When your mother's animal needs someone and you are the one who has to find that someone, the decision looks like a price question. It is mostly a coverage question. Three arrangements cover most cases: boarding at a facility, drop-in visits at her home, and an in-home sitter who stays overnight or near-overnight. Each one moves the work to a different place, and the sibling who is already stretched will feel the difference first.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Line up the three options side by side
Write one row per option and fill in the same five lines for each. Visit length and count. Who holds the keys. Who sees the animal and how often. Who calls the vet and with what written permission. What happens when the sitter cannot come. Boarding gives you a fixed place and fixed hours, but it means moving the animal, which is hard on older animals and on anxious ones. Drop-in visits keep the animal in its own home, but they split the day into short blocks that someone has to schedule, confirm, and sometimes chase. An in-home sitter covers the most hours and the most of the evening, and asks for the most trust.
Ask each provider the same questions
Ask whether they carry insurance and whether they are bonded, and ask for the paperwork rather than a yes. Ask what counts as one visit and where the clock starts and stops, because a fifteen-minute walk and a forty-minute stay can carry the same label. Ask how keys are handled: whether they keep a copy, where it is stored, and whether they return it. Ask what they do in an emergency and whether they will take the animal to a vet on a written authorization that your mother signs.
Then ask the question that matters most in a family: who covers the visit when this person is sick. A provider with no backup is a single point of failure, and that failure lands on the daughter who answers the phone.
Put the decision in writing
Write the schedule, the feeding and medication times if the animal takes any, and the name of the person who gives the medication. Write who authorizes vet care and up to what amount. Keep a copy in the shared folder where the family records its bills. Your mother should be part of the choice, since the animal is hers, and her preferences belong on the sheet next to yours.
If you need names of local services to compare, the local help page is a place to start for the St. Louis area.