About Us

Dan and Cherie Smith started Daystar Pets when they moved to Hampton Roads in 1999.  Cherie had worked as a pet sitter in the Washington, DC area for several years before they moved for Dan's job change.  She used her past experience to start her own pet sitting service shortly after their move.

Dan's government contractor job ended in 2004, and he has since taken over a lot of the pet sitting assignments for the Downtown Suffolk/Franklin/Courtland areas. 

Daystar Pets has expanded over the years to cover all of Southside Hampton Roads.  We have several excellent pet sitters covering all of Southside Hampton Roads, including:

Virginia Beach

Chesapeake

Portsmouth

Norfolk

Northern Suffolk

Windsor and Southampton County

In 2002 the family moved from Chesapeake to a small farm in Suffolk, where we put a modular house on a former farm field on 20 acres of land.  The 5-bedroom, 3.5-bath house is fully occupied by Dan and Cherie's daughter, Andrea with her husband and son; their son Greg who has his son part of the time; and two renters who are employees of the family's other business, DanChe Home Cleaning, a residential house cleaning company.  (See www.DanCheHomeCleaning.com.)

We own eight Samoyed dogs; we breed and show them, and have puppies from time to time (see www.DaystarSamoyeds.com).  We also have two Tennessee Walking Horses and have cut riding trails into the wooded area of our land behind the house.  All of our pets are a joy to all of us.