Test yourself to see how calm you would be in these situations
1. You just got home after finishing your last pet sitting visit for the evening and you don’t remember if you locked the client’s front door, which is 15 minutes away from you. Do you?:
A. Drive back to the client’s house and double-check.
B. Second guess yourself and say, “Yep, I know I locked it.”
C. Forget about it because you know you’ll be back there in the morning.
2. You just walked into a client’s house and notice the sliding patio door is wide open and pets are gone. What do you do?:
A. Call the client to ask if there was a reason the door was left open.
B. Call the client’s emergency contact.
C. Walk around the house and make sure the pets aren’t hiding.
3. This question is for the females…It’s that time of the month and you are bloated, have a headache, have PMS and generally just feel like poop. You have 5 dog walking clients scheduled today and walking dogs is the last thing you want to do. What would you do?:
A. Take some painkillers and front up to the job.
B. Call PetCloud to see if someone else can take the jobs.
C. Call the clients and cancel the visits.
4. It’s winter and your car won’t start. You have multiple pet sitting visits scheduled for the day and you don’t have a back up vehicle. What do you do?:
A. Call a friend or family member, to be your driver for the day.
B. Call RACQ or other car repair place to come out and jump your battery.
C. Call the client and cancel the visits.
5. You arrive at a client’s house and realise the dog is laying on the floor unresponsive. What do you do?:
A. Check the dog’s breathing, make sure he’s alive.
B. Call the emergency vet listed on the client form.
C. Call the client.
6. You arrive at a client’s house and find a person lounging on the couch, watching TV. The client didn’t tell you anyone would be at their house. What would you do?:
A. Introduce yourself and ask for their name, ask how they got in the home and contact PetCloud Support.
B. Check the client paperwork to see if there’s any notation about a guest being there.
C. Call the police and tell them you’re the pet sitter and there’s a person in the client’s home that doesn’t have permission to be there.
7. You are walking a new dog and you remember that in the client file it said, in bold face letters, “Dog doesn’t like kids and will BITE.” A woman and child are walking towards you on the street and the child starts running up to the dog. The dog starts growling, what do you do?:
A. Speak loudly and say, “I’m sorry, you can’t pet the dog. He’s afraid of children.”
B. Walk to the other side of the road.
C. Keep on walking and pray that the dog doesn’t bite. There’s no way he’ll bite that little girl!
8. You have a cat sitting visit and of the 5 cats in the house, only 3 can be found. You’ve looked everywhere but there’s no sign of the cats. This is your first booking and the client’s just left yesterday. What do you do?
A. Look at the client forms and see if they listed the cat hiding places.
B. Call the clients and tell them which cats are present and where you’ve looked for the hidden ones.
C. Put tuna out to lure the cats out of hiding.
9. You arrive at a client’s house and your key doesn’t work in the front door. You try the key in the garage door and also the back door but you’re locked out. What do you do?:
A. Check client file and see if there’s a notation about key being hidden outside.
B. Call the client.
C. Call a locksmith.
10. When you’re leaving a client’s house the senior doggie sneaks out behind you and takes off down the road. He’s a diabetic fella and gets two insulin shots a day. What would you do?:
A. Grab a leash and call the dog, hoping he comes to you.
B. Get in your car and get ahead of him, stop the car and try to lure him inside.
C. Call the Pet Owner panicking.
D. Ask the neighbours to help catch the dog.
Well, how’d you do? Could you see yourself acting rationally and logically if you were ever faced with any one of these hypothetical situations?
There’s more than one way to handle a situation, but a person with common sense, the ability to think well under pressure and a person with a ‘take charge’ attitude would probably handle themselves great in these situations.