Choices Pet Sitters
(Office): (678) 809-3647 (Mobile): (678) 253-7387
Welcome to Choices Pet Sitters! As the Premier in-home pet sitting company in North Georgia, we have been providing respectful, personalized, and extremely professional pet care since 2005. Customized services include 30, 45, and 60-minute drop-in pet sitting or cat sitting visits, dog walking, basic and expanded overnight visits, mini-farm pet care services, and extended in-home daily visits. (UPDATE: To ensure the safety of our sitters and our clients, Overnight Pet Sitting Services and Extended In-home Daily Visits are temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
NOTE: We do NOT provide boarding services outside your home.
We love what we do! The value-added service we provide comes with many years of professional (paid) pet care experience and our pet sitters are bonded and insured for your protection. Multiple certifications requiring continuing education, and membership in many industry-specific Pet Associations make us the most educated group in Jasper. Our Manager is one of the 1st twenty of Dr. Marty Becker's Fear Free® Certified Professionals in Georgia and one of the 1st fifty Fear Free® Elite Certified Professionals in the WORLD! Furthermore, she has been trained in PetTech® Pet First Aid and CPR, is a Certified Professional Pet Sitter®, and is Low Stress Handling® Silver Certified.
Even with these credentials, our prices are comparable to those inexperienced pet sitters who try to compete with less training and no liability insurance. Therefore, we are the best VALUE in the area. Let a Choices Pet Sitters professional relieve the stress of having to leave your beloved pets behind when you travel. We'll be happy to show you true peace of mind! Call us TODAY!
We serve Pickens and some of the northern parts of North Cherokee Counties in Georgia including the cities and areas of Jasper, Tate, Nelson, as well as part of Talking Rock, and NW Ball Ground for basic services. Other areas (not listed) are serviced for overnight or extended daily in-home pet sitting services only.
One of the 1st twenty of Dr. Marty Becker’s Fear Free® Certified Professionals in Georgia and one of the 1st fifty Fear Free® Elite Certified Professionals in the WORLD!
Linda remembers her first real dog at age 5. After that, she recalls lots of different animals sharing her life. Through the years she enjoyed caring for a white bunny, a hamster, a couple of small red-eared slider turtles, and several American Pekin and Rouen ducks. She raised Grand Champion White Leghorn chickens in 4-H, competed in horse shows, and socialized feral kitties in the woods behind her home. She even remembers bringing home the class Guinea Pig from Middle School on occasional weekends!
After she moved out of her parent’s house there was always a cat (or two) around. She quickly discovered that a freshwater fish tank was easy and fairly inexpensive to set up with the hum of the water pump helping her sleep at night. She and her cats would stare at the fish swimming back and forth for hours! While watching Angelfish, Swordtails, Neon Tetras, and Pictus Catfish was a fascinating learning experience, she says breeding Mollies and Guppies was her biggest adventure.
When she studied human psychology in college she opened herself up to observing the behavior of humans as well as the pets in her household, and her fascination with the human-animal bond grew. Since she had a teaching background it was easy to transition to starting a pet care business after building out, setting up, staffing, and then selling her health food supplement stores. Her passion for helping animals grew more with each year and she began to follow up on educational opportunities to expand her skills. Since there wasn’t a service like this in her area, expanding her skillset and offering new services was well received by the community.
Linda says, “Each day I continue to learn more about different species of animals and their behavior through personal on-site interaction and continuing education from various sources. Scientific evidence in the animal world is rapidly developing and I am realizing there is so much that was never known about animals and their behavior when I first started out! Currently, I am working on continuing education in, and specialize in working with, aggressive and fearful dogs. Discovering the personalities of each pet, and seeing them blossom when they find newfound confidence is a joy. Managing a staff that works diligently with me to provide the best care possible for these pets is a privilege.”
TNR (Trap/Neuter/Release)
Helping rescue animals get over their fear of people (if they were feral or have been abused) is not work, but instead a special journey for Linda. Between 2007 and 2008 she did some TNR (Trap/Neuter/Release), foster, and socialization work with felines. Her passion is helping owners understand the behavior of their pets so they can live together in harmony including getting feral cats spayed or neutered if someone is feeding them.
Shelter Dogs – (Special Feature Story – Lola)
“The relationships I have seen develop between animals and humans are memorable experiences that I will always cherish,” Linda explained. “In fact, I developed a very special relationship with a dog named Lola at the shelter. She was supposedly aggressive when she came into the shelter but I could tell from a few minutes outside her kennel that she was more shy and uncertain of where she was and bothered by the terrible screeching noise overhead than anything. The shelter staff couldn’t leash her up so they asked for my help. She touched my heart in a very short period of time.”
Here is a short, very basic, and once private video of some of their time together that was to be used to find Lola a rescue. (NOTE: Turn your volume down very low to start. There is a very, very loud screeching noise from the fan in the background at this shelter.)
“I love the animals I work with, enjoy the time I spend with them. I’m proud to say I know a little about the personality of each pet that has graced my life. My relationships with some of the super-shy pets (who, according to the owners I was never supposed to see) are very special and ones I will remember always,” commented Linda.
Dylan is our Dog Walker / Pet Sitter (Part-time – Summer) who works with both large and small animals. His experience comes from helping to care for and raising several cats, dogs, and birds as well as shadowing the Manager on her visits. Shadowing has helped Dylan train in the specifics of our standard operating procedures as well as learn more about canine body language. He has been with Choices Pet Sitters for 7 years first as an apprentice and then a part-time summer staff sitter.
Monday
10am - 6pm
Tuesday
10am - 6pm
Wednesday
10am - 6pm
Thursday
10am - 6pm
Friday
10pm - 6pm
Saturday
1pm - 4pm
Sunday
By special appointment
Our mission is to provide consistently reliable and responsible pet care based on your individual needs and best industry practices. We strive to be communicative and easy to work with. Our online reservation portal is accessible 24/7 for you to make reservations up to 72 hours in advance. (At 48 hours we send out confirmations of appointments by text so you will need to call in to see if we have appointment times available if you have missed the window to schedule online.) And finally, we promise to keep your pets safe, happy, and if needed, well-exercised at home.
Understanding that while some pets are fun and furry, we also realize that some are seniors requiring extra attention and patient understanding of their individual needs. Other’s may be fearful or shy and we generally have a staff member to help them feel comfortable. We don’t discriminate based on age, sex, breed, temperament, or other factors and we make every attempt to match you with the sitter most qualified to work with your pet’s specific needs.
We will, however, let you know as soon as we know if we have to decline a job for personal safety reasons. We will also let you know immediately if we don’t have a staff member qualified (based on your pet’s specific emotional or health care requirements) to backup your primary sitter if something happens to your sitter to prevent them from coming to your home for service so that you can plan ahead for an alternate backup pet sitter.
Finally, our company is professionally bonded and insured so you can feel confident in our business knowing that we take your home and pet’s safety seriously. Our staff pet sitters are employees (not independent contractors) and are trained in our standard operating and safety procedures.
Our pet sitting business model provides professional services backed by verifiable credentials in many industry-specific organizations. These organizations provide continuing education and networking opportunities that add value to the services our business provides to you. We’re happy to give you the information to “check us out” or click on some of the professional logos to connect to the individual staff’s profile in those organizations!”