How to automate a pet sitting business, one task at a time

By Robert Strickland, founder of NextLevel Pet Businesses · Updated November 14, 2026

I’m Robert Strickland. I started my pet sitting and dog walking business in 2007 because I love animals. Nobody told me I was also signing up to be the scheduler, the bookkeeper, the recruiter and the person who answers texts at 10 at night.

So I started handing the repetitive work to systems, one task at a time. This page is how you do the same.

What does pet sitting business automation mean?

An automation is a set of steps that runs by itself when something happens. A new booking comes in, so a confirmation goes out. It sounds like this: “When this happens, do that.”

It does the same thing every time, and it never forgets. Add AI, and it can handle the reading and writing too. I explain how the two fit together in AI vs automation.

What can you automate in a pet sitting business?

The home page lists 107 automations across 12 parts of the business. Here are ten that suit a pet sitting business:

• Booking confirmationsConfirm every new booking with dates, times and what to expect.
• Day-before remindersRemind clients about tomorrow’s visits and anything you need from them.
• Meet & greet bookingLet new clients pick a meet & greet time without the back-and-forth.
• New client paperworkSend the profile, agreement and waivers in the right order.
• Holiday booking nudgesRemind regular clients to book Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break early.
• Waitlist fillOffer newly open slots to clients waiting for them.
• Review requestsAsk happy clients for a Google review at the right moment.
• Invoice follow-upSend polite reminders for unpaid invoices.
• Payroll prepPull visit data, check mileage and time, and prep payroll for your review.
• Certification trackingTrack pet first aid, background checks and insurance, with reminders before they expire.

What should you automate first?

One task you are tired of doing. The best first pick has three things going for it:

• It comes up every week.
• The steps are the same each time.
• A mistake would be small and easy to fix.

Day-before reminders and review requests fit well. Payroll can wait until you have a few builds behind you.

How do you automate a pet sitting task, step by step?

1. Pick one task. Just one.
2. Write down the steps. Do the task by hand once and note each step: what starts it, what happens next and what “done” looks like.
3. Decide where you stay in charge. Keep a person in charge of anything that touches a client. An approval step is not a weakness. It is the point.
4. Build it around the tools you already use. Your booking software, your email, your calendar, your CRM if you have one. There is no code. You just type what you want.
5. Test with five people before you send to five hundred. Nothing should reach a client until you have seen it work.
6. Find the off switch before you turn it on.
7. Turn it on, keep an eye on it, then pick the next task.

What goes wrong when you automate, and how do you avoid it?

Plenty. I know, because I did all of these:

• I once texted more than 1,000 people the words “Stale Lead: Value $3,000.”
• An automation fired in the middle of the night and texted clients at 3:30 a.m.
• A payment reminder went to someone who had already paid.
• A workflow created duplicate leads. Twice the leads, none of the revenue.

Every one of these is now a check I build in from the start. You get the checks without the 3:30 a.m. wake-up call.

What should a pet sitter never automate?

The care. Automation is for the work around the pets, not the pets.

Judgment calls stay with a person too. For a complaint or an incident, let the system write a draft, and you decide what gets sent. That is why the list has “Tricky reply drafts” and “Incident summaries,” and not automatic replies.

And some information never goes into an AI tool at all: door codes, alarm codes, card numbers and passwords.

How much time can pet sitting business automation save?

It depends on your business. In my DogCo Summit 2026 talk, I estimated that a pet business could save up to 27 hours a week across 18 workflows. That is an estimate, not a promise.

Nobody gets there in a week. You get there one task at a time.

Do you need new software to automate a pet sitting business?

Less than you’d think. You need a Mac or a Windows computer and one AI subscription.

Beyond that, bring what you already use, like Time To Pet. You don’t need to switch anything. If you are new to AI, start with AI for pet sitters and dog walkers.