If you’re an animal lover, find out how you can start your own pet sitting business to translate your passion into a profitable career!

In this course, you’ll master the essentials of running a cat and dog sitting business. You’ll begin with pet care, including nutrition, exercise, first aid, and identification of common diseases. You’ll learn the basics of first aid and find out how to administer pills, liquid medications, and injections to an uncooperative cat or dog. 

Next, you’ll discover how to handle home visits and impress your potential clients. You’ll also explore sticky situations that can arise, such as lost pets, pets that die unexpectedly, and pets that need immediate veterinary care. 

In addition, you’ll delve into finances and explore start-up costs, accounting, fee-setting, business plans, and low-cost marketing. You’ll find out how to obtain required insurance, hire employees as your business expands, and entice financial institutions to loan you money. 

To complete the picture, you’ll identify many opportunities for expanding your pet sitting services. Is a dog-walking service right for you? Can you train puppies? Do you want to look after other animals, including horses?  

By the end of this course, you’ll have all the knowledge you need to become a professional pet sitter. In addition, you’ll see how your pet sitting business can grow to continually challenge and satisfy you.

A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work, including the final exam.

Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads  by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Jeff Grognet.

Jeff Grognet has been a companion animal veterinarian for 25 years. He was a pioneer in the field of veterinary assistant teaching, developing his first course almost 20 years ago. The overwhelming success of his veterinary receptionist/assistant college courses led him to expand his teaching into other areas in high demand, including pet first aid and alternative medical therapies for companion animals. He practices with his wife at a Veterinary Hospital in BC, Canada. Jeff has published a large and diverse number of articles and is a regular contributing author to several magazines.

“ This course gave me a lot of information in a concise format. The instructor was available and encouraging. One of the better online courses I have taken. Thanks! ”

“ This was a great class! The lessons and assignments were thorough and interesting. In all, I got more information than I was expecting, enjoyed the class, and feel confident that I have the information to succeed in a pet sitting business. Thank you! ”

“ A very useful course. The instructor was thorough and knowledgeable but also had a great sense of humor that made learning fun. ”

“ When I was going through my training, people would ask me questions. Well, after I answered them from what the instructor taught me, I had people wanting to know how they could take the course. They seemed to be very impressed on my answers to some of the solutions. ”

“ I was pleasantly surprised with course. It had easy to follow instructions, valuable content and an instructor who is an expert on this topic. I want to start a pet sitting business when I retire. There many areas of this business I had not considered, such as sticky situations, medical problems, accidents, etc. The course was comprehensive and the curriculum will provide good reference material when I actually start the business. Thank you! ”

“ This course was wonderful! It really gave me a great deal of useful information. I'm actually starting a canine and equine massage business and this course really helped a lot. ”

“ This was my first time taking a course online. I truly recommend anyone who is interested in doing this please go for it. This course was very helpful and gave me much motivation to move forward with my pet sitting business. The instructor, Jeff, was very helpful with any questions, comments and concerns that were presented. ”

“ Dr. Jeff Grognet has put together a very well outlined course. Each lesson was not too long nor too short but just the right amount to be able absorb the material well. Each lesson came with visuals, quizzes and assignments that were very engaging and helpful in keeping me engaged throughout each lesson. I was also pleasantly surprised on how quickly Dr. Grognet would respond in the Discussion Area. In fact, most times his reponses were within mere hours of posting. His insights were very helpful and were spot on with considerations to starting a pet business. Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone interested in starting a pet business. I believe this course was made so that anyone could follow with no problems and come out of this class well informed of the subject at hand. Kudos to Dr. Jeff Grognet for making such a course available to people like me, interested in starting a pet business. Thank you! Also, I would definitely consider taking any other courses by him in the near future. ”

“ This course lived up to its promises. It provides a very complete and detailed path to starting a pet-sitting business and taking better care of your own pets. The instructor provides excellent resources and suggestions. The lessons are well thought out and put together. I would highly recommend this course and any others taught by this instructor. ”

“ This course gave me the information that I need to expand my existing business that I am doing part-time. It gave me the knowledge and things to do and not to do. ”