My experience has been very mixed as a sitter. I sat at one location where the animal care for 9 pets took more than 3 hours per day. (AND I’M SUPER EFFICIENT AND CAPABLE). Although it was a good workout, I felt exploited. I am festideously tidy and clean, so cleaning the mess from the indoor cats,( vomit, dead mice guts, cat hair) was also a few hours per week.
I pay my brother 25 dollars per day to look after my single pet. The local kennel charges 50 dollars per pet per day. I believe guidelines should be in place for any more than 4 pets. I am not referring to livestock. I am talking about pets requirements. Of course I love animals and cared well, but after 10 days it was exhausting.
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My tip is only apply for sits with less pets. I know my limits and the amount of work I am willing to put in for a free exchange.
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I’m sorry this sit has been too much for you but I agree with @Twitcher. You chose to apply for this sit and then agreed to it. Not much you can do except choose more wisely in future the number and type of pets you feel comfortable caring for.
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The majority of the thousands of sits on offer don’t suit us - but that’s ok we couldn’t do them all ! In our time with THS we have found 35 + sits that suited us very well .
The success of a sit starts with knowing what is right for you and not applying for sits where the responsibilities don’t match that . Whilst you might be willing to compromise a little , If you compromise too much , you will end up resenting it , ( as you are finding out on your current sit).
We saw a sit in a perfect location , for multiple animals ( 3 dogs that needed long walks , plus goats , sheep , cats & chickens to be feed ) it was only for two days ( and we had a two day gap) . For us it was too much work for a mutual exchange .We didn’t apply and I thought that they would struggle to get a sitter .
I was wrong , a family from a city applied for the sit had a fantastic stay with their children enjoying the experience of taking care of all the animals - it was a mutual exchange that both parties were very happy with and later repeated .
Sitters are as diverse as the sits themselves—some prefer rural and isolated locations, while others want to be right in the heart of a city.
Similarly a sit with only one pet that can never be left alone is not a match for us , but some sitters are actively seeking a sit that offers 24 hour company of a loving pet .
I suggest that an accurate review that mentions the cats bring in Dead mice etc will be helpful for future sitters to decide if they want to do this sit .
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I do think hosts should be more aware and upfront about the work time their pets really require. If you knew beforehand, you would not have applied. I recently sat 7 cats. None of them overate, so there was just automatic feeder, and water fountain, and only 4 litter boxes, and they were indoor cats. It was as easy as a sit with two cats. I am sure there are sits with one cat that are more laboursome. So I dont think one can judge by the amount of pets. So something else needs to communicate that.
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What isn’t said is how the listing and the pet responsibilities were described, and what was said in the Welcome Guide and during the videochat.
If the host was dishonest and minimized the amount of responsibilities leaving the sitter with a big unpleasant surprise, that’s one thing. If they accurately described what the sitter was in for and they sort of glossed over it and took on the sit without really giving the workload much thought, that’s something else entirely.
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I sat for 30 animals over Christmas, solo.
6 Alpacas, 5 sheep, 17 chickens, and 2 cats. also fed the wild birds, and dealt with the unfortunate death of a Woodpecker.
I spent about 30 minutes mucking out stable each day, but rest of the day was mine, No dogs to walk, SO although I worked hard, physically, I had more free time than on most of my sits which have dogs needing multiple walks.
I thoroughly enjoyed my stay, and would go again (there will be 40 animals next time, as 2 sheep were away getting ahem “serviced”, and are now back, pregnant with triplets each, and the 2 dogs will be there on future sits).
the choice, as always, is yours, and yours alone.
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And that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it?
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We all know that hosts lie, or nicely put “decorate the truth”, so the choice is not really ours. There is an in build lack of honesty in THS, so let people air their discomfort when they get the short stick.
A listing may state the routine takes a couple of hours a day.
I take that with a pinch of salt as the hosts are familiar with the routine.
A sitter would take longer and need to refer to notes or the Welcome Guide to ensure everything is done correctly.
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It’s not “in THS”, it’s human nature in general.
Everybody lies in order to further their goals, it’s just a question of how much and how severe is the deception.
@ChiaGrowth That’s a rather harsh assessment of the situation. I think most people have good intentions, but what may take a host 30 minutes could easily take a sitter twice that long, simply due to the fact that they’re not familiar with the task. I find that everything, not just the animal care, takes longer for the first few days of a sit, and plan my time to allow for that.
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What review did you give?
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Ummm, no, cannot agree with you on that
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I’m seeing more and more hosts looking for people to do what should undoubtedly be paid gigs. Not so much on the official THS platform (where they’d probably be wasting their time) but in unofficial groups elsewhere. If you’re wanting someone to be a farm hand, fair enough. But IMO it’s taking the p!ss to ask them to do it for nothing - and to feel privileged to have the “opportunity”, to boot. I’ve even seen one listing where the accommodation was in a shack without a bathroom. But, sadly, there are always people willing to do these “sits”, usually because they have children and think it will be a good experience for them.
I see it as yet another by-product of THS’s new “Pet (or in this case, cows, sheep, horses, llamas…. You name it) sitting is a great way to Get a Free Vacation!” message. Not only will a lot of “sitters” emerge whose sole interest is the location of the home and whether it - and the dates - fit with their family/social plans, but people who would once have hired paid care for their farms or smallholdings and accepted it as part of having that many animals, will be - and clearly are - thinking “Oooh look! This THS thing’s a way I can get someone to do the job for free! All my Christmases have come at once!”
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I did not say ALL HOSTS LIE ALL THE TIME ABOUT EVERYTHING. But it is a fact that some hosts lie about some things. Be it the location of their home, amenities, expectations, pet behavior… Often it is a misunderstanding, or the host simply not knowing how their pet behaves with strangers, or them being prompted to give a false location. But it is impossible that never no host did lie with the intention of misleading a sitter. When lying happens, and is easy to do in the structures that THS provides, I just say that it is not really a free choice. If it truly was, we would not come across disappointments: though of course not all disappointments come from misinformation.
But that is not what you said, now is it?
If you had then I wouldn’t have needed to disagree
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I apologize for being unclear. I did not mean to say “all hosts lie all the time” but that it is a component. It is great that you shared how you read my comment, so that I had the opportunity to clarify. I will also be more careful in the future, as it is no benefit to me to be unclear. Now that I have clarified, everything is sorted from my side, and by all means we can move on. If you still have something unclear or not to your liking, do let me know and I´ll see what I can do.
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It was clear to me. You said hosts lie. That is true and is equivalent to “some hosts lie sometimes”. You did not say ‘all hosts lie all the time’ and there’s no reason why your words were interpreted to mean that.
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Why would you apply to a sit with so many animals? Then complain about all the work. Seems obvious with 9 animals.
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