OkcPets Magazine November 2021

34 OKC Pets • November/December 2021 Carey Pet and Home Care By Kaycee Chance C arey Pet and Home Care first opened in the Oklahoma City metro area in 2005, when owner and operator Cris Carey saw a great need for the services around the city. Pet owners wanted dependable, safe, caring, passionate people to be able to care for their pets in their homes when they couldn’t, removing the stress of taking them somewhere to be boarded or cared for. She wanted to be able to provide pet owners with peace of mind and let them feel like they were leaving their pets in the best hands possible when needing to travel for work or on vacation. By 2006, Carey began adding other sitters to her program, and soon enough, she was operat- ing the largest in-home pet sitting service in the Oklahoma City metro. Growing up on an 80-acre farm in Indiana taught Carey early on that regardless of what else is going on in life, the animals don’t know any different. “They don’t know if it’s Christmas Day and you want to take the day off — they all still had to be fed before the presents were opened,” she said. Her passion for animals and her lifelong expe- rience in caregiving, coupled with more than 20 years of experience working in various business operations, made it an easy choice for Carey to decide to open Carey Pet and Home Care and meet the rising needs of pet owners across the metro to become a one-stop pet concierge service. Carey describes her array of services like a “restaurant menu” because really, it’s all up to the individual clients to design the package that they need for their pets. In addition to those going away for work or vacation, Carey Pet and Home Care services are also ideal for long, stressful workdays and can even be set up on recurring schedules. Carey’s sitters offer various services from which the clients can choose, such as dog walking, potty breaks, overnight visits or even a quick trip to administer medications. In addition to various services, the timeframes for these services can range from 30 to 60 minutes or even overnight trips lasting nine or 12 hours. This wide variety of services is also offered to a wide variety of clientele, as Carey explains they absolutely do not discriminate based on the breed of the animal, jokingly stating, “We will care for any breed, farm animals, exotics — even your pet rock!” With a great group of sitters around the metro to provide care, a typical day for a Carey pet looks different for each one. During overnight packages, sitters will still do many of the same tasks as they would during the day, but your pet will also have the creature comfort of a human to snuggle up with in bed. Carey’s sitters are well-trained, with each receiving animal CPR and first-aid certification, and all have extensive experience in providing top-notch care to pets and their homes while clients are away. Carey’s sitter reviews consistently show the same level of thoughtfulness and care, often mentioning how the sitters left clients’ homes clean and organized, mail and packages nicely waiting, clean pet bowls and wagging tails. The reviews time and time again speak highly of the sitters and their thoughtful communication, thorough caregiving, attention to detail and obvious amounts of love given to the animals in their care. When asked what one of her favorite parts of running Carey Pet and Home Care is, Carey has an easy answer. “The thing that I love the most is when clients will personally call me to rave about their sitter or our services and say how they finally felt at ease leaving their pets and their home to go on vacation,” she said. While a phone call may seem like a small Cris Carey