Delilah: The Inspiration For Companion Keepers

By the original Owners Leah & Martin
Before opening for business in 1994, we traveled—a lot. Delilah, our beautiful Tortie Persian was our concern but we were lucky —family  who knew Delilah well were always available and we never had to worry. But eventually things changed and the family members we counted on moved away. The professional pet sitting industry was not established in San Antonio yet much less cat sitting. After a long search, we found a committed friend willing to house sit with Delilah. Before mobile phones or reliable internet service, we would be completely out of touch on our trip to Kenya until our return 10 days later so we planned out every detail we could think of. Back-up plans, back-up caregivers, veterinarian instructions — every contingency we could possibly think of was covered.

Except one. What we thought was obvious to us as long-term cat owners wasn’t as obvious for our friend regarding that “knowingness” that experienced cat lovers have to recognize when something isn’t right and how to take action early on. While we were a world away, we were unaware that what started out as a minor medical issue was snowballing into a life threatening issue for our senior cat. Delilah developed a minor ear infection but unlike a younger healthier cat, the infection was spreading and getting aggressive. Our sitter missed the cues that something was wrong and then medicated incorrectly, not out of neglect, but out of lack of cat wisdom and experience. We returned to a very ill Delilah who did not meet us at the door like normal. We rushed Delilah to the vet and we treated aggressively for a week hoping she would recover. But it was too late. The infection had spread to her brain. We lost her after a long week of watching her suffer. The pain and regret always lingered. We had no way to channel or make peace with the grief.

Several years later the pet sitting industry came along in a big way and although we could never bring Delilah back,  we understood how our experience would benefit other worried traveling cat owners and we jumped in. Our mission: use our experience and knowing to provide quality at-home cat care so traveling cat parents could have peace of mind knowing their feline family members are safe and cared for by cat-lovers who get it and hopefully never experience what we did.
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We were unable to find any other cat-only pet sitting businesses anywhere in the country, but we forged ahead and went all-in, fully knowing we were leaving out half of our pet sitting market by omitting dogs and other pets. Our instincts proved right! Everything we’ve learned since then we pass on to our team of experienced cat-lovers so you can be away without guilt or worry.  Today it’s a joy, privilege, and our commitment to keep your cats happy and content while you’re away.

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