There's a lot of spoiled cats here in New York City with dedicated
cat sitters hustling for some extra cash.
There's even an elite team of cat sitters who call themselves the cat
whisperers. They're hiring, so I found out just what it takes to become one.
I'm here with Jacqueline Rivera.
She's the CEO of Pawfect Day and she is the O.G. Cat Whisperer.
Cats believe that they should be on a pedestal and we are there to serve
them. And we are.
We are pretty much their servants.
With an attitude to serve, I followed a professional cat whisper to visit
three different cats on the Upper East Side.
Pawfect Day cat whisperers make $17.50 an hour.
Here's what happened.
So when you act like you don't hear, all of a sudden they're just like,
"Wait, I'm not the star of the show?"
I like to just come in, start fixing their food, and I don't even address
them. And then they come to you.
All right, that's the one.
A full page description of how they want to be fed.
She even has pictures.
Sometimes they won't like the kibble and we want to make sure that we're
doing it the way they like it.
Maybe we didn't serve it to their liking.
Oh, that was supposed to go into a glass bowl.
Seven steps to clean the litter box.
If they want to watch a certain channel, then we will change the channel
for them.
Sometimes they like watching the Discovery Channel or they want a
different music station.
Wow. Look at that.
Get your phone always ready for the good shot for the perfect shot for the
perfect update to send to their owner.
You do have to be pet CPR and first aid certified to work with us.
I have no idea how that works.
Would you be able to show us?
Their heartbeat is much quicker than a human.
So you would do double, about a hundred or more per minute.
And if it's hard to remember that, you can go with the song Bee Gees' "Stayin Alive."
Ah, ha, ha, ha. Stayin' alive, stayin' alive.
[blow]
I just always assume that I'm being watched.
When I first came in, I thought maybe this could have been a camera.
So anything that looks like that, anything that's circular like that, I
just assume that it's watching me.
It turns out the hardest part about Cat whispering is dealing with spoiled
cats. It's actually getting to them.
There's a cab.
Should.
Should we catch a cab?
No, actually.
It never makes financial sense to take to use the money you just made cat
sitting, to use a cab for the next cats.
For that.
You should have just never went to the cats.
We walked two and a half miles between visits which took an additional hour
of our time. Because
commuting between cats can take a bunch of extra time, I give part time
cat whispering two dollar signs.
Well, I wouldn't recommend traveling across town for just one cat.
It's perfect when you have time to kill and it's convenient.
I started doing it because when I was dog sitting I'd have these little
awkward amounts of time in between that would say, hey, I mean if I just
go back home, I just have to come back out anyway.
So how would I make some extra money in between dog walking?
And what do you think sets you apart from other candidates?
Yeah. I mean, I think it's just my true, sincere belief that we as humans
are placed on this earth to serve cats.
She's not impressed.