It was on this forum that I learned that it is not uncommon that dogs sleep in bed with the owners.
So sitters may assume that the dog sleeps in the living room and the HO may assume that it is natural to have the dog in bed. And then it is only at the handover that this becomes an issue.
THS should act to make such assumptions explicit, in guidelines for the listings or profiles and the welcome guide, etc.
I think perhaps it is less common than what this forum would have you believe. Forums are always a concentrator for issues and dogs (or pets in general) in beds is a likely friction point so probably more likely to pop up here as a complaint from both parties.
My personal experience of hundreds of homes with dogs is that sleeping in the bed is not at all common. It is generally considered a bad habit for a number of reasons and I generally tried to train it out of any dogs that I fostered. It only encourages separation anxiety and poor sleep health for the owners and the dogs.
This website says:
“About 62% of small dogs are allowed to sleep with their human families, as compared to 41% of medium-sized dogs and 32% of large dogs.”
It seems to be an American thing. This data comes from the NPOS survey.
A lot of things are 
That is surprisingly high and not at all my experience but then I am not American by birth or nationality.
Not encountered a dog on THS that needed to be in the bed but that is also likely because if it was mentioned I wouldn’t have applied and if not mentioned I suspect there would have been other requirements that meant it didn’t pass the smell test.
Cats I have encountered but less than 10% and I wouldn’t exclude a sit for that reason as I don’t generally have an issue, find cats would avoid a stranger for a while at least and if it was one of those that used the bed as a night-time fun-and-games launchpad it would encounter a closed door or a competitive streak of who can be more annoying in bed. None of the owners have insisted. All have said if the cat becomes annoying close the door.
Totally fine and fair. Point is if it’s a deal breaker for YOU, and it’s happened more than once on a sit, regardless of what TH has listed. I think this trumps everything else or at least it should.
I also wonder at the point @cawosey made re:how much this actually happens as in it could be a lot or not and maybe dependent on country. The sits we have done, the dogs were not allowed in bed and mixed amounts of furniture. Our dog is not allowed on furniture and has tons of his own beds. Most of my friends and clients are completely mixed in terms of what is allowed. And our previous sitters or sharers sometimes let our dog on furniture and sometimes didn’t. We follow the policy of your house your rules and luckily our dog is able to differentiate, will ask permission for each piece and understands that in some places it’s allowed and others it isn’t. Once a piece is allowed though, it’s allowed for that piece, I.e. we remain consistent on a piece by picked or location by location basis. 
Regardless, simplest solution is to simply ask before confirming as many have suggested. 
Don’t think sleeping with pets is necessarily American. Like I did a London sit and that host asked specifically whether the cat slept with me. (Sometimes, but it was a twin bed, so little room.) And I did one in Glasgow, where it was assumed that the dog would sleep with me. (I didn’t have problems with that. Big bed and she was super sweet and slept well.)
There are different degrees of ‘dog sleeping on your bed’ too. It could be down by your feet, curled up neatly on the blanket (lovely) or up on the pillow grooming all night (disgusting)…
Yeah plenty of that happening in other countries too! I’m right now struggling to think of a sit I’ve done where that strictly wasn’t allowed (except where the dog was too old to get off the bed on it’s own) but usually I’m given a choice in the matter.
Excuse me you do what? An animal that is used to being on, or in the bed with the owner, and you nod and give lip service, and then shut their beloved pet out? It’s okay to have boundaries, however, limitations should be discussed beforehand. If you arrive to a sit and discover that there is a plan that’s not been discussed and you’re not good with the plan, contacting the owner for the next best way forward would be the appropriate thing to do.
I’ve had sits when dogs weren’t allowed on beds or couches. Bummer, because I love snuggling with pets, but their house, their rules.
At home, my own dog has run of the house. Of course, my dog happens to be good about not destroying things or peeing or pooing inside. If I had a more troublesome dog or maybe a very young dog who was still learning, I’d maybe think differently.
I just wrapped a sit where the year-old dog was crated at night and the cats would sleep with me. That’s how my hosts live, too. They’d had the dog for only a few months and didn’t trust her to roam the house unsupervised. Plus, she would chase and tackle the cats, who’d lived there much longer.
We mention it in our interview and all the interviews I have done for a sit it is mentioned as well. If you arent comfortable, dont accept the sit.
This is one of our questions when discussing the sit. It would be a deal breaker for us. Agreeing to a sit with this knowledge and then locking the pet out seems wrong to me.
We state in our application that we do not let animals sleep in the bedroom with us so if the is a requirement please feel free to reject our application. This way we are upfront and the HO knows our stance.
You are right!
It’s not an American thing. I’ve never done a US sits but had several dogs and cats sharing the bed. As long as they let me sleep too, its all good. Quite heart warming to have a little dog next to me, but I shared a bed with a greyhound once too and that went well, she was quiet and gentle!
I am concerned that the readers in this forum have got the wrong impression of us and are making us seem like terrible people. We are 5 star house sitters and go above and beyond for our homeowners!
We never agreed to sit with the knowledge of locking a pet out.
This issue only happened on two occasions after we traveled and arrived at the home when the homeowner stated this information to us when they gave us the tour of the home before their departure. In both scenarios, neither the homeowner or us discussed this in the interview as there were many other details to sort out.
In the first sit where this happened we moved the pet’s doggy bed to the foot of the bed rather than allow them to sleep on the bed and they were content and obedient with that decision. Everyone had a good night’s sleep and was happy.
We didn’t think further about it.
However, the second time this happened, it was with a high strung, very active dog who would not settle down when we attempted to encourage him to sleep in his doggy bed in the SAME room but on the floor. He was jumping on the bed trampoline style. We would have NEVER gotten to sleep for 2 weeks and our health and our well being is of paramount importance. If we are sleep deprived we cannot take care of a home and a pet properly. We had no choice but to place his bed right outside of our door and hoped he would settle down. Unfortunately he was mischievous but no permanent damage occurred and after a couple nights he accepted his fate and settled down. Just like a toddler who cries all night to sleep with parents and you have to need to wean them to sleep in their own bed. He was given tender, loving care and spoiled by us during our stay with the exception of sleeping on the bed.
Why do people want to treat dogs like humans? Cesar Millan the world famous dog trainer makes a good point of this on his TV show when pets dominate the household.
We now realize that this is a question we should ask during the interview but the onus should also be on the homeowner to mention it when they post their advertisement for the housesit. It should not be ASSUMED that housesitters are going to sleep with their pets.
Just like homeowners who misreprepresent the location of their home (there are many posts about this) they should also be straightforward about their expectations of the housesitter when they post.
I won’t allow a dog to stay in the bedroom if they don’t let me sleep. If they fidget or run around for too long, they have to go somewhere else. Thankfully i’ve never been in a situation where dogs barked and whined outside the door AND disrupted my sleep when they were in the same room. The dogs who misbehaved in the bedroom ended up accepting to sleep somewhere else. Perhaps they didn’t want to be in the bedroom anyway?
We had this once. The HO’s said the two dogs sleep in the main bedroom, which was upstairs. The one couldn’t wait to come to bed with us. But the other one: we could not get upstairs. So we just left him downstairs. He was old and obstinate, a real grumpy old man. Happy to be left to his own devices.
Hello everyone!
Just a quick note to say that I’m closing this discussion, with the consent of the OP.
Thanks to those who took part and kept an open mind, as I said elsewhere on the forum today, we’re all different and that means our expectations are different too!
Jenny
