Why would an owner use a newbie?

How do you explain your success ( reading many posts written by beginners, we can all see it’s pretty hard when you have no references or reviews) ? We often experienced the difficulty ourselves when we started.
Did you publish photos with many pets on your profile ? Were you enthusiastic about animal former experiences, had you ever worked in shelters ? I’m really curious. But it’s great people have trust you the very first day you applied.

Honestly, I think I was lucky more than anything else. Yes, I made an effort with my profile, and I love to write, so that probably helped me. My initial photos didn’t have any animals. I have one now with the two cats from my first sit through THS.
I applied for local sits near me, here in Ireland, and I think I was lucky to have things in common with the pet owners. The first pet sit I got accepted for was for a budgie, which is a bit unusual, but I kept budgies as a kid and know exactly how to care for them. So the owner accepted me straight away. The cat owner had just moved here from Germany, and I am German. She felt comfortable with me because we could speak German together.
I do genuinely love animals, and I think that shines through in my profile.

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Brillant. And now you’ll get more and more sits. The first one is the most difficult to my opinion.

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Crookie I find your answer very interesting. I have had a number of first time sitters but have tended to avoid locals as it does seem curious that a local is applying. If I get a local applying in future i will ask some relevant questions. It had not occurred to me that it may be for the reviews. Good information.

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@Leoandme you may find this post interesting. I started that post and have been a THS sitter for 7+ years, so it’s not only new sitters who might choose to do your sit, although that is more likely, I agree. In your location I would think for someone relatively local you also represent an escape from city life, which is appealing to many.

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Hi @Leoandme there are a number of reasons why sitters, new and experienced choose to sit locally. Needing a true pet fix comes to mind, wanting to help an owner, getting reviews, and connecting with local communities are just a few reasons.

My first sit was literally 10 mins from my home. My motivation? I had recently lost my own beloved Springer and heard a compelling story about another pet mom who needed help, I was available and knew I could help make a difference in her life. I stayed with Charli for 2 weeks … it was the beginning of my heart mending and this incredible 14 year pet and housesitting adventure.

Since then, like so many sitters, I have done many “local” sits, it’s all about pets, people and places and pet company is the same 5 or 500 miles away.

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We’re also quite greedy for cuddles and meeting different animals. Sits without pets are rarely an option for us and we have both traveled over 1000 km by bus or done sits next door because there was a special breed or an animal that caught our attention (including naked cats and ravens). Another reason why someone might want to try a newbie: goodwill! Everyone started somewhere and only by letting new sitters get a sit this platform will stay alive.

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I’ve done a few local sits , 1 only 20km from home, explained i needed references and under covid times it was hard to go abroad or much further.
As the owners wanted somebody only for a week-end they were quite happy i applied.
Who else, but local sitters, would like to sit only for 2 days?

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I welcome you to check out my sitter profile (edit: which is within the introductory paragraph of my forum profile) for ideas for how to represent yourself when starting out.

Although I now have more experience on Trusted Housesitters and reviews from hosts, when I started out all I had was my past experience (animal rescue, pet mom, job, homeowner, and travel) and an external reference from someone who knew me as a kitten foster volunteer.

My profile is much longer than the average profile, but I get excellent feedback from the hosts that I apply to. (I imagine some people don’t take the time to read it. If they think it’s too much and don’t choose me, I don’t mind.)

Good luck!

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@SABrenner - I’d like to check out your profile for ideas, but the forum link is to your housesit listing, not your sitter profile.

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Yo diría q para tengan más oportunidades de crecimiento y se ayudan mutuamente

I would say that they have more opportunities for growth and help each other

Hi there. I believe there is a way to expand my forum-profile so it shows the full introductory paragraph, and then from there you can see my sitter-profile. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how.

Forum moderators: Hope it’s okay to provide my link this way. It would be so nice to be able to have both links readily connected to our forum presence. Is that possible?

Admin Notice: Post moderated. Link removed from post.

OP Notice: Well, within seconds the link to my sitter profile was removed. I’m sorry. I would like to be helpful but I really don’t know how to expand one’s forum-profile so that you can see the link there. Sorry.

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Hi @anon4168721 after removing the link I did send you a detailed Direct Messaged letting you know that I had added the correct sitter link to your Forum profile. …

Your owner profile is in the Website panel and your sitter profile link in About Me section of your Forum profile … clicking on your name will expand the profile to show all.

I see it now. I’m also a big cat volunteer and rescuer - though I haven’t fostered as many as you!

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Great advice. I have tons of positive Airbnb reviews, but wouldn’t have thought to link to them.

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Hi @Leoandme
I completely agree with some of the other comments that have been made about local sitters building up their reviews.

I have done about 5 sits in my home town over the last few months and have another 5 coming up, with the closest one being about 4 streets away. We are trying to build up the number of reviews that we have so that we can be more successful with the popular house sits…this seems to be the easiest way to achieve that.

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I love your profile and am so going to take some tips.

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Hi
I think if you feel good about the profile etc, you know if there going to be OK to sit, all sitters need a 1st sit, I would have no hesitation on using a first timer, wish I could find one for this month

That’s great! Good luck!

Hi @brendanxx - When we joined we thought the same and were in your position having been Airbnb hosts for many years but totally inexperienced pet sitters . We didn’t even have any people we could think of to use as references as we had never looked after any friends pets before - instead we added the link of our Airbnb profile and started to apply with THS.
We did not have to wait too long before getting accepted for our first sit, and once we completed that sit and received our first THS review the second seemed easier .
As I write this, one year on, we are now on our 21st sit! -

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