Agreed. I scroll right by sits for very big dogs or dogs with personalities that sound challenging to me because I know that isn’t a fit for me personally. I am petite, in my late 50s, not especially physically strong, and I’m not confident handling this sort of dog. So I just pass. IMO that HS with the physical impairments made a huge error in judgement that clearly had very significant consequences.
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I don’t think THS is the right platform for your needs. It should be an equal expands and it sounds like your dog’s needs are better suited to a local sitter who is paid.
A sitter who can’t even lift their own luggage and has the other physical issues mentioned shouldn’t be signing up for sits at all. I’d report them, so they don’t lie their way into other sits.
If my dog had so much training invested, I would pay for a professional sitter.
Not sure what equal expands means.
There is nothing in the expectations outlined through these examples that I would deem to be an excessive request…this should be the bare minimum expected of an HS…
- Be available for communication and provide regular updates
- Follow the guidance for care given to you by the HO (the guidance that was ignored was keep the dog on a lead…this is so basic it’s laughable). Deciding you’re not going to use a set up that a dog is comfortable with because “you don’t like it and that’s not how you’d do things” is not only insulting, but completely unacceptable especially when the dog’s set up is disclosed to you beforehand, is not complicated, and not a surprise.
- Be honest about if you are fit enough/in good health to do a sit…they couldn’t even open a sticky wardrobe and didn’t disclose their injuries…my dog is 20kg so not exactly massive, but on the occasions when he might pull, you need to be strong enough to handle him. I’m about to sit a leonberger later this year…if I had a testy wrist due to a break, couldn’t lift a 20kg luggage, and knew I was losing my vision, even if that dog is soft as chips, I’m not applying for that sit.
All the above examples should be common sense. I’m genuinely baffled if the original examples I expressed are the standard we are accepting as ok behaviours and expectations from HS.
But to your point, If HS are unable to meet or be trusted to be forthright on basic requirements, it may no longer be the right platform. We have NEVER had issues like this with HS before this year.
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I think they meant equal exchange.
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What, may I ask, does all this have to do with sitters not following the instructions, which the thread is about?
The requirements were made clear in the listing and it simply doesn’t matter how long the HO has been a member and where the sit location is.
With your argument it would mean that new HO’s instructions don’t have to be followed. From what length of membership should they be followed? Five years, seven, if two don’t qualify?
A housemate living there is not necessarily a breach of the rules if it was made clear beforehand and the sitters accepted it, which I don’t know. Again, this doesn’t have anything to do with not following the instructions concerning the pets.
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@Pawtastic You hit every nail on the head, so thank you! 
(and yes, we fully disclosed a third party and only moved forward when HS ok’ed it AND ARE NOW VERY CLEAR about the violation, even though all parties agreed)
@travellingnomad, so I’m not on here long enough to know what a good HS looks like but am on here long enough not to make a rookie consensual mistake? 
You can believe whatever you want but to be honest, all I hear is a ton of judgement and an intentional effort to pass your opinion on our profile and who we are as an HO as opposed to staying on topic even after logic, pragmatism and all the known points of evidence have been shared in a VERY transparent way 
.
And believe it or not, I too am not perfect, and just like my imperfect dog, I have brain farts and mess up (and the reason you know that is because I actually was forthcoming about it which, again, should tell you something about how I move). That being said, I operate at a high level of transparency so if you put two and two together, I disclose EVERYTHING to the best of my ability before a sit to a sitter so there are no surprises. And yes, I have lived in major cities, and so get a good number of applications. The fact though that you can read our profile, assume I lean on our location, completely discount how much time and effort has been put in to set everyone up for success, and assume we don’t create an environment that is safe, tranquil, thoughtful, welcoming, and equitable, even given the fact that we have an imperfect dog?…that’s on you. X
What you’ll notice about OUR reviews, is our behaviour AND that of our dog’s, has been 5 star on this platform in both directions per the feedback that we’ve gotten when people actually leave it. In truth, if you have personal opinions ABOUT ME, keep them to yourself or take them offline and speak with me directly because HO meeting basic asks is the topic of this thread and has nothing to do with who I am as a person, so there is no need to attack my character and call me a liar…
- clear communication
- following the dog’s care guidelines which again, was “keep our dog on lead outdoors”
- and be honest about your physical condition
…are bare the minimum and should be standard operating behaviour from HS.
One thing I will say though, if we do stay on the platform, there is clearly more room to grow around discerning how to pick out good HS…it seems to be getting a lot harder to do 
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@bakindoki I’m sorry to hear about the challenges you’ve faced recently. I agree with @ziggy that there seems to be a growing trend of new sitters joining the platform enticed by the " freedom to travel" ads, but unfortunately, some have overlooked the fundamental responsibility of providing excellent pet care. This has led to an increase in posts from dissatisfied homeowners, which was a rarity in the past. After taking a quick look at your sitters, I want to emphasize that I wouldn’t have chosen the sitter who demonstrated a delayed response time. With several previous negative reviews citing slow responses, damage to items, and leaving homes untidy, it’s clear that his reliability is a concern.
