I am not sure what to say about the dog…that must be stressful. We only had one sit in 11 years where we felt the dog was behaving in a way that made us uncomfortable. He seemed to be very protective of the two other female dogs when my husband would come into the room, especially when he came in from outside. We found that putting him out anytime he seemed to get a bit worked up did the trick and after a few days, it was fine.
As for the reviews, I think there are a couple of things at play:
Rating’ someone’s home and your experience there is very different than a paid travel experience or some type of business. While the nature of the old review system definitely played a role in people not being as forthcoming about various issues, there was always other issues at play that no review system can ‘fix..’
First, people will worry about hurting someone’s feelings. Secondly, a negative review may invite conflict and people don’t want to deal with it. And thirdly, people may worry a negative review could reflect poorly on them in a couple of different ways, such as worrying people will think they are difficult or overly critical, or a negative response to their review–which could be seen by future hosts and sitters–might include various criticisms of them that may or may not be true. That people would disregard all issues that they may believe could jeopardize their profile and ability to get sits–even if it may not be true– for the altruistic purpose of helping the ‘community’ is not realistic.
This is just a reality of human nature that THS can’t do anything about. Though I think that a lot of things that sitters leave out because they fear it sounds critical are just merely facts, such as the house being on a noisy street or that the pet will wake you up early to eat.
Because this is a free travel experience, and not some paid hotel, excursion,etc…I think people will rate it very differently. So long as some basic requirements are met, people will rate the experience highly across the board. For most people knocking down for X, Y or Z would typically only happen if there was a true issue.
To me this is similar to how people rate their Uber driver–so long as there wasn’t any major issue, they get 5 stars. For example, I have stayed in homes that were immaculately clean and others that weren’t, but not dirty by any means–both would get the highest rating because the houses in the second category were generally clean, just not spotless.
I have been doing this a long time and my experience has been very positive. One thing I pay attention to in reviews is the mention of specific things, as while people may omit certain negative elements, they are unlikely to flat out lie–someone may not mention the house wasn’t very clean but they probably wouldn’t say it was clean if it wasn’t.
I think for the most part, ratings are fairly accurate on both sides.
Being a good sitter isn’t actually all that difficult, though that doesn’t mean anyone can do it–I think there are certain characteristics that make people more suited to it, and certain characteristics that make people less suited to it.
I think most hosts are reasonable, normal people not living in super-dirty conditions and appreciate the sitter and understand the nature of the exchange. I think most animals behave fairly typically for the most part and don’t have serious behavioral issues and such.
but I suggested privately to the HO to use professional paid sitters in the future. I wrote a factual review in words but 5* as it met all the criteria.