You know exactly what your dog needs on a walk without thinking about it. A sitter doesn't have that instinct yet — they only have what you tell them, which means the gap between "obvious to you" and "written down clearly" is exactly where a walk goes sideways.
Commands: say the real ones, not the textbook ones
Every dog has their own version of "sit," "stay," and "come" — the specific word, tone, or hand signal that actually gets a response, which isn't always the standard one. If your dog only listens to "off" and not "down," say that explicitly. A sitter using the technically-correct command and getting nothing isn't a training problem — it's a handover gap.
Also worth including:
- Which commands are solid versus still a work in progress
- Any command that means something different to your dog than it would to most ("stay" that means five seconds, not five minutes)
- Physical cues or hand signals, if your dog responds better to those than words
Triggers: specific, not general
"He's fine with most things" isn't useful. What a sitter needs is the specific stuff:
- Other dogs — all of them, or a particular type or size
- Specific sounds — bin trucks, skateboards, other dogs barking
- People in certain clothing — hats, high-vis, uniforms
- Situations — being approached from behind, tight spaces, off-lead dogs approaching
Say what the reaction actually looks like too — a bark that's all noise and no bite is a very different heads-up to a sitter than one that means "create distance now."
Walking routine: the version that's actually true
- Real length and frequency, not the aspirational version
- On or off lead, and specifically where off-lead is safe
- The route you actually take, and anywhere to avoid
- Recall reliability — honestly, including the specific situations where it drops off (a dog with perfect recall in the backyard and none near other dogs is common, and worth flagging exactly like that)
Why the honest version matters more than the tidy version
It's tempting to smooth over the parts that feel like admitting your dog isn't perfectly behaved. That's exactly the information a sitter needs most — not to judge your dog, but to know what to actually expect and adjust for, rather than finding out mid-walk.
This is the sort of detail that's genuinely hard to fit into a rushed doorstep handover, which is why it's worth having somewhere permanent. Quirks & All keeps commands, triggers and routine on your pet's profile, so a sitter has it before the first walk, not partway through it.