The Big Takeaway
Valuable holiday prep for a pet care business includes setting your capacity before requests start, putting rates and policies in writing before accepting bookings, and confirming info like contacts and vet authorization before your first holiday job. This pet care business holiday guide discusses how to prep across the lead-up to the holidays for a merrier season in pet care.
The fall and winter holidays in pet care are notorious for leaving you overbooked, exhausted, and wondering why you didn’t block off a day for yourself. A few decisions spread across the season, instead of crammed into one frantic afternoon, can help you truly enjoy your time with pets this year. And it’s never too late to get started.
Some pet care pros open holiday booking a year out. Others are still filling slots weeks or days before the festivities start. Wherever you are, you’re not behind. There’s still something you can do to make your holiday pet care go more smoothly this season, and this guide offers seven practical, high-impact options.
Your Pet Care Business Holiday Checklist
This pet care business holiday guide offers practical tips from your open booking notification through your busiest week. Each tip comes with a timing tag, so you can check it off your list when it matters most.
Or, skip straight to our Holiday Client Notice Kit for email, text, and DM templates to simplify your client bookings, waitlist, holiday policies, confirmations, and reminders across the whole season.
Before accepting bookings
Before your first holiday job
Anytime, even mid-rush
1. Set Your Holiday Capacity & Protect Your Time
Before accepting bookings
Figuring out how many holiday clients you can accept is easiest before the requests start rolling in. Once your phone is going off and your calendar is filling, days you meant to keep for yourself quietly disappear. Two decisions keep that from happening: knowing your limit before you reach it, and having a waitlist for overflow clients once you do.
Decide Your Capacity
There’s no capacity formula that works for every pet care pro or service, but there is a useful question: what’s the most holiday work you’ve done in a season without regretting it?
If this is your first year in pet care, ask a pet pro you trust and adjust for experience. That number is your starting cap. Write it down before you open booking, because it’s a lot harder to hold a limit you never set.
Here’s some extra help with setting (and actually sticking to) your capacity limit:
Name what services, if any, you're pausing
New client onboarding with meet-and-greets is an easy thing to pull back on during the holidays for sitters, walkers, and boarders. It frees up time and limits surprises while reserving spots for the pet parents least likely to cancel. Pausing a few add-ons or upcharges can also streamline your calendar to your core clients and services.
Count the time a job actually costs, not just the time you bill
For example, three overnights in one week isn’t just three jobs; it’s three sets of routines, updates, cleanup, and drive times stacked on top of each other. Count the time you invest around the booking for a true capacity estimate.
Block off your own days first
Put any time off you want on the calendar before you open holiday booking, so your time is protected. If you wait to decide, your bookings will decide it for you.
That last one comes up constantly among pet care pros. Pet Care Insurance (PCI) asked 74 pet pros across pet care Facebook groups about their holiday season planning. Scheduling was repeatedly mentioned as a practical point of self-care during rush seasons.
As one dog walker put it:
“Block out some days off before clients start calling you. As soon as you block them off the calendar, that’s when people want to travel.”
Start the Waitlist on Day One
A waitlist solves the holiday-late-cancellation problem. When a client decides to take their dog to grandma’s for Christmas and cancels two days out, your waitlist gives you options to fill that empty, premium slot.
If you haven’t used a waitlist before, it’s probably because it seemed like a lot to manage. But you don’t need a complicated system.
- Track requests in the order they come in. This keeps the waitlist offer fair and easy to explain.
- Note the dates a client needs, not just their name, so you can match an opening to a client fast.
- Tell your client they’re on your waitlist and what position they’re in to set expectations. As in, “You’re the first in line if that date opens up.” “You’re my third call if I have a cancellation.”
You can use a spreadsheet, pet business software if you have it, or just a notes app on your phone — whatever’s easy to update and least likely to get lost.
2. Put Your Holiday Policies in Writing (& How to Do It)
Before accepting bookings
There’s no standard date for opening your holiday bookings. Some of the pet care pros PCI asked open booking a year ahead, some are booked for December by mid-September, and some book just a few weeks out. What matters most is that when you do open, your clients hear everything at once instead of in pieces.
