Kelly’s Critter Care

I contacted Kelly about 2 years ago when we moved to North County with our 2 large dogs. We have a Great Dane and an American Bulldog, both about 7 years old and because I commuted about an hour each way to work they would be in their crates for almost 12 hours every day. I researched dog walkers in the area and Kelly was the most prompt to respond to my email. I checked all of her references and then invited her to meet me and the dogs. Immediately she seemed to grasp that they had very different personalities and needs — the Dane is the «old man» who wants to take things slow and just loves to be petted, the American Bulldog is very rambunctious and demanding. She had a great personality and I felt I could trust her with both my house and our pups so I hired her to do daily walks for each dog every week day, and sometimes we would call her on the weekends if we were going to be out for a long time. Having the extra exercise made a huge difference in our dogs — our Dane started to lose some of his «middle-​age spread» and acted much younger, while our American Bulldog was much calmer. A few months later we wanted to go on vacation and asked Kelly to stay with the dogs overnight instead of taking them to a boarder. She would walk with them in the day, then come back in the evening about the same time we would get home from work and stay with them until morning. They were always happy and healthy and everything was nice and clean when we got back. And it was so much more convenient than having to time our arrival or pay an extra day for boarding if we got back late. She was always extremely communicative — leaving notes in a daily journal (a practice we had started with a previous dog walker) and calling or texting if something was of immediate concern. Whenever she stayed overnight she always sent pictures/​texts to let us know they were doing good. When I had a baby a few months ago, we asked Kelly to be on-​call since we didn’t really know when exactly we might need her and she was so wonderful. She kept me totally informed of all her other obligations but made sure she could be there if we needed her and even had backup plans in case things didn’t work out just right. Once I went in to labor I sent her a text and knew that the dogs would be totally taken care of as long as we needed. She ended up staying for three days and even took the dogs on a long walk before I got home so they could be calm for the introduction. Leaving Kelly was one of the worst parts of us moving from San Diego, and I will probably be way too hard on pet-​sitters in the future. She is a lot to live up to! She is an incredible professional at her business and an amazing person to have taking care of your furry family.