They stay in their own home
Their couch, their beds, their toys and bones, their routine. The only thing that changes is who is feeding them.
I’m Pete. Susan and I have four pets, and they aren’t pets in the way most people mean it. They’re our family. They have their couch, their beds, their toys and bones, and a routine they count on every day.
A while back we needed to board our dogs, and we did our homework. The kennel talked a good game and had decent reviews. The people were friendly when we toured, and the facility had the things we looked for: a TV in the room, cameras, all of it.
Then we found out what it was really like. The TV didn’t work. The dogs were kept shut in a small room almost the entire day. They went without their couch and their beds, and they weren’t allowed their toys or their bones. When we picked them up, they smelled like urine. We vowed we would never do that to them again.
What stayed with us was how convincing the tour had been. A tour shows you the best fifteen minutes of a place. It doesn’t show you the other twenty-three hours. If we couldn’t tell, how is anyone supposed to?
So Porchlight is built around things you can check for yourself. You meet your sitter in your own home before the first visit. Your pets stay where they’re comfortable, with their own things around them. And after every visit you get a note and photos, so you never have to take anyone’s word for it.
The name comes from the porch light you leave on when someone’s coming home. We’re building a small, local network of people who love animals, and every one of them has to pass one test: would we trust them with our own pets? If the answer isn’t an easy yes, they don’t join.
Shamus, who was Kraig’s first dog and later ours, is a big part of why we do this. He was on every family hike, and he even shared the house with Pepper, Susan’s mom’s cat, without too much drama. We lost him, but the way we cared for him is the standard we hold ourselves to.