You can do that in three messages, spaced across the season.
When Booking Opens: What to Cover in Your First Message
This is the email, text, or DM that does the heavy lifting for your holiday bookings. Send it to your whole client list and cover:
- Your holiday booking deadline
- Dates you’re unavailable, including any changes to your regular hours
- Holiday rates
- Deposit and cancellation terms
- What you need from clients before the booking, like a local emergency contact, a signed vet authorization form, and updated pet care instructions.
That last one sets your timeline. If you’re asking for a signed vet authorization form, your deadline needs to leave room for a client to actually reach their vet, which means weeks, not days. A vet’s office closed for the holiday can’t email your client anything.
One to Two Weeks Out: What to Confirm Before the Service
If a pet parent has changed their emergency contact, vet, or their pet’s diet since the initial booking, your confirmation message is where you’ll find out. It also creates buffer time to contact your waitlist if a client decides they don’t want their reserved date after all.
Sending a booking confirmation one to two weeks ahead of your pet care date is close enough that what your client tells you is still current, but far enough that pet parents still have time to get you any new info you need.
Two Days Out: Reminder to Limit No-Shows & Late Cancellations
A short text message or DM reminder two days out is a smart final client communication. A client who cancels now instead of the morning of (or just no-showing for their grooming appointment) gives you time to fill a high-dollar slot.
Want help with the wording for any of these messages? The free templates below keep your holiday client conversations prepped and professional every year.
3. Set Your Holiday Rates & Deposits
Before accepting bookings
Higher holiday pricing is normal in many pet care specialties, because you’re working days most people take off. The businesses that handle this well decide their rates before booking opens. Clients may see the same upcharge as fair when you present it ahead of time, but unfair if you wait until a few days before their booking.
Setting a Holiday Surcharge: Common Holiday Pet Care Pricing
There are two ways pet care businesses usually approach their holiday upcharge. A flat fee adds a set amount to each visit, night, or appointment, so it’s simple to explain. A percentage fee adds a share of your base rate to the final total, which works better for higher-priced services, like overnights, dematting, or other premium pet care services.
Holiday pricing and how it’s presented tend to vary across pet care specialties.
| Service | Common Holiday Upcharge |
|---|---|
|
Pet Sitting: Drop-In Visits |
$5 to $20 per visit as a flat fee, or 25% to 50% above normal rate |
|
Pet Sitting: Overnights |
$5 to $15 per night as a flat fee, or up to 50% above normal rate during peak times |
|
Dog Walking |
$10 to $25 per holiday or per holiday walk |
|
Boarding or Board-and-Train |
$5 to $20 per night, or 10% to 20% above normal rate |
|
Daycare |
Often closed for holidays. Where open, around $5 per day |
|
Grooming |
$20 to $50 per groom, or 10% to 25% above normal rate. Many tighten the holiday cancellation window instead of upcharging. |
|
Pet Taxi / Pet Transport |
$10 to $20 surcharge, or around 15% above normal rate. Same-day rush rates may apply. |
*Rates aggregated from published holiday rates and policies across industry pricing guides, 20 independent pet care business websites, and 5 pet care platforms.
Some patterns worth noticing:
- Flat fees are most common for per-visit or per-walk work, where the amount is small and the math is easier for the client.
- Percentage fees show up more in boarding and overnight sitting, where a flat $10 charge stops feeling proportional to the work you’re doing for a $130 overnight stay.
- A few pet care specialties typically don’t charge holiday rates, like trainers and daycares (which may close on a holiday), and groomers (who tend to leverage cancellation windows and deposits instead). But we did find outliers, so check what’s typical in your area.
- Which days count for holiday or peak pricing vary. Many businesses surcharge a window around a holiday, like 18 days from late December into January. Some charge one daily rate throughout, others charge more for day-of care. For example, pet transporters delivering present puppies often add rush rates on top of their holiday fee for Christmas-day care and travel.
