Travel House- and Pet-sitting FAQ #2

Last month I started?a series to share info about my travel house- and pet-sitting life?and one question I often get is how I find work in this field. Below is an overview of some of the methods and platforms that I use. If you do some googling, you’ll find many other detailed articles that cover house- and pet-sitting platforms so this post isn’t meant to be exhaustive, it’s just my take on how I go about sourcing gigs and what I’ve found to work great and not so well about each option.

Referrals

Family, friends, and colleagues past and present are some of my most common clients. But I also often receive referrals from those folks to their relatives, coworkers, neighbors, and so on.

Pros:

• More familiarity with the clients
• Greater trust and comfort level in working together
• The joy of helping someone I’m connected with travel worry-free because they know their furry friends are in good hands
• Typically easier coordination of logistics
• I get to keep all of the payment
• Often these clients encourage you to make yourself at home in terms of eating their food or having guests over

Cons:

• Involve personal liability for me unless I decide to get bonded and insured
• If anything goes unexpectedly awry, it could potentially result in strain on a personal relationship
• I often wind up charging less than I would strangers

Click here to send me a house- or pet-sitting request

Rover

The Rover app connects pet parents with prospective sitters and I heavily rely on it to generate new clients outside of my network. It’s well-known and the platform is quite active in my primary geographies of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Sitters like me identify what services we offer (pet-sitting, drop-in visits, in-home daycare, dog walks), the geography we’re willing to receive requests from, and create a profile that describes our experience working with animals. We maintain a calendar reflecting our availability and then appear in pet parents’ search results once they enter the dates, type of animal(s), and services they need. The pet parents then send a request to the sitter, who confirms if they’d like to accept the sit and if so, then the pet parent offers final confirmation.

Pros:

• Allows me to easily connect with new clients
• It’s possible to view other sitters in the region in order to set competitive rates for the market
• Extends a bit of legal protection to both clients and sitters
• Provides access to an emergency hotline in case of any incident with the animal(s) that may require medical care
• These clients often tip
• Payments are handled through the platform and deposited directly into sitters’ bank accounts at the time of the sit

Cons:

• On top of a service fee to clients, Rover also takes a hefty 20% of the payout to sitters
• You can’t proactively look for clients and must await requests
• You can only be available for requests in one locale at a time, which is a challenge for a nomad like me
• Clients often request meet & greets that require your unpaid investment of time, gas, and energy
• Though there are exceptions, these clients tend to extend less perks like free food or having guests visit the home
• The platform does not permit clients to reach out to prospective sitters without a sitting request, which often results in premature requests before clients even have their plans in place – this can be problematic because Rover evaluates sitters, in part, based on how many of the requests received are successfully booked

Click here to visit my Rover profile

Click here to use my referral link to join Rover

Wag

Wag entered the pet-care market a few years after Rover and is also quite active. From what I’ve gathered, they more heavily focus on dog-walking and on-demand opportunities. Although sitting opportunities are orchestrated through this platform and some people do post requests for further out, I have so far only had success in using it for dog-walking and drop-in visits that I apply for within a day or two of the service’s scheduling. I imagine it would be easier to use it for sitting gigs if I stayed put in one place longer.

With this platform, sitters are informed what typical rates in their market are and then set their own from there. Clients post their needed services to the platform, then interested sitters request the opportunity and the pet parent confirms with whichever sitter they choose.

Pros:

• The pet parents on this platform typically don’t expect meet & greets
• Being able to see and request gigs makes it easy to add work to your schedule on the fly when convenient – I love using Wag to earn a little side money while I’m traveling and it can be a great way to do some walking tourism of a new area
• Payments are handled through the platform and deposited directly into sitters’ bank accounts on a weekly basis
• Pet caretakers can leave notes about their experience with both the animal and human clients that only other caretakers can see, which often provide insight into potential challenges and solutions

Cons:

• I experienced a lengthy delay in being added to the Wag platform once I applied
• Wag takes 40% of the clients’ payments as a fee, which means pet parents may not realize how little their pet caretakers are making and tip less often
• It’s easy to request gigs, but you only get confirmations about the ones you are chosen for, which means you have to closely monitor the app to figure out when you are not selected
• Many times you are entering homes you have never been in before while the pet owner is away, which can be a bit disorienting or nerve-wracking on occasion
• You can’t see as much information about the gig or pet or home until you have requested it
• You can’t message the pet parent until they have selected you and you agree to the service

Click here to use my referral link to join Wag

Trusted Housesitters

Trusted Housesitters (THS) is an international platform that connects pet parents who want to travel with animal lovers willing to provide in exchange for free accommodations. Because many of the matches made on this site cross borders and folks are using travel visas (as opposed to work permits), the sits are unpaid and it works more like a bartering arrangement. Both pet parents and caretakers pay an annual membership fee and there are some background checks as well.

The site is especially conducive for home-free nomads like me; although some folks do local sits, most sitters are travelers. On this site, both sitters and pet parents post profiles that all members can see. It’s most common that sitters apply for openings, but occasionally pet parents will request specific sitters they’re interested in or do some proactive recruiting if they aren’t getting many applicants.

Pros:

• Typically, the clients extend many courtesies to make caretakers feel at home, such as inviting sitters to come a day early or stay late if helpful for their travel plans, providing free food or gift cards to defray expenses, and occasionally thank-you gifts
• Often these sits are in fabulous locations (e.g., in cool cities or close to beaches, mountains, etc) or homes that offer a lot of amenities, like pools, hot tubs, and so on.
• THS offers a small amount of insurance that protects homeowners and caretakers
• THS has a premium member plan that provides a capped amount of insurance money for sitters in the case of canceled sits, as well as some other perks
• The platform has a handy “Welcome Guide” template that pet parents can fill out to help caretakers acclimate to the home and pet(s)
• You can search by many parameters (e.g., dates, location, proximity to features like beaches and mountains) and also receive alerts for saved searches
• THS provides a 24/7 vet hotline in case any situations arise with the pet that may require medical attention

Cons:

• Although these sits are unpaid, they require just as much work as other sitting gigs, and sometimes more depending on requests made for the care of the home or yard
• Most pet parents wait until they have at least 2-3 applicants before choosing a sitter, so these arrangements often move a little bit slower than Rover
• The most attractive sits can attract dozens of applicants, which makes it fairly competitive
• Sometimes people change their travel plans, which can create hiccups for sitters
• It’s common, though not always the case, that you may arrive at a home after the pet parents have left, which can be disorienting and/or nerve-wracking depending on the situation
• The website usually works fairly well, but the app can be quite buggy and either fail to show profiles or welcome guides or lag in syncing messages in the inbox

Click here to visit my THS profile

Click here to use my referral link to join THS

Care.com

I joined Care because it appeared to offer plenty of geographical flexibility. However, I have found it difficult to effectively work with this platform so far. Many listings have sparse information and don’t even feature animal photos or care instructions. I never heard back from any pet parents when I’ve applied for posted openings and to receive requests, you must have the app downloaded, which I do not.

If I were not performing so strongly in the other methods listed above, perhaps I’d put more time into figuring out how to make this platform work better for me and have a more positive experience. But as of now, it’s not a good fit and I don’t have any plans to invest time or energy into troubleshooting the issues I’m having with it.