One Sheet, No Panic: The Dog-Sitter Handover That Actually Gets Read

The sitter is on the doorstep, your taxi is seven minutes away and the suitcase is still open on the spare bed. This is the moment most of us deliver the handover: a bit about the food, a vague gesture towards the lead hook, and a hurried mention that he's fine with other dogs, mostly. Then you're gone, and for the next five days someone else is piecing together your dog's routine from half-remembered fragments and a follow-up text at midnight.

If Christmas or New Year 2026 is the first time you're leaving your dog with someone new, it's worth doing this properly. Not with a laminated binder and a colour-coded spreadsheet, but with one honest side of A4.

Why one page beats forty texts

Good sitters are juggling two or three households at once over the festive fortnight. They are not going to re-read a long thread to check whether the second walk is forty minutes or an hour. What they need is the stuff that stops something going wrong, in roughly the order they'll need it.

So write for the version of your sitter who has had four hours' sleep, is wearing someone else's coat and can't remember which cupboard the food is in. Print it twice: one for the kitchen, one folded in a wallet alongside the spare key.

The boring bits do the heavy lifting

Start with food and water, because these are the daily decisions and the easiest to get subtly wrong.

• Grams, not scoops. People's scoops vary wildly. Weigh it once and write the number down.
• Which bowl, which cupboard, and how the food is stored.
• Treats: where they live, how many are sensible, and which ones are for training only.
• Water: where the bowl goes, how often it's changed, and whether your dog is a bowl-tipper who needs a towel underneath.
• The phrase you use to send him to his bed or out for a last wee. Tiny detail, enormous difference at 11pm.

Medication, written the way a locum would want it

If there's medication involved, add the drug name, the dose, the time, where it's kept and what to do if a dose is missed. Then add the one line that matters most: call me before you improvise.

Keep the vet's details right beside it rather than buried at the bottom of the page. In practice, UK practices will generally want the owner's consent, or clear authority from whoever is holding the lead, before they treat. So don't leave that to a phone call from a waiting room with poor signal. Ask your practice whether they have their own consent form, fill it in before you go, and hand a signed, dated copy to the sitter. Note your spend limit, your registered practice, the out-of-hours provider and two contact numbers. Microchip number, date of birth and current weight are worth including too, because those are the first questions asked at reception.

Walks: give the loop, not the vibe

'He likes a good walk' tells a sitter nothing. Name the actual route, the usual time and the realistic duration, then add the local knowledge that only you have:

• The school run at 3.15pm, when the pavement outside the gates is unusable.
• Bin day, and which street to avoid on it.
• The gap in the hedge where the fox lives, and the park where dogs are asked to stay off the bowling green.
• Where the nearest dog bin is, so nobody is carrying a bag for two miles.
• A wet-weather alternative for the days when the forecast wins.

Add which lead, whether the harness or the collar, and whether the long line comes out at all. If your dog's recall is excellent except near water or near the duck pond, say so plainly. That's not a confession, it's a boundary.

Triggers, quirks and the little things that bite

This is the section owners skip and sitters most need. Keep it blunt and short.

• Hates: scooters, hi-vis jackets, the postman, being approached head-on by an enthusiastic spaniel.
• Loves: the yellow ball, one particular bench, being ignored for the first ten minutes.
• Door behaviour: waits for a cue, or will absolutely bolt.
• Handling: fine to be towelled, does not want his paws touched. Worth knowing before a muddy January walk.
• Sleep: crate or no crate, bedroom door open or shut, what happens at 2am.

And the single most useful sentence you can write: how your dog tells you he needs the garden. Some pace, some stare, some sit by the door in loaded silence. A sitter who knows the signal avoids an accident on day one.

The numbers, gathered in one place

Your mobile, a second contact who can actually make decisions if you're on a plane, the neighbour with a spare key, the vet's name and postcode rather than just the name, and the out-of-hours number. Write the postcode out properly. A sitter in an unfamiliar town should not be searching for it at speed.

What to leave off

The full history of his sensitive stomach. The training theory behind the whistle. Anything that only matters if you're the one doing the training. If it doesn't change what the sitter does in the next twenty-four hours, it belongs in a chat, not on the sheet.

Then rehearse it

Hand the page over and ask the sitter to read it back to you. Whatever they stumble over is the bit you've written badly, and you've still got time to fix it. Better still, book a meet-and-greet walk a week or two before the trip: hand over the lead, go home separately, and see which questions surface once you're not standing there answering them.

The night before, print it, sign it, photograph it, send the photo, restock the food bin and stick the vet's number on the fridge. Five minutes now saves a very long phone call later.