Pet sitting service in South Florida: what in-home sitting includes, costs, and how to book

Short answer: a pet sitting service in South Florida sends a sitter to your home to care for your pet there — feeding, walks or litter care, medication if needed, playtime, and a photo update after each visit — while your pet keeps its own bed, routine, and territory. This site lists 15 in-home pet sitting services across Miami-Dade and Broward. It is different from boarding, where your pet travels to a facility or a sitter's home, and that one difference is why cats, senior pets, anxious dogs, and multi-pet households so often do better with sitting: one visit to your home can cover every animal in it, on the schedule they already know.

What a visit includes is broader than most people expect, and the good services spell it out. House and Hound Dog Walkers in Broward says every visit includes fresh food and water, a walk or potty break for dogs, litter care for cats, medication administration, playtime, a wellness check, and a detailed report with photos through its client app — plus light home care like mail collection, rotating lights and blinds, and plant watering, so the house looks lived-in while you are away. Sitter4Paws in Fort Lauderdale describes the same shape: visits up to three times a day for 30 to 60 minutes, covering feeding, walking, litter-box care, medication for friendly pets, and cleaning up pet messes, with mail, lights, and blinds handled as part of the visit. Miami Pet Concierge, serving Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Pinecrest, South Miami, and Palmetto Bay, lists meals, water, bowls cleaned, medication if required, litter and cage cleaning, playtime, and email feedback after each visit — and it cares for far more than dogs and cats, including ferrets, birds, rabbits, reptiles, and fish.

Costs are published by many local services, and visit length and frequency are the levers. House and Hound publishes $20 for a 15-minute drop-in, $25 for 30 minutes, and $40 for a full hour, with overnight sitting in your home at $80 a night on weekdays and $100 on weekends. Sitter4Paws Fort Lauderdale charges $25 for 30 minutes, $33 for 45 minutes, and $40 for 60 minutes per visit, and states that it does not charge extra for additional pets. Miami Pet Concierge charges $30 for a 30-minute visit, $45 for 45 minutes, and $55 for 60 minutes, with fees applying for additional pets beyond the pets included in each visit length. Frequency matters as much as the per-visit price: Miami Pet Concierge requires at least three visits a day for dogs and at least one a day for other pets while you are away, so a dog's day of sitting is the per-visit price multiplied by three — get the full-trip total, not just the single-visit number, before you compare anyone.

Surcharges and policies differ by service, which is exactly why you read the fine print for the one you book. House and Hound adds $5 for visits after 7 PM, before 7 AM, and on weekends, plus a 50% surcharge on major holidays, and says a primary local sitter plus a backup is assigned to each household. Sitter4Paws adds $5 for rush bookings, $7 per visit on holidays, and $10 on peak holidays, and charges for same-day and late trip cancellations. House and Hound also notes that one to two weeks' notice is ideal, and that snowbird season — November through April — and major holidays fill fast in Broward. None of that is a red flag; it is simply the real calendar of South Florida pet care, where winter visitors and holiday travel book the same sitters at the same time.

Access is the South Florida detail that trips up otherwise good bookings. If you live in a condo or gated community, confirm before your trip — not from the airport — how the sitter gets in: gate code or call-box listing, front-desk or concierge check-in, whether the building needs the sitter's name or a copy of insurance in advance, and where a spare key, fob, or garage remote lives if yours fails. Decide the storm plan, too: during storm season, agree in advance what happens if your return flight is delayed or a visit window shifts for weather, who your emergency contact and regular veterinarian are, and how extra visits are approved and charged. A trial is cheap insurance — most local services offer a free meet-and-greet at your home first, and House and Hound, for example, starts every new client that way, walking through feeding, medication, and the care routine before any booking is confirmed.

Before you book, confirm five things: who exactly will visit — the same primary sitter each time, and who the backup is; that the sitter is insured and bonded, and what experience they have with your pet's species, age, and medication needs; what each visit includes and what an update looks like, and how quickly you will hear if something is wrong; the full-trip price, including holiday, weekend, early, late, and rush charges and the cancellation terms, in writing; and the access plan for your building and the delay plan if your trip runs long. Then start with a short trip or a one-night test while you are still reachable, and judge the basics: visits inside the agreed windows, updates that arrive without being chased, a home left as you left it, and a pet who is settled when you walk back in. Prices above are the services' own published rates, re-checked on their websites on November 4, 2026, and can change; every listing on this site links to the business so you can confirm the current price directly.