At Heather’s Pet Care, we’re always evaluating our services to make sure we’re providing the best possible care for pets while also maintaining a sustainable and healthy work environment for our team. After a lot of consideration and experience over the years, we made the decision to stop offering overnight pet sitting.
We know this service is common in the pet care industry, so we want to be transparent about why we made this change.
New Jersey Labor Laws Make Overnight Care Very Complicated
As a legitimate pet care company with employees, we are required to follow New Jersey labor laws, including rules around hourly pay, overtime, and employee working conditions.
When an employee stays overnight in a client’s home, the workday doesn’t just include the evening visit. It often includes the entire evening, overnight hours, and an early morning visit the next day and when you combine that with daytime dog walking shifts, the hours add up quickly.
In New Jersey, employees must be paid overtime once they exceed 40 hours in a workweek. With overnight care, it becomes very easy for an employee to hit those overtime thresholds quickly.
For example, if a team member is doing their normal daytime dog walking schedule and then staying overnight for several nights in a row, those hours stack up fast. After about two nights of overnight stays, overtime pay often begins to apply.
For a small business, this dramatically increases payroll costs and makes offering overnight care extremely expensive if it’s done legally and fairly!
Overnight Care Is a Huge Ask of Employees
Staying overnight in someone else’s home may seem simple, but it’s actually a major request for an employee.
Overnight care means:
Sleeping in an unfamiliar home
Being away from their own pets or family
Packing overnight items
Adjusting their entire daily routine
Our team already spends most of their day visiting pets and walking dogs between 9 AM and 3 PM. Asking someone to work a full day and then sleep somewhere else overnight significantly impacts their rest and recovery.
Over time, this can lead to burnout, which is something we work hard to prevent in our company culture.
Most Dogs Don’t Actually Need Overnight Care
One of the biggest things we’ve learned in our 10+ years of experience is that most dogs truly don’t need someone sleeping in the house overnight.
Dogs typically spend the night sleeping just like they do when their owners are home. What they really benefit from is:
A structured routine
Regular potty breaks
Exercise and enrichment
Consistent visits throughout the day
When pets receive proper care during the day and evening, they are usually perfectly comfortable resting overnight in their own home.
Our Focus Is Reliable, Structured Visits
Instead of overnight stays, Heather’s Pet Care focuses on structured pet sitting visits that provide pets with everything they need throughout the day and evening.
Most pet sitting schedules include:
A morning visit to start the day with a potty break, breakfast, and fresh water
A midday visit for exercise, enrichment, and another bathroom break
Our popular 2-hour evening visit
The 2-hour evening visit is designed to mimic a normal nighttime routine when pet parents are home. During this visit, we provide dinner, relaxation time, enrichment or playtime, a final bedtime potty break, and we make sure pets are comfortable and settled for the night. Many clients love this option because it allows their pets to wind down naturally before bedtime while still receiving plenty of attention and companionship.
We often joke that we “tuck the pets into bed” before we leave for the evening. 🐾
A Sustainable Approach to Pet Care
Running a professional pet care company means balancing the needs of pets, clients, and employees. While overnight pet sitting may work for individuals offering occasional house sitting, it’s not a sustainable service model for an employee based business that follows labor laws and prioritizes team well-being.
By focusing on daytime and evening visits instead, we’re able to maintain a reliable schedule, provide consistent care, and ensure our team is well rested and ready to give every pet the attention they deserve!
At the end of the day, our goal is simple: happy pets, reliable care, and a healthy team. 🐾