Just wondering if anyone else is struggling to find cat only sits?
We are uk based and tend to look during school holidays which is obviously a further complication, but I feel like the number is of sits have hugely decreased. Or maybe I’m not checking frequently enough… curious as to what others think?
I have been sitting since 2022, about 4 sits a year. My focus is on cat sitting, i accepts other animals, but I exclude dogs and horses. But most of the past 12 sits were cat only. I has been crystal clear that cat sits are a minority here, but there are quite a lot of them and i do not see a decline
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I sit cats and dogs and have randomly ended up with four sits in a row with only cats.
One of them will be a repeat sit of my current one, with my hosts offering airfare, because their indoor / outdoor cats have taken to me so quickly. (By contrast, if the cats aren’t happy, they might stay out or act out, like pee on furnishings or items, my hosts told me.)
During winter, I avoid dog sits where it typically snows a lot. But I would’ve taken a dog sit in say San Francisco, where I am now, where winter is usually mild. The pets just happen to be cats.
After this run of cats, I’ll intentionally look for dog sits, because I don’t want to be pigeonholed as only a cat sitter.
I’ve only been sitting for just over a year, and my first sit was only a cat. More recently I was invited to a cat-only sit which I accepted as it worked for me, and have had many other invitations to cat-only sits which I’ve declined as they are local to me. But when I’ve been looking for a sit I do notice that many of them seem to be cat plus other creatures.
I’ve mostly sat one cat and been invited back to cat-sits.
There are loads of cat-sits when I search. I would think the challenges might be
Cat-owners are more likely to just get a neighbor pop by than having a sitter
Cat-sits are considered «easy sit» and many sitters want those or do only catsits (like you), so maybe those sits disappear more quickly
and/ or repeat sits by invitation are more frequent as petsitters might be more likely to go back.
Just some theories.
I haven’t had a problem finding cats only sits in the US, but in trying to expand to other places, it could be difficult. I’m sure if I was doing this “full time” I’d dog sit more frequently than I do now. However, many of the cat sits I’ve taken have involved aging cats, cats with special nutritional needs, cats that need medications including insulin injections, multi-cat homes. I don’t have any issues with that so it works out for me.
Yeah I definately agree there’s way more dog sits.
We’d be happy to dog sit but because my son is terrified of any dog that barks or is a bit jumpy, it’s a bit of a problem.
Yeah we have no problem looking after other animals, I should have said that. It’s just dogs that cause a problem for my son.
Yeah I suppose they are an easy sit compared to dogs.
That said, when we had to keep a stud separate from breeding pedigree females, that was a challenge and a half!
It hadn’t occurred to me that people will be actively looking for ‘easy sits’- we just got for what we like.
I just remembered… I avoid indoor-oniy cats as I’m terrified that they’d get out. Although a sit that I’d forgotten was for 2 cats who never left their home or the high-walled garden.
So there are probably more cat sits that I ignore.
We sit in the UK, there are naturally more dog sits than cat sits on THS, but I don’t think the percentage of cat sits has changed at all, it’s remained similar.
Over the winter months there are typically less people advertising sits, because there are less people taking holidays in the winter. But that will all change very shortly.
I’d say it’s about a 9-to-1 ratio of sits that are “cat only” vs sits with dogs.
I have notice a decline in number of sits listed overall , not just cat sits .
When we joined in 2023 there were usually 4000+ sits in U.K. listed at any one time .
Currently there are <1800
This could be that people are travelling less for economic reasons , or there are more sitters, sits get confirmed more quickly or that hosts are sending more private invitations .
That’s a really good point! Maybe it’s because I’m looking for Feb half term so it seems that there’s less opportunities;I don’t think we went away this time last year…
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That’s interesting, i wonder whats influenxed that change. I joined in summer 2023 and tbh until we got our cat in April 2024 I remember wishing we had more time to sit! Since then we have only done a couple but now we have our own sitter it will change.
Like you, I am UK based and only really tend to sit in the school holidays. I’ve been keeping an eye out since Sept 2024 for cat only sits during school holidays - Oct 2024/Dec 2024/Jan 2025/Feb 2025/May 2025 and summer 2025 and I haven’t come across a single cat sit. Although having said that, once I have accepted a sit I don’t then continue to search for those dates so they may crop up.
I sit all over the UK.
At present I found 15 cats only sits in UK. 5 of those with one cat (up to four cats). Several Jan./Feb. but also summer and autumn.
@catscatscats24 says “we have no problem looking after other animals” - it’s just dogs they need to avoid. I’ve just done a search on the UK filtered to show all animals except for dogs, and 239 were displayed, but of course this will be reduced for particular dates such as school holidays - I wonder if it’s still too early for some people to have posted?
@Garfield what filters do you have on your search?
I am currently seeing 185 x cat only sits in U.K.
42 of them in Feb
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It leaves out a lot of city sits as most city cats can’t go out.