Yes reviews are always a help but not necessarily totally to be relied on, as comments on this forum have shown.
Sometimes the weather can be a game changer ! No one’s fault but it can make for unexercised or muddy dogs and large areas in the home and garden to be brought back to scratch!
This present sit I’m on is having rain for a week! Even the dog has to be dragged out briefly to do his business! No one’s fault but suddenly a lot of extra hassle. The Home Owner is abroad in UK and has told me there is a weather warning for the area so stay safe. There are laminate floors so if I can’t get the dog out it’s not the end of the world. There’s a terrace here so I take the dog on that and it realises going out won’t be fun!
We are reconciled to a day spent pretty much indoors. But at least we are warm
and dry and have food in abundance!
I try to keep hold of my sense of humour.
I’m British and waterproof.
Dog sitting for the last 2 years has convinced me that our lifestyle couldn’t include a dog in our home however well trained it was (it would be trained to elite platinum level I can tell you!!) so this period of our retirement has been an insight into our friends who own dogs lives …. we get it now why they’re always leaving early, or can’t do spontaneous things, or book the dogs into kennels for the day to meet up for lunch! It’s like having small children again. Horses were far easier as were cats and guinea pigs, rats, rabbits, stick insects….all pets we had over many years. I’ll keep on dog walking locally neighbours dogs via Borrowmydoggy dot com but we won’t have a dog in our home as we get older. It was a thought for our older years but now dispensed with.
Try before you buy is so much better than buy and cry!
I will probably decide the same as you but I’m dog mad and have to have them in my life be it pet sitting pet walking or stopping people walking their dogs and asking for a cuddle.. of their dogs, of course, what do you take me for?
Pet sitting reminds me of the hard work and daily commitment of dog ownership. Getting children in on the act can make them realize:
“Oh no, Dad, please,don’t get me a puppy for Christmas! “
These notes I have found really helpful. Also chat to friends and family to give your morale a boost or therapy opportunity!
remember the forum friends are always here to vent to or ask for help. Also THS has a help option.
Basically, you are not alone! This will END
Husbands are the same…. 
If this was a THS sit - was this reported to THS and included in your review ? I hope they are no longer on THS .
Terms of service state that members must
5.2.4. ensure that no pets to be left under the care of a Sitter have ever caused a person or animal any physical harm (no matter how minor the injury);
5.2.11. not have any inherently dangerous pets (such as venomous snakes or constrictors, primates, wolves or wolf hybrids, non-domesticated cats, alligators), banned dog breeds, or any animal with a history of attacks on pets or people;
All of that!
Having re-schooled ex race horses and dressage schooled “anxious” horses, and applied to dogs… and children, who are all much more pleasant as a result 
You haven’t read it have you?
Big Clue… WE WERE PAID.
Merry Christmas !
Just sharing the grief. So that others don’t have to go through what we still have nightmares about.
“It was a paid sit, at least”
I apologise. I’m not sleeping too brilliantly. The rescued dog is in with me and while I’m deaf and take my hearing aids out at night, I still hear the dog wake and shake his ears! If I turn my phone on he takes it as a signal that it must be breakfast time! 5.00 am?
He’s the reason I’m here and I will not be changing the sleeping arrangements. Love is love.
@Silversitters I admire a lot for the great advice and had this been a THS sit I know what to do next ! So thank you for your imput. It is much appreciated by me and many.
I ran a school for excluded teenagers in London…. so teenagers/dogs/horses/husbands…. it’s all the same to me 
No messing with you, then. Do you give classes? Asking for a friend.
Yes, I read that and was surprised. I didn’t realise that was a thing on THS.
No, it’s appalling!
@Highfive did indicate that it was a paid non-THS sit.
As horrible as the event was, I do appreciate that he shared it with us.
I think the lack of welcome guide and no video call would be a red flag for me. We have stopped doing dogs (other than ones we already know) after horrendous experience with completely untrained dog. Had to put leather gloves and a coat on just to attach a lead. Didn’t respond to any commands, no boundaries had been set. About year old, never been to training and they were new dog owners. We had to find places that no other dog went to but even that was tricky as he couldn’t be contained in the car. Luckily we found some woods but couldn’t let him off the lead. He sat up at the table to eat, and wrecked everything in site. We did tell HO they should advertise again until they had taken him for some basic training.
Good luck with rest of sit.
I really wouldn’t want to relive that or for anyone else to inadvertently sign up for the like. I know” Nature Raw in Tooth and Claw” is not easy on the stomach, although I will watch anything done by David Attenborough.
But this was a defenceless, pretty kitten. Its inexperience and fear of the barking dogs unnerved its halting progress on a garden wall and it fell the wrong way, into a public road. The only positive was it was killed outright. Whereas some cats like to play with their prey which I find even more distasteful, the dogs were swift executioners.
Well we sent an email to the owners, who replied that we should do what they do and put bark collars on the dogs!
We will never do something so cruel and lazy, so we will just look after them best we can and make a decision about doing this again once this sit is over.
Is that how people nowadays think is the acceptable way of training dogs? this is so alien to us as a way to keep pets.
Thanks for all the comments.
I looked after two Daschunds and the owner said, “ Don’t play with them too long in the garden, the neighbours get annoyed.”
I used to throw some tiny windfall apples for them to retrieve. Yes they barked in evident delight and anticipation of the next throw. Joy unlimited in their sweet little lives . They are happy dogs ; job done!
As he left he handed me a zapper.
“Oh I got this from The States, they can’t stand it! It’s really good! Shuts them up a treat!”
I never used it.
The intolerance of some people! It was a stunning Home but my dreams of moving in evaporated there and then with such miserable neighbours!
At the end of my third week I had a note in the post box.. is there ANY chance you can keep the dogs from barking before 9.30 in the morning? Signed the neighbours.
Passive aggressive?
They didn’t call round, worried about being easy meat, I suppose!
Clearly you don’t understand how effective e-collars can be in the right hands. When our large dog gets in a rowdy mood and starts with the barking and lunging towards the front gate when a car goes past, or chases a car during a walk, a quick press of the remote is like an “off” switch.
It’s about correctly using technology to enhance behavior, not about “being lazy”. In fact the shock is rarely used as a properly trained dog learns to associate the tone with the zap and giving the warning tone is usually sufficient.
@Bowie, ugh sound horrible. We’ve been there, or broadly similar. Completely understand that you find it very stressful. From our experiences then three lessons that we learned - and suggest that you do too …
1- short-term. they’re not your dogs. keep it simple. plenty exercise to tire them. not try train them. make best of bad situation
2- thereafter. learn. consider write brief notes on learning experiences. incorporate those learnings into materially more robust questions during due diligence. purpose there is to learn facts.
3- self-permission. give your selves “permission” to walk away from future unconfirmed applications if you perceive concerns. prior to confirmed sit then there is no commitment, just two-way open conversation. there appear multiple red-flags here - be firm with PP - you are not a service provider but rather a peer.
@Bowie, fair question. Our eyes have been opened through THS to markedly unfamiliar owner-pet relationships; pet sleeping arrangements; pet eating protocols; pet collars/equipment; deemed acceptable behavior. No intent to suggest right or wrong but some very different approaches out there.
For us, memorable was a 4-5 month housesit tour in US a couple of years ago where every single dog used a choke collar with inward facing metal spikes. We’d never seen this before and struggled. But we adapt and apply our experience in conjunction with PP WG. We appreciate that it is not housesitter responsibility to train pet(s).