Our Lead

Taking the Lead...

Our arduous onboarding process gives our staff a solid knowledge base. Our continued education requirements ensure they are always growing that knowledge. Together with our 10+ years of industry experience provides us the expertise to deal with a myriad of pet personalities and circumstances. Our 3 layers of GPS redundancy delivers more transparency than any other in home pet care provider in NOVA. We are taking the lead with our expertise, our technology, and our uncompromising standards!

Our Expertise

The Unleashed Pet’s training program is the most rigorous and painstaking of any in-home pet care providers in the area. After passing a background check (we perform this check every other year during employment) that includes driving history our new hires enter into a 90 day training program. This program is comprised of field and classroom hours. 50 shadowed visits plus 20 hours of theory that covers topics such as safe and stress-free pet handling, feline and canine body language and behavior, common illness signs and symptoms, canine training fundamentals and a wide-ranging list of best practices. A complete list of our knowledge sources can be found below. Additionally, staff are required to obtain Pet First Aid & CPR Certification and Fear Free Certification in completion of their training program.

Our professional memberships provide support and direction when starting and growing our businesses. They provide a wealth of resources in the form of education, certification and advocacy.

Our Technology

We have a triple layer of GPS redundancy to ensure the safety of your pet, our staff and your home. The first is your SPOTCheck email that contains an arrival and departure GPS Timestamp, and shows that your pup was walked. The second layer is tracking on each phone, which provides a daily report. And third, we place a tracking fob on your pet when we leash them up for a walk. 

For you, this means that we track arrival time, walk time, and time spent inside the home. It also means that in the unlikely event that something goes wrong we can locate staff and pets in real time.

Our Uncompromising Standards

Our uncompromising standards are never sacrificed. This can be seen as early as our enrollment meetings, where a manager will always be present to guide the meeting. Logistically, this is difficult, and many companies have done away with this practice. We have not, it is a valuable step that benefits the client, their pets, and the staff by allowing time for questions about our service and time to get to know and get comfortable with our team.   

As mentioned above (in the Expertise section) our staff are employees, we never hire contractors, and pass a background check and our arduous training program. Additionally, we call professional and personal references to gain the best overall picture of potential staff. 

Another way we put standard of service in the forefront is an in person introduction to your pets. All staff are introduced to your pets before starting service, either at the enrollment meeting or a shadow visit with another staff that has met your pets. Many companies have let this practice go because of the cost. However, we find nothing can take the place of this informational step as it gives enhanced comfort of familiarity, both for your pets and our staff. 

Quality control is paramount part of ensuring the absolute best service. Quality checks on staff in the field are a frequent and a routine part of our oversight.

Many businesses have sacrificed some of these practices because of cost and logistical issues. But we feel they are some of the most important ways we can ensure excellent service. We do not cut corners on cost, safety or quality!

Knowledge Resources and Service Providers

Our knowledge sources and service providers are top notch! We vetted each one and find them to be industry standards that set the bar. 

	Licensed The Unleashed Pet is Licensed with both the state of Virginia and the county of Fairfax.
	Background and Driver's License Checked For Over 20 Years, ACUTRAQ Has Been The Leader In Background Screening Solutions. We Have Helped Hundreds Of Top-Flight Companies And Thousands Of SMBs To Call The Right Decisions. Our proven system accurately reports on the credit, criminal, and eviction history of tenants and potential employees with less than a 0.01% error rate.
	Insured and Bonded Mourer Foster, Inc. has been offering full-service specialty insurance services since 1933. Located in Lansing, Michigan, we provide insurance solutions to our neighbors, as well as throughout all 50 states. We offer specialty risk insurance, including our KennelPro program, veterinarian insurance and PetrolGuard insurance, as well as business and personal insurance and bonds.
	Fear Free Certification Founded in 2016, Fear Free provides online and in-person education to veterinary professionals, the pet professional community, and pet owners. Our courses are developed and written by the most respected veterinary and pet experts in the world, including boarded veterinary behaviorists, boarded veterinary anesthesiologists, pain experts, boarded veterinary internists, veterinary technicians, experts in shelter medicine, animal training, grooming, boarding, and more. By closely listening to the needs of the profession and those of pet owners, Fear Free has become one of the single most transformative initiatives in the history of companion animal practice, providing unparalleled education on emotional wellbeing, enrichment, and the reduction of fear, anxiety, and stress in pets.
	Fetch Find With 13+ hours of course work with regularly updated content, to include the most current best practices, FetchFind online education system sets the gold standard in pet industry training and provides for continuing education.
	Karen Pryor Academy Pioneering animal trainer and author Karen Pryor designed and launched KPA's first program—the Dog Trainer Professional (DTP) program in 2007. Karen is considered to be the catalyst for the positive reinforcement training movement, along with her ground-breaking book Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training. Karen Pryor Academy is part of the family of positive training education services, a leader in the field of animal training and in the science and application of marker-based positive reinforcement, or what is popularly called “clicker training."
	National Association of Professional Pet Sitters  With 1000+ members NAPPS is the premiere Association for our industry. Dedicated to raising and abiding by industry standards and supporting members with education, certification and the resources to operate a successful business.
	National Capital Area Professional Pet Sitter Network Founded in 1998, NCAPPS Network is an all-volunteer, membership-based non-profit, with a mission to promote professional pet sitting in the DC metro area, including Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland. NCAPPS maintains a membership base of independently owned and operated area pet care businesses whose owners are committed to excellence in professional pet sitting, community outreach and involvement.
	Pet Tech First Aid & CPR Certified All staff attend an 8 hour course and are independently trained and certified in Pet First Aid & CPR by Pet Tech.
	Pet First Aid & CPR Certified All staff attend a comprehensive course and are independently trained and certified in Pet First Aid & CPR by Pet First Aid 4U.