A house sitter can give your pet's medication, including twice daily insulin, eye drops and post-surgery pain relief. The Australian Veterinary Association's policy on veterinary prescribing rights takes for granted that someone other than the vet administers it, and requires the prescribing vet to make written directions available to that person. What decides whether this sitter should take this animal is a capability conversation before anyone confirms: what the regime asks of a person hour by hour, whether they have done it before, whether they will be in the house at those hours every day, and what your vet has put in writing.
General information only
This article carries no dosing instructions for your animal. Any interval named below is an illustration of what a schedule does to a sitter's day, not guidance. Every drug name, dose, interval and missed dose instruction comes from the vet who prescribed it for your animal.
A sit described as easy turns into nursing when nobody wrote the regime out in hours before someone said yes. Almost none of that is dishonesty.
The regime decides the sit, not the diagnosis
"Diabetic cat" tells a sitter nothing about their day. "Two injections about twelve hours apart, after food, for eighteen days" tells them everything, including that they cannot go to Bright for the weekend.
| The regime | What it asks of a sitter | The question that settles it |
|---|---|---|
| A daily tablet with breakfast | One anchored moment a day, and a way to get it into an animal that spits | Have they medicated an animal that objects, and what worked |
| Injections roughly twelve hours apart | Being home morning and evening for the whole sit, fridge space, a sharps container | What do their days look like, and is a trip away planned |
| Eye or ear drops several times daily | Repeated handling near the face of an animal that may already be sore | Will the animal accept it from someone new, tested at the meet |
| Post-surgery pain relief and wound checks | Confinement, lead only toileting, and looking at a wound every day | Who takes the animal to the recheck, in whose car, and who pays |
| Mobility support for an older animal | Lifting, ramps, non-slip mats, and often continence care | Can they physically lift this animal, and are they willing to |
Checked on 22 August 2026, Mad Paws and Pawshake compare themselves only to kennels and catteries. That framing, trained staff in a facility against someone at home, settles nothing on its own. Continuous presence does nothing if the sitter is out until nine, and trained staff do nothing for a cat that stops eating behind a cage door. Our guides to house sitting against boarding and cat sitting against a cattery run that trade-off properly.
Your vet's written directions belong in your sitter's hands
The Australian Veterinary Association's policy on veterinary prescribing rights states that veterinarians exercising those rights must provide adequate directions in writing and ensure they are made available to those administering the veterinary medicine. During a sit, that person is your sitter, so the directions are theirs to receive. Ask the clinic to email them rather than relying on a demonstration at the front door, and forward the email.
Copy the label, do not paraphrase it
Every drug name, strength and dose on your chart comes from the label or from the written directions your vet supplied, not from what you remember being told at the last appointment.
Insulin on a fixed interval is a scheduling problem before it is a medical one
Whatever interval your vet has written anchors the sit to the same hours every day for its whole length. An applicant who has injected before but has three nights booked on the Great Ocean Road is a worse fit than one who has never done it and will be home at seven, morning and evening. Technique can be taught at the handover. Availability cannot be taught at all.
Refrigerated medications need a shelf the sitter knows about, and used needles are not kerbside rubbish. NSW Health's community sharps guidance advises keeping used sharps in a puncture-proof container with a screw top and taking it to a public sharps bin at a hospital, some pharmacies, a community health centre or a council bin. Other states and territories run their own arrangements, so check with your council before you go.
Ask the capability questions before you confirm, not on handover day
| What the homeowner asks | What the sitter asks |
|---|---|
| Have you given this kind of medication before, and to what animal | What is the regime in hours, across the whole sit |
| Will you be out of the house at any of the dosing times | Will you send me the vet's written directions before I decide |
| Are you comfortable with needles, or a cat that fights a tablet | What do I do if a dose is refused, brought back up or missed |
| Can you lift this animal, and are you willing to | How much medication is here, and who collects a repeat |
| Will you give one dose at the handover while I watch | What may I authorise and spend if the animal deteriorates |
| Will you record every dose, including one that is missed | Who is the local backup if I cannot reach you |
That is not an interrogation. It prevents the two failures that actually happen: a sitter who says yes out of politeness and quietly cannot cope, and a homeowner who finds out on the second night that the sit they described is not the sit they have. A sitter is allowed to decline a regime, and declining once beats absorbing it and resenting it for a fortnight. Our list of questions to ask before confirming covers the rest of the conversation.
Sitterly lets you filter sitters by police check, and that says nothing about whether a person can inject a cat or lift a labrador. Sitterly does not assess, approve or supervise medication competence. The conversation above is the assurance.
A post-surgery sit is mostly about restriction
The medication is usually the easy half. Restricted exercise is the instruction that fails, because it means different things in different houses. A single storey home in Elizabeth Vale is not a Newtown terrace with a staircase and a dog that has slept upstairs for nine years. Write it as arrangements instead: which rooms, which doors stay shut, lead only in the yard, no stairs, no couch, and whether the collar stays on overnight.
