Suing a Pet Sitter or Boarding Business in Ontario Small Claims Court

You hand your pet over to a sitter or a boarding kennel trusting that they’ll be as careful as you would be. When that trust breaks — a pet is injured on their watch, goes missing, or comes home showing signs of neglect — you’re usually left with vet bills, a traumatized animal, and a business or individual who may or may not take responsibility. In that situation, you can generally sue a pet sitter in Ontario Small Claims Court.

This article covers what kind of claim applies, the legal idea behind it, and how to build a case that holds up.

What Counts as a Valid Claim Against a Pet Sitter

Injury While in Their Care

If your pet was hurt due to the sitter’s carelessness — left unsupervised near a hazard, allowed to get into a fight, given the wrong medication or food — this points toward a negligence claim.

Loss or Escape

A pet that goes missing while boarded or sat, especially where a gate was left open or a leash wasn’t properly secured, is one of the more serious failures and often the clearest evidence of carelessness.

Neglect or Mistreatment

Signs a pet wasn’t fed, exercised, or given needed medication as promised, or was otherwise treated poorly, can support a claim even without a single dramatic incident.

Breach of the Service Agreement

If you paid for specific services (daily walks, medication administration, updates) and they simply weren’t provided, that’s a more straightforward contract claim regardless of whether harm resulted.

The Legal Concept Behind These Claims: A Sitter’s Duty of Care

When you leave your pet with a sitter or kennel, the law generally treats that as creating a duty to take reasonable care of the animal while it’s in their possession — a long-standing common-law principle that applies whenever someone takes temporary custody of another person’s property or animal for a fee. "Reasonable care" doesn’t mean perfection; accidents can happen even with careful sitters. It does mean a level of attentiveness and precaution that a responsible sitter in that situation would exercise. Whether a specific sitter met that standard is the central question in most of these disputes.

Contracts and Liability Waivers

Many pet sitting and boarding businesses have clients sign a waiver or liability release before service begins. These aren’t necessarily a complete bar to a claim — a waiver may reduce or limit what’s recoverable for ordinary risks the client accepted, but courts are generally reluctant to let a waiver excuse conduct that fell well below a reasonable standard of care. Read the specific wording of what you signed before assuming it blocks your claim entirely.

Evidence to Collect

• [ ] The service agreement or booking confirmation, including any waiver language
• [ ] Photos of your pet before drop-off and after the incident
• [ ] Veterinary records and invoices documenting the injury or condition
• [ ] Any messages with the sitter — updates during the stay, and their response once you raised concerns
• [ ] Witness statements, if anyone else observed the sitter’s conduct or the pet’s condition
• [ ] Your written demand letter and their reply, if any

Making Your Claim in Small Claims Court

1. Send a written demand describing what happened, your losses (vet bills, and reasonable additional costs), and a deadline to respond.
2. File a Plaintiff’s Claim. Pet sitting disputes typically fall well within Small Claims Court’s monetary jurisdiction, currently $50,000 exclusive of costs and interest (current as of mid-2026 — confirm before filing, as the limit is periodically adjusted).
3. Serve the sitter or business properly, at their registered address if they operate as a company.
4. Watch for a Defence. If none is filed in time, you can generally move for default judgment.
5. Attend the mandatory settlement conference if the claim is defended, which happens before any trial date.

Frequently asked questions