Hello, @Cuttlefish Thank you for the tag 
I’m always happy to help where I can. I have copied my reply to this question from this topic @CatsAndDog please see my previous reply here as well Changes in the HO & sitters profile? - #8 by CatsAndDog
I have checked back with the Product team and they are still using it to capture data at the moment, but I will keep you posted about any future updates.
Thanks @Carla , I’ve read and answered your comment earlier. Still, the problem I and @Blean raise, is not answered. And honestly, it really can’t be answered as long as the question in the profile is in the way it is now. For how long a dog can be left alone is a qiestion, that in our case does not have only one answer. I guess one solution would be, that HO could tick two boxes? In my case, ghose would be both 3-4 hours and 6-8 hours.
Thank you @CatsAndDog I apologise if I missed that. Great point and I will pass it on to the Product team if this feature is used on the listing can members tick multiple boxes or would they need to tick the box closest to the time and then elaborate in the listing on the exact requirements? I will also ask for data collection purposes if there could be multiple-choice answers to this question. I will let you know what they come back with. Thank you for clarifying for me
Yes! HOs, please train your dogs or hire someone to endure the high maintenance sit.
Going to work during the day is a reasonable expectation for a sitter. It’s life. If your pets can’t be left long enough for your sitter to do basic human things, you should hire someone and then be as picky as you’d like.
This is why I will no longer sit for dogs. I’m sick and tired of being dictated to by HO, as to how long I am able to spend my time away from their house. It’s a two-way street with this HO, sitter arrangement. Sitters are primarily sitting at houses and looking after pets, on their way to visiting the country, where their house sit is at, so being away for a maximum of only four hours, to accommodate the needs of a dog, is nowhere near enough. In my country, we don’t have these, up to four hour restrictions with how long dogs are left for, so I was very surprised to learn that it seems to be the norm in England. Cats are what we look after now, no time limits and much more freedom than what dogs have, that’s for sure.
It gets a little ridiculous. I love dogs. And I delight in caring for them and keeping them healthy and happy.
But the expectations of many HOs is that I incur expensive airfare, expensive car rental that doesn’t allow dogs in the car so I can take them with me when I’m out and about, and that I basically can’t leave the property because their dogs can’t be left alone for any length of time when the sitter is there, but not when they are home. I’m not in need of housing, I own 3 homes already. So just what exactly is the exchange in these situations? None.
I ask my sitters to take care of my dog in the same manner that I do. She’s happy and healthy and likes her routine. The sitter can get away for up to 8 hours and still have plenty of human interaction and company. Paid sitters don’t stay at home all day either. They take care of the dogs and may go to work or to do drop in visits on other pets.
If an adult dog cannot be left for more than 2 hours, there is a training issue.
Honestly it amazes me what some people apply for! There’s one that came up on my saved seaches for 17 dogs, 5 cats and a variety of other pets. And it has 3 applicants!
wow, that’s a bit intense for me rn, but something for everyone! X
@Reliablesitter I saw one that required farm labor for 3 months. For free.
Some people have little or no way to earn money for housing or otherwise while traveling, so they might resort to such sits to save or to try to rebuild money. There’s nothing wrong with that if it happens to meet THS terms. But these kind of sits are riper for abuse from both sides — the hosts might be over asking vs. typical sits and the sitters might not actually provide what’s asked, whether intentionally or because they aren’t skilled at the asks. The worst case is if the animals suffer for it.
I imagine free farm labouring definately violates the codes of THS.
“This will not appear on your listing, but we will use it to help match you with suitable sitters.”
(1) This should appear on the listing! This is very important for sitters to know.
(2) How does THS use this info to match sitters? I haven’t answered any questions or marked anything in my sitter profile that THS could match to. It would be great, though.
I have now marked in my sitter profile a question about the durations of walks:
It is under “Your preferences”. It must be something relatively new.
Ah, it must be new. I updated my profile 1-2 weeks ago and didn’t see that. Thanks!
Hi @pietkuip and @kikitomato
I have just looked at this and see that THS states:
Help us recommend house sits you’re sure to love by telling us more about what you’re looking for.
I believe that there is no way that THS has the IT nor the inclination to carry out any matching or detailed recommendations at this stage. I am therefore not inputting any info.
I do not disagree, but it is what THS would need to do. With membership increasing, it will be useless (and costly?) to send out notifications to every sitter who had the listing in their Saved searches.
I have the impression that THS is already not notifying everyone all the time. If they have a limit of for example 500 notifications, then the question is how they choose. Of course they cannot go by the same list repeatedly (alphabetically) so I guess that they would be randomising. Or they could have an algorithm that might take into account preferences.
It would be nicer, if this was transparent and controllable. For example (what I already mentioned), I get notifications for all of the Dordogne when I select Saint-Cyprien (a village/small town). When I switch on notifications for the UK, I feel that I get only a small fraction of the new dates. Also, this weird thing that notifications are sent when the listing is already in review status.
@CatsAndDog Just a quick update for you. The team have said that as the information is currently used for collecting data please just tick the box that most applies to you. If it is launched as a feature they will look at considering multiple options or how it can be best shown that there might be variations in requirements. Thank you for raising this
@pietkuip I contacted THS about receiving notifications when sits are already in review. They replied there was a delay in sending and sometimes popular ones get filled up before the notifications. Like you though I’ve also been surprised at some of the sits I don’t see on my notifications.
Thanks for alerting to this. It’s so weird that THS don’t say about the new things that were added. I only found out about a number of changes by accident!
