Hi, All
I’ve been using THS for a while and very happy about this.
We just had one cat sitter visited us, and took care of the cats (2#)
We informed her not to feed too much treats.
When she left, we haven’t checked all of the drawers and gave her 5 starts review.
However, we just relized that she fed over 30 (LARGE treats) during the 5 days pet-sitting.
I can’t believe that she fed our cats so much and wanted to edit the review to let the future owners aware of this. But the system doesn’t let me.
What’s the best way to avoid this kind of sitter to take care of the pets in the future?
Hi @Rosina As @temba says you cannot edit the review yourself but you can indeed contact membership services for help. They may be willing to change certain things- at their descretion. We had two occasions when there were errors made on reviews given to us which upset us. We complained to the hosts who agreed to request edits. In both cases they were able to get THS to make the necessary changes. Its definitely worth asking.
Usually. We don’t feed so much Churu to our cats. I let her know and asked her the reason why she did that even though I asked her not to do so. She just read the message without response.
Did you specify exactly how many treats were too much? Obviously if you did that is not great behaviour but if the instructions weren’t precise sometimes people do have different understanding of ‘a few’ or not ‘a lot’ of even ‘a handful’ (sometimes even ‘a couple’ is misinterpreted). 30 is a lot though over 5 days, even if it were small treats, and probably more than the suggested quantity on the packaging so if they had misunderstood they should have probably used common sense and contacted you to confirm. If you don’t already specify in writing and in your chats with house sitters excatly what your expectations are in terms of timing and quantity of treat that probably would be a good way forward.
Maybe next time, don’t leave out so many treats If you only want, (for example,) one treat per day, per cat, then just leave enough so that they only that amount, then this problem shouldn’t keep happening.
I mark the treat bags for how often my dog should be allowed to have any treat. With Zukes, for instance are super low in calories (they’re like 2 calories per treat), he can be given up to 15 a day and alway ask that they’re only used when he does a trick or during walks when he follows commands, but there are others that are high calorie and can upset his stomach and I only instruct to once a day after brushing his fur.
Hardly worth the hassle of editing a review retrospectively over a few treats. Seems a little vindictive.
Maybe next time you could be a little clearer in your guidance ‘not too much treats’ is quite vague and not everyone might know what specific number that would correspond to
I have been on the other side as a sitter where pet owner has been puzzled and concerned that I haven’t feed their pets enough of the treats that they left (as if I had deprived their pets). The number of treats wasn’t discussed in our conversations or stated in the welcome guide and I didn’t think to ask prior to the sit. I gave them as often and as many as I thought was appropriate but without specific instructions it’s not possible for a sitter to know your usual routine.
If it is important to the pet parents then they need to be specific on the number of treats and how often they expect them to be given.
It sounds like you were very happy with the care your sitter gave to your home and cat (apart from this issue) . So I don’t think your review of the sitter is the place for this information but rather in your welcome guide for your next sitter.
Out of curiosity, I googled Churus to see what the serving size was. According to the website a cat weighing 8-10lbs can have up to 4 Churus a day!
Would I give a cat 4 Churus a day? Certainly not. But that’s what the package says. I’ve been shocked at servings of treats (I think Dreamies are like 30 per day!) and while I don’t usually give that many, being told “not too many” isn’t specific and the sitter shouldn’t really be dinged for this if they did everything else right.
So per original post and CoolCatAunt’s research:
2 cats, 5 day sit, website indicates up to 4 per day for average size cat. The math tells me that would come out to 40 churu treats.
I suggest to be more clear in the future and leave your review as is.