When I was new to applying for sits earlier this year, this sweet older couple confirmed us to watch their two dogs. Due to the weather, their trip got cancelled. Instead of cancelling on us, they put together a different travel itinerary because they wanted to keep their commitment to us. They cooked us dinner, drove me around to show the dog walking route, and gave us a nice clean home. I’m posting this to remind people that there are some awesome members on here. You better believe we spoiled these dogs rotten with tons of playtime, kisses, hugs, belly rubs, and they even sleep with my kids
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Prize when the prize is due. Thank you
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Hi @IHeartAnimals. I’m on a sit like that. We arranged it 9 months ago, and my husband and I were going to fly a long way to get to it. A month before the sit was to start, I received a note from the PP saying the younger of the 2 dogs had suddenly passed. The older dog, who is old for his breed, was not doing well and might not survive the passing of his mate.
Regardless of what happened in the meantime, the PP assured us, we would be able to stay in her home for the duration of the sit, pets or no pets. Her generosity and thoughtfulness humbled me.
We arrived not knowing if the dog had passed, or if we were going to need to gently care for him during his final days. I’m happy to say he bounced back and now loves long explorations and having all the human attention to himself.
We’ll be forever grateful to the PP for allowing us to stay in her home regardless of whether she needed us or not.
You’re absolutely right!
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Same here. HO had something come up with prepaid non refundable trip.
Planning something different to keep our dates as scheduled.
Have only had two phone conversations with this person.
Love it.
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I am a HO and we had a change in our travel plans that cut our trip short by over 2 weeks. We told the sitters (days prior to the sit even starting) that they could absolutely still stay and even continue using my vehicle.
I am just curious from the sitter perspective, did you still spend time with the dogs and help take care of them even though the HO was there?
To our dismay, we found out that during the actual sit, our sitters left our dogs home for 10+ hours on multiple occasions and they didn’t even take our dogs on daily walks like we requested.
Unfortunately, we found this all out after we were done hosting them. I can’t help but feel foolish and taken advantage of now.
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Sounds like you had irresponsible sitters who took advantage of you. That’s terrible.
Wondering how you found out later about them leaving your dogs for long stretches and not walking them and whether you reviewed them accordingly.
About inviting sitters to stay over: If that happened, wouldn’t they essentially become guests, instead of sitters, so pet care would be your responsibility? Otherwise, according to THS terms, you can’t have anyone else living onsite while someone is sitting.
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Well they were new to THS and we were their first sit. They interviewed so well and we really vibed with them so we decided to take a chance. Lesson learned….
How we found out: When we came home, we smelled pee right away so we tried looking for the source and found multiple accidents in the house - some old and some fresh.
This led us to check the history on our exterior door sensors and our garage door sensor to see the last time they went out. That’s when we saw that there were multiple days where none of the exterior doors had been opened for a long time. 10 hours one day, 9 hours on another day and the really bad one was for 15 hours😳
We also have a front door camera but we didn’t check it at that time because we wanted to talk to them first. We asked them about the accidents and they said dogs can have accidents when adjusting to new people🙄. We asked about the door sensor history and they said they took the dogs with them on hikes and other adventures and had “hundreds of pics” . We wanted to believe them so we took them at their word.
We hosted them for 2 more weeks, even hung out and did things together and we genuinely enjoyed their company.
After they left, I asked for some of the pics from the hikes and adventures they took the dogs on. Usually sitters are enthusiastic to share these sorts of pics but they kept stalling and saying they would send them later. That’s when I went with my gut and checked our front door camera. That’s when I found out we were completely duped!!!
Other than feeding our dogs, they didn’t do anything. No walks, no fetch, nothing…I felt so bad for our dogs.
We did leave an honest review and gave them 3 stars which I felt was generous given the situation. Then they filed a formal complaint against us to get the review removed 
We were cleared and the review remains.
As far as a sitter becoming a guest and no longer being responsible for any pet care, I can understand that.
I guess if I were staying at someone’s house and using their car for free, for 2 weeks, I would look for ways to help just as a simple gesture of appreciation.
I mean the OP shared how they spoiled the dogs as a way to say thank you to the host which I think is great and the way it should be but that’s just me.
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I’m sorry you had such an awful sit experience @Rlean808. Pleased your review remained available. The sitters don’t deserve to be getting sits if they are this irresponsible. I can assure you that the majority of sitters on THS are here because we love caring for wonderful pets.
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So sorry for you kind people @Rlean808 and your lovely pets. It really isn’t the norm as @richten1 says and good on you for reporting them, marking them down (3 was kind as you say) & I hope they get no more sits. Hope the next ones are wonderful. Don’t know where you are in the world but we’ll come and spoil your pooches one day with pleasure 
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That’s terrible and I hope you’ve had much better sits since. Absolutely agree with you that if anyone were hosting me, I’d volunteer to help out, whether it was an extended invitation beyond a sit or as a guest of friends or family. That’s just mannerly. In the THS construct, you couldn’t expect it as an obligation is all.
Frankly, I think the kind of behavior you describe is inhumane — not taking the dogs out and keeping them active. From my POV, even if HOs turned out to be utter jerks, I certainly wouldn’t take it out on the poor, defenseless pets, who have no say in whether their humans are actually good people.
In your case, you went above and beyond as hosts and those sitters certainly didn’t deserve you or your pets, or to stay at your home. I think you were being generous with a 3.
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