Hello @KittyKathy and a very warm welcome to the Community Forum and it’s great to see you joining in with this thread
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Yes it’s totally fine, we don’t want to have to clean huge parts of the house that we don’t use, any more than you want your sitter in them.
We’ve been in large houses, and have just stayed in certain sections, one of them had 4 reception rooms, but we only used one (ie the one where the dogs were more comfortable).
The same goes for bathrooms or en-suites. You’re sitter only needs one.
Plenty of times, I’ve had to blockade an area with dining room chairs and other such furniture so that the pet stays where it should be staying.
A recent sit with an escape artist dog had a entryway gate. This was arranged in a way so that a person could walk in and close the door behind them, and then they would let them selves through the entryway gate. No chance of the dog being able to get out!
I saw a listing with what I thought was a ridiculous expectation: There was a dog door and the sitter(s) was expected to keep the cats from learning from the dogs and using it. I tried to imagine what kind of feat it would be for someone to stand by the door to keep the cats in throughout the sit and to somehow keep cats from learning something, LOL.
That kind of sit — where HOs have absurd expectations — should be left to those sorts of people to tackle, LOL.
And maybe eventually such HOs will learn that there’s technology that handles such — you have an RFID chip on the pet you actually want to use the pet door. But tech can’t fix a lack of sense, unfortunately.
(If someone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a link at the end of this post.)
@Maggie8K I think you and I should start a consultancy. Not only could we teach people how to be tech savvy pet parents, but we could get some technology integrated into existing pet equipment.
I’ve often tried to explain to people that you can’t just put a QR code on a dog collar. That assumes that someone who finds your pet is going to get close enough that they can take a photo that’s clear enough to be useful.
A pet that already has a subcutaneous chip should be able to access pet doors automatically - just add the chip number to the device reader in the door. I bet the cost comes out the same because the technology already exists, a tag can’t get lost, and as an added bonus, anyone who has the app on their phone can identify the dog from a distance.
It could also be applied to an automatic feeder, so that only the pet in question gets a specific food. No more wrestling the dog out of the cat’s food and vice versa. No more preventing a greedy pet from eating the more timid pets dinner.
Yes there is technology but a smart cat still overcomes it. I got the dog door with chips on the collar for my dogs at quite an expensive. Took the cat about a week to hear the click and go out right alongside the dog. I now have a chicken run outside my dog door to keep my cats from the coyotes.
Some pets will be smarter than others (or want to get out more than others). If so, you as the human will have to decide what’s more important to you — let both animals out or keep them both in and let them out manually. But I hope I don’t presume too much to think that you’d be more reasonable about what a sitter could do for you vs. what that listing expected? And turning it around, would you want that sit?
@Maggie8K the company I work for actually launched one of these doors a couple of years ago, but I don’t think it did very well. The quality and technology was great but it was selling too high ($3k) in comparison to others you can find on chewy.con for less than $500. probably not nearly as good, but $3k is too high, I would pass - it just feels like buying a Tesla at that point. Lol
I really wanted to sing up for beta version but I also wouldn’t see the convenience of it since I living on 2nd floor of a condo.
Yikes. The tech isn’t that sophisticated. $3k seems like a ridiculously high price point, especially given the competition. Usually, it’s best practice to check out the competition before even considering producing a product or service, much less launching one that out prices existing competitors. Even if the product or service were significantly better, you’d want to get a read on whether enough people would pay. There are various ways to assess that, usually with relatively low effort, expense and time.
If I were the product manager involved, I’d be worried that making a dud like that would reflect poorly on me beyond just that item, because it points to a possible lack of common sense.
I agree. There’s a lot I question about some of our product managers, but apparently it was our CEO pushing for it! It was discontinued quickly after we got bought out by a multi-billion investment firm.
Interesting. As a HO, I would not ask my sitters not to go into my bedroom/master bath. For one, the guest bathroom has only a shower, I tell my sitters they’re welcome to use the master if they want a bath, or if it’s a couple and they both want to use a bathroom at the same time.
Also, my cats like to wander, so I leave all doors open. If the sitters can’t find a cat, I want them to feel free to look for them… under my bed. And if it storms, I want my sitters to feel free to assess all areas for leaking.
More than the practical reasons above, though, I’d feel like forbidding my guests entry to particular areas displays a lack of trust. I want them to know that I trust them: with my home, my cats, and with generally, well, being trustworthy.
You make good points. I look at it slightly differently, though.
Even with close family members or friends, you might not want them in your bedroom — it could be a privacy issue, rather than a lack of trust.
Personally, I also don’t care if HOs actually lacked trust that way. Why: That’s about their general lack of trust toward strangers. It’s not distrust on a personal level, since they don’t even know me.
From my POV, I don’t take things personally if they’re not personal. To me, that’s just a way to get your feelings hurt unnecessarily in various circumstances in life.
Once when a room was really locked, that was more about burglaries than about me. I was told what was there: professional photographic equipment, and the office.
Other times I am just told that normally, I would not need to be there. That could be childrens’ rooms etc.
I get that. Nevertheless, as a host & homeowner, I choose to leave doors open, and to welcome guests to explore. I just trust they’re not exploring my Jewelry box or whatever.
My home except for the closet in our bedroom is pretty much open to the sitters as well. We are just one floor condo with two bedrooms, and our guest bedroom is pretty small, so we always give the sitters the option to sleep wherever they’d like, but we just ask that the sheets on our bed are put in the washer before they leave. Everyone except a couple of people have done this.
We have home insurance as well as small safe for private important document. I trust everyone I welcome to my home isn’t go through my stuff either, but in case of a fire, the important things are safe. Maybe if we had a big house. As others have pointed out, it’s less cleaning to do for them.
probably not nearly as good, but $3k is too high, I would pass - it just feels like buying a Tesla at that point. Lol
It was discontinued quickly after we got bought out by a multi-billion investment firm.