You have to be so specific!! How much time you expect them to spend with the pet. How much time away. How long for walks. Everything should be on your guide or listing after you agree. Some things need to obviously be in writing from the gate. GOoD luck with that.
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I have never had an application from a sitter who wanted to lead an ordinary work life while caring for my pets, and I wouldnât accept one if I did.
I get gap year, grey nomads, backpackers, all perfectly normal people who want a change from hotels or hostels and a break from travel.
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I totally understand you, @Sdbabs ! To be honest, I would find it pretty weird to specify in my listing something like: âSpotty can be left home for 4 hours per day, but we expect you to spend at least 3-5 hours with him in between going out.â
That would of course be very clear but⌠a bit artificial and thecnical. As a HO, I do expect sitters to treat my pet as they would their own, and I think very few owners would only stop by at home to feed and walk the dog and then just leave them again every day. Yes, there are days like that every now and then, but most certainly not every day. Dogs are social creatures and need company.
While I donât specify how many hours sitters need to spend with my dog in the listing, I do ask them, what plans they have for their stay in our city. That normally gives me a pretty good idea, of how much they plan to be out and about. I also tend to choose sitters, who have or have had pets of their own.
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Whatever you agreed with him is what he should be doing. If heâs not doing it, itâs wrong wrong wrong.
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So he doesnât leave the dogs from more that 4-5 hours at a time? Can they not be left for this long?
How much of a 24 hour day were you expecting him to stay inside the house.
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All the OPâs AGREED requirements were in their original post! 
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To me, 14 hours out of the house each day is a lot.
I personally wouldnât want to be out of the house for this amount of time daily, pet, or no pet.
Thatâs just me, probably why im attracted to pet sits. I enjoy being home. The pets are a bonus.
If the HO says the pet can be left for so long, as a sitter, you decide if that works for you or not.
Agreeing and then doing something else, Iâm afraid is just getting free accommodation.
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I am at a sit in France at the moment. The original listing stated (as did this OPâs listing) how long the dogs could be left, all other requirements and that I would need to be at the home for the majority of the time. Naturally I need to go out occasionally for shopping etc but only for limited time. My âtourismâ is done before and after the sits
I AGREED to that and though itâs hard at times, if I hadnât intended on FULFILLING that agreement I wouldnât have accepted this sit in the first place. They listed, I agreed to the terms, here I am, all is good with the world. What is so hard for people to understand??? And fulfill their part of the bargain???
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@cawosey - Iâm wondering that too, and also finding this comment in the original post confusing.
Letâs hope your sitter has a suitable work visa? But perhaps itâs a âwithin countryâ person so no visa required?
@RosiePosie itâs clear. He is out for what the OP originally stated!
Quote: They have been left home every day for 12 to 14 hours a day. He does come home after 4-5 hours for a short time and then leaves again for several more hours. I called him yesterday and told him what I discovered. He didnât deny it and indicated he was working for Door Dash! 
: Unquote
So this sitter goes out ALL day, comes back probably just to feed the dogs then leaves again to do his job as a delivery driver for Door Dash. What is so confusing about this and why would anyone think this is acceptable, given the OP and the sitter knew exactly the requirements of the sit before it even began.
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Hi @Sdbabs I would be very upset too if I was you. You have clearly indicated your needs as a pet parent asking for a sitter that is available to be at home most of the day as you have 2 elderly dogs.
Your sitter has then blatantly lied to you and broken your agreement. He should not have applied for the sit if he could not commit to your needs and most importantly the needs of caring for your dogs.
I would contact suport services to let them know what is going on and see if anyone in your family can help out in the mean time to get another sitter.
I would follow @HelloOutThere suggestion in regards to moving dates around so you can leave a review for him and ask him to leave.
Iâm so sorry to hear that this has happened to you, its not what you need when your away.
Its very disheartening to hear that another sitter has acted this way and lied to you twice.
This is not how most of us sitter work. We put the needs of your babies first!.
Please let us know how things go, you have our support.
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why are you yelling? People are allowed to disagree and ask for more information before making a judgement in a respectful way. Itâs actually not clear to me at all what was agreed. Maybe OP said âdonât leave the pet for more than 4-5 hours at a timeâ and the sitter has taken that at face value and returns every 4-5 hours.
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Why should OP (or any of us) care whether the sitter has work authorization? Other than the theoretical risk of the sitter being deported and having to leave the sit early, it is not something that the HO needs to worry about.
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What I meant is that most ordinary home owners have an ordinary work life: in an office, or at school, or in the supermarket etc.
And they can have a social life.
This means that they will be away from home most of the time that they are not in bed.
Today I am at the sit because it is raining again. The pets donât seem to care much.
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@lolrj I am not yelling?? When I went to school, we were taught to âaccentuateâ certain words in capitals to highlight an emotion. We werenât taught to write complete sentences in capitals. So if I wasnât educated in the same generation or country as you, Iâm sorry about that. Now on the other hand, if I wrote the entire post in capitals, I do understand in todayâs techy world that that is yelling. But Iâm not on this topic for a grammar lesson for anyone, Iâm here because I believe the OP (sorry thatâs capitals) has a very valid reason for distress and I for one, along with some others, tend to agree. Far too many new, and older, homeowners are coming onto the Forum lately and been sacrificial lambs to the slaughter and I feel for them, very much so. They are thousands of miles away from home and are upset, as I would be also, that their loved pets are not getting the care and attention that was agreed upon. Having been in a similar situation myself with my own dog, it broke my heart so I understand. You are entitled to your opinion, now Iâve had mine so we now just need to agree to disagree, thatâs how it works hey 
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But @pietkuip, thatâs not necessarily the normal. In this circumstance that was obviously not the case. Not every homeowner goes to work, or socialises much. Maybe these people are retired, or work from home every day so are a constant presence. When I had my dog, when I bought a business and was away from home a lot more than she was used to, she actually chewed through her foot because she was suffering such severe separation anxiety. She had to be put on anti depressants and I eventually had to give up the business. So we canât put everyone and everything in the same basket. Itâs raining again here today also 
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You will need to be more specific with your listing going forward. For example, you can put âthis listing is best for remote workers (WFH),â also, put a time limit that the dogs can be left alone, within reason. Even though sitters come to your home to sit for your pets, they also need time to spend on their own, so keep that in mind.
Write out a specific daily routine by hours and confirm with sitters that they read this when they apply
Ie
pups can be left alone for 4-5 hours.
Theyâre older so please stay with them for at least 5 hours a day+
Sit is best suited for WFH roles
Your sitter is a whole different situation considering that he did not disclose that he would be working full time. The sit is honestly not healthy for either one of yâall, itâs kind of toxic to be under heavy surveillance that is leading to more hiding from one point and then having the other party be in constant anxiety over being lied to. Iâd involve THS to be honest.
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I guess there was a misunderstanding. HO understood the âonline workâ as sitting at a computer at the home, which is of course the normal meaning for a petsitter.
The sitter meant something else, a gig-economy job for an online company.
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Weâve noticed the same pattern, it seems. I just think being ânewâ and âolderâ doesnât mean they canât take on constructive feedback. Nobody is pushing back for the sport of it, weâre pushing back so that they can learn and sitters can have a better experience. In just about all of the cases of HOs coming here and getting push back, theyâve done some combination of: a) violation of Ts&Câs, b) excessive surveillance, c) poor communication of expectations d) unreasonable expectations e) outright lied and stretched the truth. In some cases this led to sitters being in unsafe circumstances, so itâs responsible to hold them to account.
P.s. you can also use bold and italics for emphasis, and not use multiple punctuation marks, and then nobody will think youâre yelling.
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