Holiday Deposits & Cancellations
A canceled holiday booking costs you more than a cancellation on a random Tuesday, because you likely turned away other clients to hold that slot. Deposits and longer cancellation windows exist to cover that.
Pet care businesses that publish their holiday policy usually do this a few ways:
- A deposit, often nonrefundable, is required to hold a client’s spot.
- An extended cancellation window, often double your usual window or more, after which a client forfeits their deposit or is charged a fee if they cancel at the last minute or no-show.
- A minimum stay during peak periods, so a single-night booking doesn’t block a slot that could hold a longer, better-paying booking. This one is popular with boarders and sitters.
How to Tell Clients About Holiday Prices
- Announce it with the open booking notice, never as a surprise on their invoice
- Give the reason once, briefly, in your booking notice, then stop explaining
- Apply it to everyone, or it turns into a negotiation
You can find example wording to explain all this gracefully, but clearly in the Holiday Client Notice Kit.
4. Confirm What You Need If Something Goes Wrong
Before your first holiday booking
The unpredictable always seems to happen when the vet’s office closes early or a pet’s owner is on a flight and unreachable. Even careful pet care pros can’t prevent every emergency, but you can make sure you’re not hunting for contact info or permission to treat an injured pet in the middle of one.
Three Documents to Request
It’s easy to confuse these three documents, but it’s worth asking pet parents for a signature or a completed form for all three before any holiday booking.
Service agreement
This is your contract with the client. A pet care service agreement lays out what service you’re providing, what it costs, and the terms you both agreed to. This is a legal document, so having an attorney tailor one to your business and state ahead of the holiday rush saves you last-minute stress.
Care instructions
These are day-to-day care details about each pet, including feeding instructions, routines, allergies, quirks, bite history, and other must-knows from the pet parent. These change often, so they’re worth confirming before a holiday booking, even if you’ve worked with a pet before. Many pet pros choose to create a standard intake form for these questions.
Vet authorization form
This is permission to get a pet treated when you can’t reach the owner.
For boarders and pet transporters, this is also the moment to check vaccination records. An expired record found at dropoff means a client calling a clinic that’s closed for the holidays, and often a pet you can’t accept.
What Is a Vet Authorization Form, & Why Do I Need One?
A vet authorization form is a legal document that a pet owner signs, giving you permission to seek veterinary care for their pet. It usually sets a spending limit that the owner agrees to cover in advance. Without one, a clinic may not treat a pet brought in by someone who isn’t the owner, or may delay treatment while trying to reach them.
Many vet clinics have their own version of this form, so it’s worth asking clients to complete one with their vet. But it’s still important to have your own signed copy. Yours is the one you’ll have in hand if a pet ends up at an emergency clinic instead of their regular vet.
There are plenty of free options online, like this vet authorization form template from Preventive Vet, but laws about pet treatment vary by state. Consider using a template as a starting point for an attorney to tailor a form to your business. You can do that any time of year, and it’ll be ready when the holiday rush hits.
Worth knowing: A signed vet authorization form doesn’t mean payment is taken care of. Many emergency vet hospitals won’t start treatment until there’s a down payment. If there’s no plan in place, that usually comes out of your pocket.
Talk through emergency care payment with clients ahead of time, and look for pet care business coverage with Veterinarian Reimbursement.
How to Get Good Emergency Contacts
From holding backup keys to authorizing vet care, an emergency contact does more than just check a box.
- Make sure they’re local, reachable, and able to decide. A sister in another state who has to call the owner first adds an hour you may not have during a tense situation.
- Verify contacts every season, rather than assuming what’s on file still works.
- Confirm the vet, too. Clients switch vets all the time, and they may not think to mention it.
5. Line Up Seasonal Help Earlier Than You Think
Before accepting bookings
Not every pet care business needs seasonal help, but if you’re thinking about bringing someone on to pick up the extra work, the time to hire is sooner than you probably expect.
