Hello,
We are a retired couple with two beautiful female kitties living in Red Rock Country – Kanab, Utah. We are so happy to report our first very successful experience with a great newbie houre/pet sitter. Kerry from Phoenix stayed with our grey shorthair Nikki, and Snowshoe Ragdoll longhair Shady for 10 days. We all hit it off very well and the cats enjoyed wonderful interaction during our time away. We believe Kerry enjoyed herself – what’s not to like with hiking, 5 National Parks and/or National monuments within driving distance, small town fun, and Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, the US largest no-kill animal shelter, all in town.
A few days ago we posted our second set of dates in November – and have just 2 days later accepted a qualified sitter who is traveling 9 hours from Colorado, just to take care of our girls for 5 days. Phenomenal!
October will be a surprisingly busy travel month, and we are now interviewing for a nearly 2 week trip away. So with all this enthusiasm, here’s our question: The two young applicants do not have reviews or references on their profile. Does this mean they are very NEW to THS, and have not submitted or gotten personal or petsitting references as yet? They both sound like solid individuals, but my husband and I were under the impression that one would need some sort of reference as a starting point. Is that not the case? If not, do members have pointers for fleshing out information as to experience with animals, and overall trustworthiness and dependability?
We intend to dialog with both applicants via messaging for a day at least, and then will follow up by zoom or skype or whatsApp, so we can see and talk to them. But, aside from just doing our own homework, what tools are available with THS to get a feel for sitter members’ qualifications, etc. Please give us a shout and let us know how to handle a couple of young housesitters who have yet to log reviews or feedback. PS – we were new of course nad had no feedback until a week or so ago, and our previous sitter was on her first sit, too. The difference was that she had numerous personal refernces to show experience with non-THS pet/homeowners.
Best regards,
Caroline (Carrie) and Russ Duff
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Welcome to the site and the forum @russncarrie
Great photos!
Have you invited people to sit, as well as received applications?
Also you could ask the two applicants if they can get some references from friends, telling them it is very easy to do inside their dashboard. They just click on “Request a Reference” and a box appears for an email address. Then it sends the person a simple form. I got four of my friends to give me a reference the first month I started, and it really helped me get sits easily.
Good luck!
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Hello @BillyBonnieBenji !
Thank you for your practical advice – suggesting that our applicants solicit references from their profile dashboard. We used that method and accumulated 6 references from folks we had known for years who could attest to our responsibility and animal care experience. I would have thought that the membership enrollment would have emphasized the need for references enough that requesting that a new member flesh out their profile wouldn’t be necessary. but – apparently not! So I will take your advice and ask them, in our email correspondence to consider doing so.
Also now another question: where does my feedback from the sitter show up on my profile? I see it in the android version of THS under feedback, but not under reviews. So what is the difference between sitter feedback and reviews? Please advise, and thanks in advance.
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@russncarrie
I wanted to give a little clarity on the difference between a review and feedback. On a pet parent listing, the sitter will give Feedback. On a sitter’s profile, the pet parent will give a Review. One has an opportunity to also reply to both Feedback and Reviews, however, we usually find these replies are generally given if there is any discrepancy within the Feedback or Review.
If you go to your drop-down menu, you will find Reviews and Feedback tabs there.
Hope this helps.
Hi @russncarrie and welcome!
Thank you for joining our community forum. You are going to find it is filled with answers to most, if not all, of your questions and enquiries.
My name is Debbie and I am one of the forum moderators, as well as a sitter member of TrustedHousesitters. I was an owner member for three years and have now moved over to a sitter membership, so I have insight into both sides of the memberships.
I am hoping this info will help you find your way around the platform and interest you to join in the conversations. It can be a little daunting and confusing at first, so we included this handy guide
How to use our Community Forum | TrustedHousesitters.com
Our members are connecting every day and the forum is a great place where you can get to know one another. Please take a moment to introduce yourself About the introduce yourself category - Introduce Yourself - TrustedHousesitters Community Forum by giving us as little or as much info as you prefer. If you are confused on what to say, we have some great suggestions:
- How long have you been a member of Trustedhousesitters?
- Where is your home location?
- What is your “bucket list” for travel?
We are always here to help, so please don’t hesitate to message us with any questions or concerns. If you are not a member yet of TrustedHousesitters and want more info, we will be happy to assist.
Also, can I just ask how you came upon the forum and decided to join? I am always curious as to what drives someone to a certain site.
Have a great day!
Debbie – Forum Team Moderator
eHH
Hello @russncarrie and a belated welcome to the community. I am so pleased to see that you have filled your sit … I’m not surprised… Utah has so much to offer. We had a long stay there years ago in an RV and found it very hard to move on!! Your 2 gorgeous kitties will have helped too 
I sometimes wonder why people don’t get references, but wonder if it’s a confidence issue. Some people find it hard to write and ask for feedback through fear of rejection, and I sometimes think this might be the case, despite how we all know as sitters just how important they are when starting out. It’s once of my key pieces of advice when talking to newbies.
The website at THS was updated a while ago to encourage this as well, explaining through prompts how adding references really does increase chances.
I’m popping that here in case any other new members find your thread
Thank you also for giving a new house sitter the chance to look after Nikki and Shady! We all have to start somewhere and I know how appreciated that would have been.
Enjoy the forum and don’t hesitate to reach out to the moderation team if you have any more questions at all. Happy weekend, Vanessa
Carrie and Russ: We are currently visiting Zion National Park in Utah as part of our road trip, so I can attest to the beauty of the area. Not only can you ask them to get references and interview them, but they can link their Airbnb and LinkedIn profiles to their THS accounts, so that you can know more about them. It does not look like you have a current posting up, so if you need more candidates and only have two at this point, you can repost your sit dates and possibly get a few more to consider, while the two are still being vetted. Happy that your first experience was very positive. Good Luck, Lynn
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