The AVA's policy on pain and analgesia, ratified in December 2014, describes pain treatment as successful when the animal can engage in relatively normal activities such as eating, sleeping, moving about, grooming and interacting. That is a checklist a sitter can hold in their head, and a reason to ring the clinic on the day two of those stop.
Recheck appointments and suture removal often land inside the sit. Name who takes the animal, in whose car, and settle the money before you fly, because who authorises and pays an emergency vet bill is the question that turns nasty when nobody asked it early.
Mobility support is physical work, and the listing should say so
A thirty kilogram dog that needs help up two back steps four times a day is a task, and a sitter reading "friendly senior boy" will not picture it. Put the weight, the frequency and the equipment in the listing itself: the ramp, the harness with a handle, the non-slip runners on the floorboards, the continence pads and where they go. Sitting for senior pets works through the house side of this properly, and an honest listing brings you applicants who have already agreed to the work.
One chart, ticked as it happens, is the record that settles everything
Keep it to a single page: each animal, each medication, each dose, each day of the sit, and a tick box beside every one. A chart taped beside the medication is visible to whoever is standing there. A phone reminder is dismissed in a second, and a message thread cannot be audited at nine at night when nobody can remember whether the tablet was given.
- Have the sitter give one dose while you watch. Some animals are genuinely difficult, and technique matters more than instructions do.
- Photograph the label and where the medication is stored, and send the photos as well as printing the chart.
- Leave enough for the sit plus several days, and say whether the vet holds a repeat, who may collect it and who pays.
- Write your vet's missed dose instruction for each drug on the chart itself, because the answer differs between medications.
- Record a missed or refused dose honestly. An accurate record is far more useful to a vet than an unblemished one.
- Never adjust a dose, add a supplement or an over the counter product, or give one animal's medication to another.
The chart sits inside the wider handover, and our pet care handover template has the rest of the day written out by the hour.
Know who to ring before anybody needs to ring them
A sitter with custody, care or control of an animal carries a duty of care to it. Queensland's guidance on who counts as a person in charge sets that out under the Animal Care and Protection Act 2001, and every state and territory has its own version. Queensland's duty of care page lists treating disease and injury among the five requirements that duty carries. That duty does not make a sitter the decision maker: the AVA's contextualised care policy says veterinarians should respect owners' legal role as decision makers providing consent. The sitter acts, you decide.
Leave the regular clinic, the after hours clinic with its drive time, your mobile, a second number, and one local person who can attend. For a double dose or the wrong animal's tablet, the Animal Poisons Helpline runs a 24 hour phone service for Australian pet owners on 1300 869 738, advertising consultations from $75 when checked in August 2026, so agree who makes that call and who pays for it. RSPCA Australia's emergency planning guidance, updated 1 May 2024, recommends keeping written instructions for any medical condition, the animal's medications and your vet's contact details together in one place.
“Sitterly supports the connection. Homeowners and sitters remain responsible for their own arrangements.”
- Sitterly, About page
Common questions about medication during a pet sit
- Can a pet sitter give my cat insulin injections?
- Many do. Sitterly does not assess, approve or supervise it, so the assurance comes from your own conversation. Ask whether they have injected before, whether they will be in the house at the dosing hours every day of the sit, and have them give one dose while you watch. Any question about the drug or the dose goes back to the clinic that prescribed it.
- What should happen if my sitter misses a dose?
- They tell you straight away, write it on the chart, and follow whatever your vet put in writing for a missed dose of that specific medication, because the answer differs between drugs. Ask your clinic for that instruction before you travel and put it on the chart rather than in a message thread.
- Should I pay a sitter extra for a medicated pet?
- On Sitterly no money changes hands for the sit at all, so there is nothing to top up. Describe the regime honestly in the listing instead, in hours, so the people who apply have chosen the work rather than discovered it.
- Is a boarding facility safer than a sitter for a pet on medication?
- Neither is safer in the abstract. Staff on site suit frequent dosing and difficult handling in an animal that copes with a change of environment. Someone at home suits an animal that is old, anxious or recovering from surgery and does badly away from its own house. Ask the vet who treats your animal which risk matters more for that animal.
Find a sitter near you
Write the regime out by the hour first, then read profiles against it rather than the other way around. Browse sitters near you, message a shortlist about the medication specifically before anything is agreed, and ask for one dose to be given while you watch. The open listings are worth reading first if you want to see how other Australian homeowners have described a medicated animal.
General information only, not veterinary advice. Follow the instructions of the vet who prescribed your animal's medication, and contact that clinic with any question about a drug, a dose or a missed dose. Sitterly is not a party to arrangements between its members.
