a nightmare (skipped visits) so just be aware that even places that offer some level of initial vetting may not yield the right carer for your pet.

I think we found our dog sitter on Rover initially and then started working with her directly. Our dog sitter was not trained but she had experience with diabetic dogs, which came in handy when our dog eventually needed twice daily shots.

Many sitters, regardless of where they are sourced from, will have their own websites detailing their rates and services. Most will want to have a meet-and-greet with you and your pet, and during that time you can observe how they interact with the cat and ask more specific questions about how they would provide care.
posted by sm1tten at 9:34 AM on March 21

We used rover. "give medication daily" and "experience giving medication" are filters. In my area you pay Sort of $60-70 a day for them at your house and more like $35-50 at their house.
posted by chasles at 9:51 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]

We found our amazing cat sitter through the shelter from which we adopted our boys, which specialized in hard-to-place cats. She wouldn’t bat an eye about pilling a cat. If you have a similar rescue in your area, check with them.

We once had an unpillable cat and had great success getting his medication mailed to us in tasty chewable treat form through a compounding pharmacy. The cat in question gobbled up his daily thyroid pill like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. The treats were more expensive than the regular tablets (say, $75 for a month supply instead of $10) but honestly it was such a relief not to have to torture him every day that it was worth every dime.
posted by jesourie at 10:05 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

My cat is usually unpillable, but he has been on prednisolone before, and it is possible to get it in a pill form (and mine was a super teeny tiny pill). Which I'm mentioning because the prednisolone made my cat much hungrier than usual, so he went from being super picky to being interested in anything edible. That meant, he quickly gobbled up pills hidden in pill pockets. He even suddenly was interested in the chicken flavored pet toothpaste that he had always hated!

So I'm just mentioning that, because giving a pill in a pill pocket (if the cat will take it) is a much easier task. But I also agree that most licensed/bonded pet sitters will be experienced with this. I know the one I previously used was also trained to give injections.

Of course, ymmv. But since it sounds like your cat may have just recently been started on the meds, you may not have had a chance to see how the meds really affect them yet.
posted by litera scripta manet at 2:05 PM on March 21