About Dog Days Pet Care

Dog Days Pet Care is a Central Suffolk pet-care company based in Sayville, NY 11782, and has been running 'Dog Walking & Pet Sitting Central Suffolk on Long Island since 2016'. Most of what it does is care rather than instruction – all-day dog walking, cat and dog sitting, small-animal care, pet taxi and a pooper-scooper service – but it publishes a genuine private dog training service, which is why it appears in this directory.

The training service

It is in-home and one-to-one: 'Customized to teach your dog(s) the skills they need, our dog training sessions are conducted in your home or a public place of your choosing.' Pricing is by enquiry rather than published, unlike the rest of the menu, which carries starting rates throughout: dog walking from $29 on the recurring signature plan, pet sitting visits from $35, cat and small-animal visits from $30, poop-scooping from $10, and an Almost Overnight service at $120 that pairs a one-hour breakfast visit with a two-hour bedtime visit and can be extended to 4, 8 or 24-hour coverage on request. An owner should understand what they are buying here: this is private instruction from a pet-care company that already knows the dog and the house, not a training school with a class calendar or a residential program.

Who runs it

The owner and founder is Laurie Schmeizer, who 'was born and raised in Central Suffolk on Long Island' and moved into professional pet care more than ten years ago. She is a Certified Professional Pet Sitter through Pet Sitters International, which the site describes as requiring 'the industry's only knowledge-assessed certification exam for professional pet sitters'. Note that this is a pet-sitting credential, not a dog-training one.

How the company is set up

One structural detail is worth knowing, because it is unusual in this trade and the company makes a point of it: walkers and sitters are employees, not contractors. 'Classifying our dog walkers and pet sitters as employees allows us to do ample new hire vetting, provide training, and encourage ongoing education, ensuring your and your pet's safety and peace of mind.' The business is locally owned, bonded and insured, with background-checked staff, pet first aid and CPR training, GPS tracking and photo visit updates. The published service area covers 31 towns from Sayville and West Sayville east to Port Jefferson and Mount Sinai and north to Smithtown and Saint James.