Head to Pet-Sitters India, if you live away from home and believe holding a pet once in a while will assuage your loneliness. Or if you are someone looking for a pet sitter to watch over your cats, dogs, guinea pigs and other furry and feathery friends. Pet-Sitters India is not too far from wherever you are – just a Facebook page away.
“On our FB page, we have two lists, each containing details of people from one of the two categories. People on each list can help those on the other and the Facebook page provides a platform for them to meet,” says Vaishnavi Prasad, who initiated this page in April 2012 after experiencing two diverse situations in two cities. When Vaishnavi stayed in Bengaluru for a while, she could not keep a pet for the want of time. Then, she found herself wondering if she could have a part-time pet. In Chennai, she was faced with a different problem. “I did not know where to leave my two pugs alone whenever I went on a holiday.” Trying to find a solution led her to create this FB page. A well-structured system has been put in place. Pet sitters – those who seek seek the company of pets on a temporary basis – can either go to the pet owners’ place or have the pets dropped at their houses.
“Pet-sitting volunteers post their location and the time of their availability, and a pet owner chooses one of them, depending on mutual convenience,” says Vaishnavi.
Both an owner of pets and a pet-sitter, Vaishnavi Prasad says this initiative has come a long way with more than 700 members on the register. This service comes free and is fuelled only by a love for pets.
“When we started initially, we only dealt with people willing to play nannies to dogs, but now we those who pet-sit cats, guinea pigs and squirrels. Of late, there is a rise in requests for pet-sitting cats,” she adds. Pet lovers from all over the country can make use of this page.
The admin team includes Michelle D'souza from Mumbai and Siddharth Mahesh from Bengaluru. The team plans a website that would provide more details about Pet-sitters and offer more features.
Visit their >Facebook page .
