Should Pet Parents be required to complete at least one housesit (as housesitter) prior to THS approval to publish a listing (as Pet Parent)?
OK, so this is absolutely tongue in cheek. But it appears that many Pet Parent challenges on THS Forum may result from a one-sided perspective. Some Pet Parents really struggle to consider listings, applications, video calls, house preparation, etc from the housesitter perspective. Imagine the wonderful learning if Pet Parents were required to complete even a single housesit .
@GotYourBack Totally! There’s definitely a one-sided perspective going on sometimes — Pet Parents rarely get a real taste of the sitter’s world. Meanwhile, sitters quickly learn they must see things from the HO’s point of view if they want a smooth sit.
Mandatory one-sit training for Pet Parents would be hilarious — watching them try to answer every question on a listing, schedule a video call, prep a house, and remember the dog’s secret snack stash… suddenly they’d understand why we sometimes ask so many questions!
Perspective = enlightenment (and maybe a few good laughs along the way).
I see your point but I always like to see as many perspectives as possible. In this case, THS could also require sitters to host before being able to be in charge of other people’s houses and pets.
I’ve always wished younger adults were required to work in a restaurant, like the military or social service activity some cultures require. I’d like to believe it would make them, as future customers, much kinder and more patient if they knew what it was like on the other side! Instead everyone ends up cranky when things go wrong. So yeah, your point makes sense (although I am a very thoughtful host and really don’t want to sit someone else’s pets so I hope they don’t institute this )
Me too! My wife and I talked about this. I said “you know THS has a dual membership option, we could pet sit when we travel. We were also offered a pet-sitting house swap in Athen’s Greece.
When I ran it by my wife, it was mostly a test to see what she would say, which was “I don’t want to have to deal with watching other people’s pets when we’re on vacation!”. I couldn’t agree more. We worked for decades, enjoying retirement, when we travel we want to get out and around without having that sort of responsibility.
For all our greatest sits (and there have been many) as far as I am aware the hosts hadn’t been sitters previously.
However, there was a commonality- it was obvious that they all enjoyed entertaining overnight guests often and were well travelled themselves . They had guest suites that were well prepared with space in the cupboards, bedside tables with lights, a desk, toiletries in the en suite , luxury bedding , fluffy towels, comfortable mattresses even robes and hotel slippers provided at a couple of them.
For someone who enjoys hosting friends and family, extending that same hospitality to a house sitter comes naturally.
What I think would be beneficial is if the who staff work in the THS Member Support have to have experienced either of being THS hosts or sitters . Then they would have real empathy and understanding of the issues being reported to them.
I know my experience sitting have helped my friend enormously who is now a host. She lives to entertain and have guests so she is naturally good at it, but those little things that make a sit better I have suggested to her and she is on it. Perhaps a “what makes a great host/sitter” when you join could be more specific, but then again it’s all about follow through.
Which involves cleaning the whole house, making sure there is enough inventory of pet food/supplies as well as household basics, hosting (and sometimes picking up a sitter from the airport/train station) and handoff to the arriving sitter, while packing yourselves up and arranging your transport to the airport.
I know everyone feels they have it the roughest but really if we can all just accept there are challenges all around, that many of us are doing the best we can, and forgive some minor stuff we’d all be better off. It has nothing to do with living in another’s shoes, it has everything to do with believing people are trying their best (which may be different for each person).
Not being critical but this captures the mindset difference.
Housesitter situations and objective vary a great deal. Suspect very few housesitters would regard themselves as being on vacation. If responsibility-free vacation is the goal then housesitting is not the best tactic. That said, we have met several pet parents that have are also housesitters and enjoy the adventure. Motivations vary - from increased quantity of breaks or sheer embracement of opportunistic adventures.
There’s also full-time housesitters - like us - that use housesitting to move beyond mindset of periodic vacation towards a different lifestyle. Bonkers to many people but when we arrive somewhere, even somewhere very nice, we’re not on vacation. Just living. We recall one Pet Parent enthusiastically outlining local activities and was shocked when I noted that during housesit period I would spend plenty time with their pets as I had to complete our personal income tax filings!
Kudos for having the spousal conversation. Seems great insight.
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Totally! There’s definitely a one-sided perspective going on sometimes — Pet Parents rarely get a real taste of the sitter’s world. Meanwhile, sitters quickly learn they must see things from the HO’s point of view if they want a smooth sit.
