Does anyone else feel like I do about the availability calendar? It’s difficult to find, worse to actually use and not fit for purpose. It needs an upgrade and improvement to be useful to sitters and owners.
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Yes, a lot of people do. Ii’s not intuitive and there are lots of suggestions how to make it better. There are discussions in other parts of the forum. If you’re interested you can search for them using the magnifying glass.
Yes, it is horrible! We do not complete it because it is rubbish. It’s totally misleading, and difficult to understand unless the owners have read about how to ‘read’ the calendar, which no-one thinks of doing when it comes to a calendar, they presume they know-how. The HO’s we’ve talked to about it say the same.
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The calendar won’t catch on, no matter how much THS improves it. That’s because the majority of sitters sit only sporadically. If so, why bother to fill out a calendar? They can just search when they’re looking to sit.
Personally, I’ll never fill out a calendar, because I don’t care whether hosts send me unsolicited invitations at all — such invitations are near-impossible long shots when it comes to potentially matching, given the variables of location, timing, pets, home, etc.
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Absolutely, the calendar is frustrating and doesn’t let me block out dates that I’m unavailable in general, not just for when I’ve been booked for a THS sit. I use other sitting websites besides THS, and can’t block out my availability on here for sits I’m booked for with for those other sites. So annoying. I end up just writing my availability myself on the top of my profile. Hopefully they can make it more user friendly
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I would use it, if it was easier to access, friendlier and simpler to use. If I’m going to be travelling in a foreign country, which I often am, I’d like to specify the dates I would be available. Owners could search by sitters in their country (not always the US or the UK) and dates. Also, it shouldn’t be difficult to match owners and sitters automatically when countries and dates align then notify owners and sitters.
We fill it in with our FREE availability only and never ever get invites for those dates 
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How often do you think your use case happens vs. how many sitters sit only sporadically? Sure, some people want to use a calendar, but as long as most sitters aren’t motivated, such a feature won’t catch on.
But the system should be reprogrammed to block invitations that overlap with confirmed sits.
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I’m on a couple of professional animal sitter sites. They have calendars which allow you just to block out days when you’re NOT available and the site automatically rejects sitting requests for those dates. Works a treat.
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That would suit me perfectly. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s going happen with THS, which is a shame.