Going on holiday? Invite your sitter — don't write them an essay.

Written by HeyVetto · Updated 29 September 2026

Invite the sitter to your pet in HeyVetto. They see her medicines, vet visits and history on their own phone, tick each dose as they give it, and the tick shows on yours. Then send one short message with what an app doesn't hold — the food, the vet's phone number, the house quirks. The full checklist is below.

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It's the Thursday before the flight. You open WhatsApp and start typing to the sitter. Breakfast at seven, half a cup, the grain-free one in the blue bag. The tablet at eight in the evening, with food, hidden in cheese, she'll spit it out otherwise. The vet is on the high street; the number is — hang on.

Forty minutes later it's the longest message you've ever sent, and it's already wrong. The vet halved the dose on Tuesday and the note on the fridge still says the old one. The chip number is in a drawer. The vaccination card is in another drawer, and the kennel wants to see it on Saturday.

And then you're on a beach, and the only way to know whether the evening tablet went in is to message someone who is, at that moment, walking your dog.

The message isn't the problem — you do need to tell the sitter things. The problem is that it's a copy of your pet's record, typed from memory, frozen on the day you sent it, and it can't tell you anything back. It's the same reason your dog's medical history lives in five places: every handover makes one more.

What to leave a pet sitter: the checklist

Whichever way you hand it over, this is what a sitter needs. Most of it matters only on the day something goes wrong — which is exactly the day nobody can reach you.

Food

The brand and the exact product, how much, at what times, and what she must never be given — including "treats" from the table. Where the food is kept, and where the spare bag is.

Medications

For each one: the name, the strength, the dose, the time, and with food or without. How you give it — in cheese, in a pill pocket, straight down. How many are left, so nobody runs out on day nine.

Your vet

The clinic's name, address and phone number, and the name of the vet who knows her.

Out-of-hours clinic

The nearest one open at night and at weekends, with its address — the regular clinic's answerphone will usually send the sitter there anyway, and 11 pm is a bad time to look it up.

Allergies

Drugs, foods, anything she has reacted to before. The first thing an emergency vet asks.

Microchip number

If she slips the lead, the chip is how a stranger's vet finds you. Write the number down; "she's chipped" doesn't help anyone search.

Vaccinations

What she's had and when. A boarding kennel or dog daycare will ask, and usually wants to see the certificate itself.

Routine and quirks

Walk times and routes, the dog she can't pass, the gate that doesn't latch, the thunder she hides from, where she sleeps. The things that seem too obvious to write are the ones that go wrong.

Emergency contact

Someone nearby who knows the animal and can make a decision if you're on a plane.

Permission and a limit

A written line saying the sitter may take her to a vet and approve treatment on your behalf, up to an amount you name. Worth a call to your clinic before you leave, so they know who may turn up and how you'll pay.

Where things are

The lead, the harness, the carrier, the medicines, the poo bags, the towel for muddy paws.

Look at that list again, and sort it into two piles. The medicines, the vet visits, the allergies, the chip, the vaccinations — that's her medical record, and it changes: a new prescription, a dose halved on Tuesday. The food, the routine, the gate, the cheese — that's the house, and it hardly changes at all. The first pile is the one that goes out of date in a message. It's also the one where a mistake costs the most.

Why the long message stops working by day three

The WhatsApp essay

Complete on the day you send it. By day three it's forty messages up, under photos of the dog on the sofa, and the sitter is scrolling for the dose at eight in the evening.

The note on the fridge

Good — until the vet changes something and the note doesn't. And it's in the kitchen, not at the out-of-hours clinic at midnight.

The printout

Tidy, and the same snapshot as the note. It can't tell you whether this morning's dose went in.

What none of them do: go both ways. The sitter can read what you wrote; you can't see what they did.

Invite the sitter instead

So don't copy the record — share it. In HeyVetto, a pet can be shared with one other person through an invite: the sitter joins your pet in their own HeyVetto, on their own phone, and you both hold the same animal.

• They see what she's taking, and when. The same courses, the same doses due today, the same vet visits and history — read off the vet's own sheets, not typed from memory.
• They tick each dose as they give it, and you see the tick. Open HeyVetto on the beach and the evening tablet shows as given. No "did she have it?" message into someone else's evening.
• If she goes to the vet, the sitter has the file. Allergies, current medicines, chip, vaccines and the last lab values, on the phone in their hand — and they can photograph the new sheet into the record, so it's there when you're home.
• One invite, as a link or a six-letter code. It works once, and for 48 hours.
• Stop sharing when you're back. Their app goes back to empty. Everything stays in your account.

What the app doesn't hold is the second pile — the food, the vet's phone number, the gate, the cheese. That part is still a message. But it's a short one, it hardly changes, and it's the part the sitter can't get wrong in a way that matters at midnight.

Setting it up before you leave

1. Get her current medicines in. Photograph the latest prescription sheet; the drug, the dose and the schedule come back as text, with the original photo kept underneath. (If the rest of her papers are in a drawer, see how to organize pet records — the vaccination page is worth doing before a kennel stay.)
2. Create the invite. In HeyVetto: Account → Co-parenting → Create invite code, then Share link — or read the six letters out loud. Send it a day or two before you go: the code works for 48 hours, and you want time to check the sitter sees her.
3. The sitter opens the link, signs in with Google or with a link sent to their email, and taps Join. Her medicines, visits and history appear on their phone.
4. Send the short message with the second pile: food, the vet's name and number, the out-of-hours clinic, the emergency contact, your spending limit, the routine, and where everything is.
5. When you're back: Account → Co-parenting → Stop sharing.

Free while HeyVetto is in testing, for you and for the sitter.

If the sitter won't install anything

Some sitters have done this for twenty years and don't want another app. Fine: open the At the vet screen and tap Share. HeyVetto puts together a text summary — what she's taking now, what she's being treated for, the last visit, vaccines, allergies, lab history, chip and weight — ending with "Assembled with HeyVetto" and a link. Send it in any messenger.

Two things it doesn't include: the food and the vet's phone number. Add those lines to the message yourself, with the rest of the second pile. And it's a snapshot — it won't change when the vet does, and the sitter can't tick anything in it — so for a long trip, or a course of tablets, the invite is the better handover.

One honest caveat, or four. A pet can be shared with one other person at a time, so if your partner already shares her with you, the sitter can't join alongside — send them the summary instead. Joining replaces whatever pet is already on the sitter's HeyVetto, so a sitter who keeps their own animal in it should get the summary too. The tick isn't a live feed: it reaches your phone when both apps have been online, usually the next time you open it. And the sitter gets full access, not a view — they can add, edit and delete, like you — so invite the person you'd give a house key to, and nobody else. None of this replaces telling your clinic who will bring her in.

❓ Questions owners ask

Sources: AVMA — Your pet's medications

The essay was never the point. The sitter needs the house in a short message and the record on their phone — and you need to know, from wherever you are, that the evening tablet went in. Send the invite, send the short message, and go.