Hello, me again. We are looking for our next pet sitting adventure and I am starting to get a little worried that I have left it too late to find something.
Its 7 weeks till our half term, and although there are loads of sits listed for the dates (uk half term holiday) only a couple are appropriate. In the past ive either arranged sits months in advance or last minute but that isn’t an option this time for various reasons.
I am curious, most of the sits already up are for dogs (and other animals). Do cat owners tend to leave things more last minute? I havent really noticed in the past but have only just started using the app instead of the website, and get instant alerts for my saved sits.
I have never noticed if cat sits tend to be posted earlier or later than dog sits in general.
But one thing to keep in mind is that cat-only sits are a much smaller percentage of listings. Though with the number of ones available on THS, they can still equate to a decent amount of opportunities.
For example, right now there are a bit over 9700 sits, and when you filter down to just cats, it comes in at just under 1400–quite a drop.
I am a full-time sitter and while I vary in how far ahead I am booked based on a number of factors at a given time, there are many times where I still have open dates well less than 7 weeks ahead and always manage to find what I am looking for.
I just came back from the UK where I was sitting straight through for almost 6 months and there were several instances where I didn’t fill particular dates until perhaps a month to a couple of weeks prior to that time.
As it’s generally easier to find a sitter for cats, I think a lot of cat owners learn by experience that they don’t have to post early. But this is all individuals figuring it out for themselves so things could pop up or not at any time.
I have a cat sit and usually post at least 6 weeks in advance so people can fly in, but sometimes when I’ve had cancelations or last minute plans, I’ve been able to find a sitter with less than a week to go.