One dog walker told PCI that they were already fully and even double-booked for overnights from late August through the end of the year, and now they were scrambling to hire. It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still stressful, and it happens to a lot of pet pros.
Hire Before You Need To
By the time you start feeling overwhelmed, your window to get seasonal help ready before the first holiday booking may have passed.
If your takeaway from this tip is to try again next year, that’s okay. Planning ahead for holiday staffing is one of the best things you can do for your business, but it usually comes from hard-earned experience. Here’s how to know when it’s time to hire:
Count backward from your first holiday job, not from how busy you feel
Count the weeks a new hire would need to be ready, from cleared background checks to onboarding, then mark the date that puts you there.
Watch your capacity number
If your bookings are ticking toward the capacity cap you set in Step 1, and requests are still coming in, that’s your signal. Waiting until you’re already past your max capacity means hiring under pressure.
Know what "ready" means for your business
A walker who can shadow a route twice is ready faster than a sitter doing overnights alone in a client’s home. The more independent the work, the longer the lead time a new hire needs.
Set a cutoff date and write it down
This is the last day hiring is still realistic for you. After that, the answer isn’t more staff, it’s capping your bookings and working your waitlist.
Employees or Contractors?
If you do bring someone on your team, either permanently or just for the season, how you classify them matters. It affects your taxes, the coverage you need to carry, and potentially whether your business’ liability insurance covers what they do.
Check who your state classifies as an employee versus a contractor before you extend a job offer. Your insurer can also help you determine how helpers like contractors, part-timers, volunteers, family members, and full-time employees are covered (or not) under your policy.
If you’re covered with PCI, our Employee and Independent Contractor Coverage page is an easy place to start.
6. Plan for Pet Care Business Supplies and Surprises
Anytime, even mid-rush
By the time you start feeling overwhelmed, your window to get seasonal help ready before the first holiday booking may have passed.
If your takeaway from this tip is to try again next year, that’s okay. Planning ahead for holiday staffing is one of the best things you can do for your business, but it usually comes from hard-earned experience. Here’s how to know when it’s time to hire:
Take Stock of Your Equipment
Checking on these things regularly this season can catch problems before they shut you down:
Check essential gear
A clipper blade due for sharpening in January could easily quit in December. Take stock of any gear where a breakdown means canceled appointments, whether that’s dryers, laundry, container gear, or even your consumables inventory (like shampoo, treats, or poop bags) running low. Several pet care pros PCI talked to cited this as part of their fall routine.
Maintain your vehicle
If you’re a pet taxi driver, mobile groomer, or drive between appointments, winter in a lot of climates turns a tire or climate control failure into a serious setback. A maintenance check or swapping out winter tires is a few hours in November that could save you lost days or weeks in December.
Three Back-Up Plans for Holiday Pet Care
1. Travel and weather delays
Flights get canceled and roads close. Decide now what happens when a client can’t get back on time for pickup, including what you charge for extra care time, whether you can physically keep the pet longer, and who’s the backup if you can’t. Transport businesses should have a route backup and a plan for a pet stuck mid-trip.
2. Late pickups and no-shows
Deciding your policy before it happens and putting it in your booking notice keeps everyone on the same page.
3. A sick day protocol
This is the one nobody plans for, and it’s the most likely to happen during the busiest week of your year (which also happens to be cold and flu season). If you’re solo, that could mean agreeing to cover another local pet pro on a sick day if they’ll cover you, or enlisting trusted family members. If you have a team, that means prepping instructions and assigning backups.
7. Check That Your Coverage Matches What You’re Offering
Anytime, even mid-rush
Pet care pros often end up doing work they normally wouldn’t during the holidays. A regular dog walking client asks if you could watch Barkley overnight. A groomer picks up a dog because the owner’s flight got moved. A friend’s cousin helps you cover a route for a week.
None of that is necessarily bad, but it’s worth checking whether your insurance policy covers it before you say yes to a “just this once” request.
