Comfortable While You're Away
ATLANTA, GEORGIA (Atlanta Intown, September, 1998) — Being away from home for a vacation or business trip can be "ruff" on your pet – especially if Fido and Fluffy don't like the kennel. 
But local pet-sitting services like Atlanta Pet Sitting can help keep your pets safe and comfortable at home while allowing owners to have worry-free trips. These animal-loving neighbors are eager to help look after the family pets and even take in the mail while you are gone.
Atlanta Pet Sitting has been serving Atlanta for the past five years. Sitters visit the clients' homes and keep their pets' schedule as closely as possible, working seven days a week. In the summer, each sitter usually checks on 10-20 homes each day, and they recommend booking Thanksgiving and Christmas reservations by Labor Day.
"The biggest mistake is making plane reservations and not thinking of your pet," says the owner of Atlanta Pet Sitting, Valerie Swanson. "It's easier to cancel than to book."
Valerie is an animal-lover and the owner of a Shepherd mix who decided to join the growing pet-sitting trend after she was laid off from a software marketing job.
"It's a classic story," she said. "I lived in Philadelphia and had two dogs. I had to fly back and forth to Atlanta every week. I heard of a pet-sitting service and it was the best thing I ever did.
"Before I was absolutely killing myself -- leaving work early, taking the dogs to the kennel, leaving in rush hour," she said. "I was getting to Atlanta and then on Sunday taking an early flight to get back to the kennel in time to get the dogs."
Valerie has clients in Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Midtown, Inman Park and parts of Decatur. She has two to three regular employees and enlists extra help around the holidays...