Five ways to have a pet looked after
Pet sitting in Belgium is not one job. Boarding, day care, home visits, walks and outings cover different absences. The wrong service costs more than a slightly higher price on the right format: moving a cat for a simple visit, or leaving a dog alone when it needed day care.
On EuroPetSitter each service has a page, alone or with a city: pet sitter in Brussels, boarding in Liège, a walk in Ghent. You do not book from those pages. Booking starts on the sitter’s profile, once the owner account is signed in. The sitter confirms on their side.
Boarding and day care
Boarding means the animal sleeps at the sitter’s home. It fits a weekend or a holiday, if the dog or cat accepts another house. Check the home type on the profile: flat, house, garden, farm. It is close to a kennel, but in a private home, with a limited number of animals.
Day care is the day with the sitter and home in the evening. It is for when you work and a dog cannot be alone for eight hours. It is a poor fit for a territorial cat, which does better with a visit in its own home than a car ride there and back.
Home visit
The sitter comes to you: food, litter, a short outing, a check of the windows. This is the safest format for cat sitting, and a good format for a calm dog that mainly needs to eat and go out. Plan the keys and a neighbour if the sitter cannot get in.
In Brussels, Antwerp or Bruges, travel time is part of the service. Two visits a day from another province do not hold. Choose a sitter in a nearby municipality, not only the lowest price in the country.
Walk and outing
A walk is a round on a leash, near home, often 30 to 60 minutes. An outing is longer: a park, a wood, the seafront in Ostend if the sitter actually offers it. Neither replaces boarding if you are away all night.
A dog that pulls, fears scooters or must not meet other dogs needs that written down before the first outing. Compare the price of a walk with day care: sometimes one outing is enough, sometimes the dog cannot be left alone between two walks.