▲Photo provided by the interviewee

　　The furry kid stays alone in an empty room during the Spring Festival

　　Cat nanny comes to feed the cat

　　Someone has already taken 100 Spring Festival orders

　　Earn 5,000 yuan in 8 days

　　Reporter Jin Meng

　　The Spring Festival holiday is approaching, and people who work hard outside are starting their journey back home. For those who have pets, they have to make arrangements for one "big thing" before returning home: how to take care of their "furry babies" while away from Hangzhou.

　　In addition to being sent to a friend's house or a pet store for foster care, more and more young people are choosing a more flexible method - finding someone to come to feed their pets.

　　During this Spring Festival holiday, how popular are door-to-door pet feeding services?

　　Someone in Hangzhou has already received 100 orders in 8 days.

　　Feeding Officer: It costs 30 to 50 yuan to feed one time. Home visits are more cost-effective than foster care.

　　"Last year I drove my cat home to celebrate the New Year, but the road was extremely congested. It turned out to be a 6-hour drive and it took 12 hours. The cat suffered even more." With last year's experience, Ms. Chen, who works in Hangzhou, decided to drive home early this year. Plan well and let the cat stay in Hangzhou.

　　"Pet cats are naturally sensitive and timid, and have poor adaptability to unfamiliar environments. It is the best choice to let them stay in a familiar place and find someone to come to help feed them." Ms. Chen said.

　　She has also learned about foster care services in pet stores. “Cat foster care in Hangzhou generally costs more than 100 to 200 yuan per day, and a Spring Festival holiday can cost thousands of dollars. By comparison, in terms of cost and the cat’s feelings, door-to-door feeding has more advantages. .”

　　Last week, Ms. Chen and several pet owners in the same community found a nearby feeder and agreed to come to feed her every other day for a total of three days starting from the first day of the new year.

　　"The original price was 50 yuan per time. Because there were so many of us, the breeder gave us a 'group purchase price' of 30 yuan per time, which means that 90 yuan can solve the problem of cats being left behind during the Spring Festival holiday. It's quite a deal." Ms. Chen explain.

　　In Hangzhou, the demand for door-to-door pet feeding during the Spring Festival is very hot.

　　"One-year-old Jin Jianli, on the second and sixth day of the Lunar New Year, he asked someone to come to his house to shovel his feces and change his water. He asked that he not come into contact with sick cats." On social platforms, many pet owners posted help posts. Most of these posts They will be accompanied by "cute photos" of their own cats, hoping to attract reliable "nannies" with their good looks.

　　Ms. Zhang also posted a request for help. After the post was posted, it received more than 20 private messages and comments in just one day.

　　"I chatted for a long time with one of the girls who also had a British shorthair cat, and we got along very well, so I asked her to help me feed the cat for 40 yuan a time. We also made an appointment to take the kitten out to play after the New Year." Ms. Zhang said that feeding cats at home is actually somewhat private, and reaching an agreement requires mutual trust between the two parties.

▲Screenshots from social platforms

　　Cat nanny: The demand is highest during the Spring Festival. Last year, we received 23 orders in one day.

　　"I'm here to feed the cat now." Before coming to the door, "nanny" Xiaoxuan will first send a message to her employer.

　　After getting the key at the agreed location, she skillfully put on shoe covers and disposable gloves, and then sprayed disinfectant alcohol all over her body - this is a necessary procedure for her every time she comes to feed.

　　Then, Xiaoxuan will check the environment and the cat's condition. After confirming that there are no abnormalities, she will start to add cat food, change water, and shovel cat litter. If she has enough time, she will open the window for ventilation, do some simple cleaning, and play with the cat for a while. The whole service will take about 30 minutes. From entering to going out, she will take multiple videos and send them to the pet owner, or make a video call throughout the entire process.

　　"During the Spring Festival, the price for a door-to-door visit within 2 kilometers is 40 yuan, and each additional cat in the home will cost 5 yuan." Xiaoxuan said that some employers have additional needs, such as feeding medicine, combing, etc., and they will increase accordingly. money.

　　Xiaoxuan, who was born in the 1990s, started doing door-to-door feeding during the Spring Festival last year. Because she also raises cats and can earn some extra money by taking orders, she chose to stay in Hangzhou for the New Year.

　　In mid-January, she posted information on community owner groups and social platforms, and soon received many orders. A rough estimate shows that so far, she has visited about 100 times during the eight-day Spring Festival holiday, earning at least 5,000 yuan.

　　Compared with Xiaoxuan, Ms. Gu from Hangzhou is more "experienced". She started doing door-to-door feedings 4 years ago.

　　"I had just raised a cat at that time. The neighbor's cat next door needed to be taken care of. He asked me if he could come to the house and give me 30 yuan at a time. Only then did I realize that there was such a part-time job. Later, I took orders at Xianyu and started my business. Long-term door-to-door feeding,” she said.

　　"You can go to other people's homes to pet cats, and you can also earn some money for the 'cat owners' to buy canned food." Ms. Gu believes that home feeding is a happy part-time job for pet lovers, but it also requires a lot of rest time. . "The demand for door-to-door feeding is generally concentrated during holidays, with the largest number during the Spring Festival. Normally, there are at most one or two orders a day, but during the Spring Festival, the number may increase ten times a day. Last year during the Spring Festival, I received up to 23 orders a day. After lunch, I went out and was busy until I came back at 4 p.m. , have dinner and then go out and work until 8 pm.”

　　She said she wanted to be more relaxed this year, so she took fewer orders. “About six or seven orders a day, I estimate I’ll earn about 3,000 yuan.”