Changes Worth a Conversation With Your Insurer
We get it — you’re busy and calling your insurance company isn’t at the top of your list. These are some of the most common holiday pet care service and business changes genuinely worth the call:
New service types
Your coverage generally follows what you told your insurer you do. That means adding overnights or pet transport to a dog walking business is a real difference that changes your risks, even if it’s only for six weeks. If something goes wrong involving that new service, it might not be covered unless you update your coverage.
New people working under you
Whether a helper is covered, and how, depends on how they’re classified and what your policy says, so it’s always smart to ask. Don’t assume anyone is automatically covered without being added, by name, to your policy.
Vehicles carrying clients' pets
Many pet care pros don’t know this, but your personal auto insurance could refuse coverage for an accident or damage if you were driving for business reasons, like transporting someone else’s pet for money. Standard business liability insurance won’t cover that either. This would require a separate coverage called Commercial Auto.
Anyone asking for proof of insurance
f you’re doing off-site or event work for the holidays, like pet sitting during a party or running a booth at a holiday market, you might get asked to show proof of insurance, also called a Certificate of Insurance (COI). This is a one-page document that shows you’re covered and for how much. Your insurer can set you up with a COI. At PCI, you can log in to your dashboard and download one anytime.
Asking your insurer about any of this isn’t an admission of doing something wrong. It’s just a question. They’re here to make sure you’re safe, and they can explain the real cost of covering additional services so that you can decide if offering them is really worth the time and money.
Not sure what coverage a new service would need? Explore your options:
Pet Sitting Insurance
Dog Walking Insurance
Pet Grooming Insurance
Dog Training Insurance
Pet Boarding Insurance
Pet Taxi Insurance
A Merrier Season Starts Here
There’s no version of the holidays where everything goes perfectly. What stands out about our conversations with pet care pros is that everyone is starting from a different place, and everyone’s figuring out their own version of a good season.
Whether you’re honing your holiday systems early or you’re mid-rush and grabbing what you can, there’s something here for you. Find two things you hadn’t handled, put them on your to-do list, and it’s a merrier season already.
Explore More Pet Care Business Resources
- Doing your safety walkthrough before holiday boarding clients? Read Pet-Proofing a Home Pet Care Business and use our free risk management checklist.
- Considering holiday client thank-you gifts? A quick card or small gift to your regulars does more for client retention than most marketing. See ideas for cheap or free loyalty gifts they’ll actually use in Building a Pet Care Referral Program.
- Taking your pet sitting from side hustle to full-time this year? Our guide to How to Start a Pet Sitting Business gives you all the steps, in order.
Common Questions About Holiday Prep for Pet Care Pros
How far in advance should you open holiday bookings?
Pet care pros range from booking a year ahead to filling slots a few weeks out.
What matters more is giving clients enough time to meet your requirements. If you’re asking for a signed vet authorization form or updated vaccination records, open booking early enough that your deadline leaves weeks, not days, for someone to reach their vet.
How do you handle a client canceling a holiday booking at the last minute?
Apply whatever cancellation policy you set when booking opened, then work your waitlist.
Holiday cancellation windows are typically longer than everyday ones (often something like 5 to 10 days instead of 24 to 48 hours), because you turned other clients away to hold that slot. Keep the conversation short and polite but firm, confirm the cancellation in writing, and end by asking when they’d like to rebook.
What can you do if a client is unreachable in an emergency?
Call the local emergency contact on file, then the pet’s vet.
A signed vet authorization form lets a clinic treat an injured pet without reaching the owner first, which is why it matters in exactly this situation. Keep your signed forms somewhere easy to access, so you can show the vet right away and pets can get immediate care. Finally, document what happened, including times and who you contacted.
Are seasonal pet care helpers covered under my policy?
It depends on how they’re classified and what your policy says.
At PCI, you can add full- and part-time employees or independent contractors to your liability policy for coverage, but you need to add each employee by name with Employee and Independent Contractor Coverage. Check with your insurer before any helper’s first shift, since insurers handle covering workers differently.