Regarding your latest sitter, it’s worth considering that English may not be her first language, leading to potential misunderstandings of instructions. For example I learned from the forum that “lead” (UK) translates to “leash” (US). If you still have a few months remaining on your THS membership, I recommend giving it one last try. This time, consider selecting a sitter with at least 10 positive reviews and a solid track record of experience with dogs. Best of luck!
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They were American, born and raised, well-travelled, highly educated, and had 25 positive HO reviews. I think the issue is that they’re NOW getting older and probably haven’t admitted to themselves that they can no longer do everything they once could and were also becoming set in their ways and less open to feedback because of it. I think our sit is probably that turning point and I HOPE that they reevaluate their scope of prospective future sits to adjust their search criteria to their new capability set.
This experience has unfortunately made us rethink considering more mature HS as an option for sure which I HATE to say but it was such a negative experience and I was triggered for the rest of the week because of it.
It’s sad though because I feel like now I have to guess and do more to basically determine if sitters are being honest. We have now put together an explicit interview script with questions to use for potential sitters…most of the questions are incredibly patronising (even though we share why we are asking) but at this point, seem necessary and that is incredibly disappointing and again, it didn’t used to be like this! Every sit we’ve had before this year has been a great experience because there was trust, honesty, and standards of care for the pets! I don’t feel like we always get that now.
I have been reading reviews about THS on another platform, one member was complaining about the 5 app pause rule, saying she had paid her money and never got any sits, then said, “I joined THS to get lots of free holidays in nice places.” There you have it in a nutshell.
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@Chrissie Wow . That’s shocking behaviour.
Since you are being critical of an age group here instead of specific sitter, I was curious about your sit listing. Perhaps the app has a glitch, but I went to the app, put in Budapest, saw your listing which matched your pet sitting profile here. I did not see an older couple listed as a prior sitter. I saw an older woman who it says finished her sit yesterday, but no review or feedback yet. I looked at her reviews and saw that she did not have all five star reviews. The woman who let your dog off the lead was younger, and had only two reviews when she sat for you. The gentleman who sat for you that you did not review well had some problematic sits in the past and he was younger too.
It’s unfortunate that you have had negative experiences, and a sitter should not accept a sit who is not physically capable, but to say that every older person is physically not capable or is set in their ways is not at all accurate.
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I completely agree. Note: Nowhere did I say “every older person”.
@123ForumUser asked about that last sit, so I responded to that question. The rest are as you say.
I clearly made a wrong turn some place in vetting HS this year and as mentioned, will be adjusting criteria and my behaviour based on lived experiences, which means much tighter questioning (not necessarily completely ruling out).
This also includes most likely being less open to giving new sitters a chance, even if they have good reviews, looking at every single review, only accepting sitters with more experience and near perfect records, etc.
Maybe if/when I have more experience in vetting, I’ll open up again but for now I’m going to be incredibly picky. We live in a place where we can afford to be more selective and additionally, we are also exploring local options that will be more consistent.
I personally believe EVERYONE is capable of being a good sitter when matched correctly but that requires open comms and honest/responsible actions.
Edit: re: gender, I tend to use they/them when referring to people as a generic label because I don’t think it’s necessary to clarify it when speaking about a general party and typically, the number of people doesn’t matter for the sake of the conversations I’m in on a general forum where we don’t know exactly who the people are.
Our HO profile …
Is in @bakindoki forum profile
Edited to remove listing link to comply with posting guidelines
Yes, I had the correct one.
You basically want to avoid bad sitters of any age. It helps to take close looks at reviews. If someone has various mixed or missing reviews, or no reviews, you’re always taking a bigger risk as a host. That’s your choice, of course.
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We are both homeowners and sitters. Our dogs here need very specific handling so we are super specific on what our dogs need and what we will accept (only a couple with big dog experience). When we do the trial run and trial walk we lay out the expectations. So far it may be overkill but it works.
I was not able to see your latest sitter at the time, but I was referring to the young lady from Poland, who may have misinterpreted your instructions. Now that I can see your latest sitter, she also has a lot of mixed reviews.
Got it…
Her English was not perfect, but there was no confusion about what was supposed to be done. We also reminded her after about keeping him on lead and then reminded again after the first incident where the neighbour dogs broke a hole in the fence that he should be kept on lead, especially now.
She chose not to do it because she thought she could control our dog with voice alone, since he had listened to her in the past, even though we were explicit that she should keep him on lead and he was not ready for that level of distraction yet.
So no, language barrier was not an excuse in this situation and the instructions were very clear and there was nothing miscommunicated…she knew what she did was wrong and did it anyway and fully acknowledged her hubris in this situation, which we of course appreciated, but it didn’t change how much said mistake ended up costing us.
Just read through your profile. They’re beautiful!
So basically you only accept sitters who are able to come for a short stay and be vetted before committing to a longer stay?