Greetings folks. New HO wondering if it’s typical for sitters to travel with their pets? My listing has only been live a week but so far the only applicant travels with their dog. When asked how they might manage if the pets don’t mesh, the answer was their dog would not “engage.” I’m sure this scenario differs from sit to sit, but admittedly there’s a level of discomfort as both a home and pet owner around bringing an unknown animal in for an extended period of time without proper socialization. The catch is my animals are friendly (we’ve had several puppy and kitten fosters) but socialization done by me as the owner who knows the quirks and expressions may look very different than someone who’s never been around before. Seems like an added stress for all, and liability comes to mind should something gosh forbid happen. Perhaps overthinking it but would love feedback from anyone who’s had positive or negative experiences.
Hello @Bex502 and welcome to the forum and to TrustedHousesitters. I’m not an owner with THS but thought you might find some indirect answers by looking through this post. Hopefully some owners will share their thoughts and opinions with you too.
Is bringing your own pet on a sit allowed?
I’ll just also mention that if you do get applicants who you decide are not suitable, please follow through and decline them, ideally with a relevant explanation. This will avoid your applicant count showing an inflated count, as well as allowing the sitters to get a firm answer.
Francine,
Volunteer moderator 
Hi @Snowbird , thank you for the link! It seems others have had the same questions and there’s some great perspective from both owners and sitters. I also didn’t know the applicant count was public so thank you for that intel! Best, Rebecca
@Bex502 I’m glad it was helpful. Yes, the applicant count shows in groupings: currently 0-3, then 4-7, etc. It’s directly under where your dates display when your listing is opened to read.
Hello @Bex502, I have recently had similar experiences to my own surprise after many years of exchanging and inviting sitters. More home exchanges now include pet care to my surprise too. We feel introducing extra and unknown animals would add an extra stress on our pets when they are adapting to new people in their home. So we cannot consider people who would like to bring pets and have always been successful in finding sitters, so don’t give up! You can also approach people who you think might be suitable s well as waiting for people to apply. Good luck!
Thanks for the well wishes, I’ll keep plugging away!
Late reply, but nevertheless I want to add my opinion:
I don’t think that animals make a big distinction between the types of strangers - whether it is two strange humans or one strange human with a strange dog. Another animal in the household does not cause more stress than another human in the household. Of course, it depends on your pet. If you are getting a lot of human visitors your pet will be rather indifferent towards accepting another human. If you get lots of visitors who bring their dogs along your dog may be super-happy to meet another dog. And last not least, your sitter may have a pet who just stays in the sitter’s bedroom, for example some cage animal, and your own pets won’t even notice it. I think we humans should not “humanise” our pets to such a degree that we think that all humans must be acceptable to our pet while all animals would not be acceptable. Animals do not make this distinction.