Hello and happy New Year! We recently joined THS but haven’t had any luck confirming sitters so far - our first listing was over Thanksgiving, so it seems understandable that it would be tough to find someone with ~4 weeks notice. Now we are looking for a sitter for 2 weeks, and we leave 2 weeks from today so I’m starting to get a bit nervous about finding someone in time. We posted it in mid-December and have gotten some applications but then the sitters had to withdraw for various personal reasons (and have been great about communicating, so no complaints there). I’m curious - how far in advance do sitters typically confirm sits? We didn’t confirm our dates until shortly before we posted, but I wonder if we should have posted earlier?
I’ve also seen that forum members have given great feedback about listings - I’ve read many of the guidelines in different posts (I tend to lurk a lot before posting haha) and tried to incorporate these various tips. But if there are any specific recommendations for things we should change about our listing, we’d appreciate the pointers! Thanks in advance!
It varies a lot how far ahead sitters make plans, but many of the most experienced sitters book sits many months or even a year+ ahead. They also get invites for repeat sits, so their calendars can fill out quickly.
Personally, I sit only part time and can pretty easily get sits, but based on other stuff I’ve got going on, I’m booking only a few months ahead. I have a sit in Seattle next and that was booked in November.
Wow! @delilahs.house your sit and Delilah look fab, and I notice you have one applicant atm. I hope it works out for you! Seattle has been on my list since that film!
I’ve favourited your sit as would love to sit for you but unlikely until 2026, and maybe 2027!
Hey there, I took a look for you. Your listing looks great and has all they key details many sitters look for, so that’s great! You have also been very clear in your responsibilities section, which is fantastic.
My only suggestion is to:
1: Shorten your title. Titles cut off after about 6 words in a listing’s preview, so use 6 - 8 words that describe your sit in a captivating way. E.g: Explore Seattle; beaches, city & urban charm!
2: Add in your introduction a compelling reason why somebody should choose your sit and come visit Seattle, rather than straight away launching into how you manage walks & playtime with Delilah (ideal for your responsibilities section rather than your intro). You can also tell sitters how many sitters you are able to host, and what you expect for a handover (should sitters arrive the day before, for example).
Best of luck and hope that helps! Overall, you have a lovely listing
I have been cat sitting since 2022, about 4 per year. I still work full time, so I have to balance it with work obligations and my 38 days of vacation (yes, I am European). So I do plan ahead quite a bit. So I always try to look for sits months ahead of schedule. I am currently planning my April to September sits, as I have recently booked all my vacations until September for this year. Also consider that in most cases travel costs get quite expensive and challenging for last minute travel. If I was a homeowner offering a sit, I would probably publish it at least 3 months to 9 months ahead. That excludes the Christmas holidays, where the advice would be the sooner the better, as demand for sitters is much higher than the number of sitters available
As I too work (and have to show up at work most of the time ) I plan my sits well in advance and travel internationally to petsit. So prices on flights is a big dealbeaker choosing sits for me. I can travel far if I get a great deal on airfare and the sit is longish (1-2 weeks) - and I’m even more interested if I can bring family, and make it a vacation. So publishing well in advance will get a much wider pool of sitters, and other factors can also widen pool of sitters (family friendly, offering a car, professional cleaning - so many different things can appeal to different groups).
Welcome! I am also an HO in Seattle. Your sit looks fab and you’ve gotten great advice from others. I’ll just add my 2 cents as another HO in the same region.
My sits have been either 4-6 weeks long, or 10 days or less. My longer sits gets snapped up immediately, while the shorter ones have not even gotten 5 applicants.
I post my sits 2 months in advance
I think your listing does a great job of describing Delilah’s needs. Her breed, leash reactivity and occasional separation anxiety may limit the pool of applicants - which is ok, as getting the right person is more important than getting tons of applicants.
West Seattle is a wonderful neighborhood. Are you anywhere near the shuttle that goes to the water taxi? Winter isn’t the best time of year for it, but it’s a unique experience that might be worth mentioning as a way to get to downtown Seattle.
Best of luck to you - your sit looks great and Delilah seems like a total love.
Every sitter is different, for ourselves, we like to plan ahead, so our diary is quite busy already for 2025, and we’ve just had an enquiry about our availability for Dec 2026 from someone who we regular sit for via THS, that’s almost two years ahead, because they know we get booked up fast. Whereas other sitters like to leave things until just a few months ahead of time. We’re all different. There’s allsorts of sitters on here, so there’s someone for everyone.
PS Your profile looks fantastic, great choice for your first image, and the others are brilliant too. I’m sure you won’t have too many problems getting applicants if you can plan ahead a little more next time around.
One tip - if you read an application and they sound perfect, don’t delay, message them instantly and go with your gut, before someone else snaps them up. Trust your intuition.
Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions on our listing, and for all the thoughts on timing! I’ve edited the title and also added another blurb about why West Seattle is so awesome into the intro Thanks for the specific recommended edits @Nagy26 and great tip on adding the water taxi @belluca, I didn’t even know there was a shuttle to get there - I’ve added that to the listing too. That’s also really interesting to know the difference you’ve seen between longer and shorter sits.
Re: families - I had gone back and forth on this but just opened it up again to families with older kids. We aren’t sure how Delilah would do around younger kids and would hate for anything to happen, but she’s been great with my teenage nieces and nephews. With this being our first time hosting, we were also a little nervous about wear and tear of having more people stay but it does seem like there are some amazing sitters on the platform so hopefully that would be a non-issue.
And gosh - I’m so impressed that folks plan their sits 1-2 years in advance sometimes! Even 6 months feels like a lot for us, we usually don’t confirm travel until 6-8 weeks ahead of time! But I’ll try to post sits sooner next time around - maybe with rough dates if things aren’t fully confirmed yet. Now I’m wondering if we should start planning for a Christmas / New Years trip haha. We will definitely respond to applications quickly, fingers crossed that it works out this time around. Thanks again for all the great advice!
PS - keep us posted @Smiley on when you want to visit Seattle, we’d love if it works out for us to host you!
If you want a THS sitter yes list dates asap- There are so many sits posted for Christmas and New Year that a lot go unfilled. For example we received 8 invitations to sit for last Christmas - they all looked like great sits and some were for hosts that we had sat for before but obviously we could only do one of them .
THS have left the Christmas filter on for now and there are already many sits listed for Christmas 2025.
But the 2025 Christmas listings are not attracting too many applicants @Silversitters. Perhaps just a bit soon, especially as we know circumstances can change in that 11 months till Christmas and sits can be cancelled by either owner or sitter, leaving some high and dry at the last moment.
Yes. I don’t accept sits for what I consider too far out, because I take sit obligations seriously — I wouldn’t want to cancel.
Of course, some people are planners and want lots of visibility, but in some cases, that might be a false sense of control and some might end up with cancellations.
Thank you @delilahs.house, I’ll definitely keep you in my favourites and your amendments make your listing even more attractive. It won’t be for some time though.
I see you have two applicants now. Don’t hang around, I hope you’ve contacted them. Let us know here how it goes.
Even if I sat full time, I wouldn’t commit way ahead, because I have professional obligations and opportunities, for example.
Say if we have an executive off-site, we don’t plan those a year before — that would be freakishly rigid and unnecessary for the startups or venture capital firms I’ve worked at — so I might end up with a conflict if I book too far ahead. Or say some org wants me to speak at an event — those aren’t usually planned a year out.
There also are some full-timers who’ve previously posted that they don’t necessarily book a year ahead, either, based on their own circumstances.
There’s no cookie-cutter right or wrong way to plan or not plan — each sitter and host decides for themselves, based on their priorities and preferences. Of course, how that matches (or doesn’t) with others’ needs can leave them disappointed, so we all have to make our own judgments and trade-offs to get our needs met.
this may not be true for your listing - you have a way nicer home than I do I agree with others that the timing may be at fault here - not just the advance positing, but January is not a big month for travel. I bet you’ll have plenty of applications for future sits!
I would say for intercontinental travel - the best time for planning flights is a little less than a year. Tickets are most times released one year ahead, and that would be when they are cheapest. For families that depend on school vacations, it would often be the best time - also to let down gently any relatives about being abroad next Christmas…
Thanks! We actually got a third applicant too! Our first applicant won’t be here in time anymore but we are meeting with a different applicant tomorrow who is local. I’m hopeful it will work out
This is the case for me too - my work trips usually don’t get planned more than 2 to 3 months in advance, and sometimes I need to travel within a few weeks! I feel like the farthest I could probably plan is 6 months for personal travel but that’s a stretch… thinking about a Christmas trip now seems enticing but I also know we wouldn’t be able to commit to specific dates yet so it’s probably better to wait until we are more ready to solidify plans.
It does seem like there are various timeframes that work for different folks tho, I’m definitely learning a lot through these initial listings! And from all the good chatter in this thread
) I plan my sits well in advance and travel internationally to petsit. So prices on flights is a big dealbeaker choosing sits for me. I can travel far if I get a great deal on airfare and the sit is longish (1-2 weeks) - and I’m even more interested if I can bring family, and make it a vacation. So publishing well in advance will get a much wider pool of sitters, and other factors can also widen pool of sitters (family friendly, offering a car, professional cleaning - so many different things can appeal to different groups).
Thanks for the specific recommended edits 
- I’ve added that to the listing too. That’s also really interesting to know the difference you’ve seen between longer and shorter sits.
I agree with others that the timing may be at fault here - not just the advance positing, but January is not a big month for travel. I bet you’ll have plenty of applications for future sits!
