Of course! Maybe my wording was not clear. By saying “have to be listed” I meant “have to be mentioned in the listing”, plus, the Welcome Guide.
Thanks
I’ll rephrase for clarification.
I don’t think you’re being unreasonable, if that’s what the sitter agreed to, then they should have done that. More worrying is leaving the dogs alone for 15 hours.
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If you’ve listed and discussed walk times, it seems perfectly reasonable to expect a sitter to follow them. If a sitter has a pattern of not doing that, I’d raise it as a question, not an accusation.
Personally, if I know there’s an external camera or a digital lock on the door, I assume that my hosts will know at least some of my comings and goings even if they’re not monitoring, because I know that most systems send alerts or otherwise activate when there’s activity. I’d think it brazen or clueless for someone to not realize that as a sitter.
But there’s something worth considering if you have various entry points into your home: Your sitter might be using those instead. Like I’ve had sits where I used the back door or left via the garage, because I found them more convenient with a dog in tow.
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Very good point!
Oooh…we currently have no doorbell at all (115-yo-house, no apparent way to install a traditional one) and we’d like to install a Ring. I’d never intentionally spy on a sitter, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the Ring would make sitters paranoid about that uncomfortable. Should someone with a Ring offer to turn it off for the duration of the sit if the sitter prefers?
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You could offer to turn off your Ring, should you get one, during sits. But I’d discuss that. Some sitters appreciate security features as well.
Personally, I don’t care whether hosts might be seeing my comings and goings. If they try to micromanage me via an external camera, that would be a problem. But I also wouldn’t have an issue pushing back in a friendly way if that happened.
Separately, I did a lovely sit where the doorbell in an old home didn’t work. It was an inconvenience and I would’ve loved if they’d installed a Ring or such, because it would’ve made food deliveries much more convenient. The living room and kitchen were in a daylight basement, on a different floor from the front door, so I couldn’t hear if anyone knocked unless I was hanging nearby.
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I feel that if this kind of post keeps coming up it will put a lot of sitters off sitting for people with any kind of camera. I dont care what anyone says if youve got a camera you will be monitoring it all the time you are away.
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Yeah, don’t use her again.
I don’t like the word use when it comes to people.
Neither do I like being spied on with a door camera…
However, these opinions don’t answer the original question, I realise that. I’ll stop posting here because being objective is too hard.
Yes, pet sitters need to stick to walking times agreed with the owner. Do you trust them or do you check up on them?
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We’re sitters and it depends on exactly what they are being walked overall, because as sitters we need to be able to use our own initiative and common sense over and above anything else. For example on one day we may take the dog we are currently sitting out and about for several hours, sometimes all day if we’re in the car, stopping for down-time at benches, or cafes/pub beer gardens so the next day we would take much MUCH shorter walks.
At the moment the weather where we are is too hot to walk the gorgeous dog we are sitting on some days, but then much much cooler on other days so we can walk for longer. Also, the sweetheart of a dog is not too keen on walking in the rain, and there’s been the very odd day where it’s rained all day so again we’ve not walked far to dodge the rainy spells, but made up for it the day before or after. As sitters we need to ‘play things by ear’ to choose our walks around the weather.
So I would say you need to look at the whole picture, not just 1 or 2 days. Personally since starting our pet sitting life I have grew to hugely dislike Ring Doorbells, as I am sure there will be a lot of HO’s worry for no reason, but fortunately no one has ever raised anything with us, but if they did we wouldn’t sit for them again, as it would feel like they didn’t trust us to do the right thing by their pets.
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Exactly…our family room is in the back of the house, and you can’t hear even a loud knock on the door, especially if the TV or music is on. I suppose I could just tell sitters they’re free to turn it on or off as they prefer.
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duplicatexxxxxx
Not me. I turn off my doorbell notifications when I travel. However, you probably don’t believe me since you “don’t care what anyone says!”
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Does a door bell need to be Ring (or similar)? Mine is a simple wireless doorbell with no camera, and can have the bell part placed anywhere in the house (i can take mine into the back garden) at whatever volume I choose.
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Diane, no! I didn’t even know there were such things. Off to Amazon! 
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Unfortunately you have a duty as the HO to clearly inform a sitter of all the external cameras and monitoring you have in place. Internal cameras and monitoring are not permitted.
I don’t think you should mention anything to them. You’ve failed to comply with THS policy and invaded the privacy of a sitter and the sitter has failed to walk your dogs as much as they were required - you could end up in more trouble than it’s worth.
But FWIW 40 mins walk per day for active dogs is not at all unreasonable.
Good luck!
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You’re absolutely not being unreasonable.
I’m not sure what breed of dogs you have or they age etc but 40mins walk a day sounds like the bare minimum to provide a dog.
Did you make it clear on your listing and welcome guide that you had external CCTV/monitor? And did specifically remind the sitter in person that you had a video doorbell that would be monitoring the exterior of the house before the sit as per THS policies?
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Thanks for all your replies! Firstly I wasn’t aware I had to state I had a video doorbell on the Welcome Guide. Now that I know this, I will ensure it is known.
Just to clarify too there was no other way the sitter could leave the house - only via the front door.
I arrived back this afternoon and asked her if the dogs had been walked today and for how long. She said they’d had a 40 minute walk…… she was lying - they’d been walked for less than 15 minutes!
My post was about me expecting too much for the sitter not to walk my dogs as specified…… and it turned into a whole topic about cameras!
Personally if she was doing what she was meant to do then she’d have no opposition.
I won’t leave a bad review. I know the truth and that’s enough for me. I just wont use her again.
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The camera should be disclosed in your listing as well as the Welcome Guide
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Is it just me or does anyone else find this term offensive?
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You are not unreasonable to expect this if this was discussed and agreed upon by you and the sitter.
EDIT
I now see you did not mention the camera so my following statement no longer applies.
(As for mentioning this in the review, do so if you are 100% sure they were not walked as you expected and that there was no good reason why it wasn’t done).
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