Recently I've had dogs stay as late as 9 or 1030 PM on the day of pickup which is almost a whole extra day that I am not being paid for. How do you handle clients like this?
There have been several posts about this. Although it can vary, most sitters seem to charge additional for partial day care, day care, or nightly charge - based on the number of hours beyond a 24 hour increment. And the easiest way to do so is ask the arrival and departure times in writing when booking.
For example, if I care for a dog that arrives at 9 PM and leaves x number of days later at 9 PM, I would not charge anything extra. However, if the dog that left around 9 PM had arrived days earlier much before 7 PM, it merits an additional fee (basically I figure 2 hours grace period) but much beyond that may result in half day care (maybe 4-7 hours) or a full day care fee (maybe 8-11 hours) or full nightly fee (12 or more hours).
I second Deb's answer but want to add:
Was the pickup time discussed prior to the beginning of the stay? If the client has informed me ahead of time that, for example, their flight gets in after 6pm and they won't be able to pick up until late, in the name of repeat business I am unlikely to charge extra.
I do quite a bit of communicating with clients during the stay and, if my gut says they will be late picking up, I might let them know I have 'an appointment scheduled' to encourage them to be on time.
If they have not planned ahead for a late pickup and I have sat there for several hours, steaming, then I will likely extend their stay through Rover (and do some deep breathing).