There’s something you probably should know about me! It’s nothing earth-shattering although possibly a little embarrassing, I have to admit that I’m more of a planner than a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of girl! I’m a firm believer that an Excel spreadsheet can be your best friend, especially when it comes to travel.
Thankfully for me, my hubby John is the exactly same.
We have only ever been on one holiday that wasn’t fully planned and we both found it extremely stressful. We seemed to spend our entire time sitting in the car searching on our phones for available accommodation.
I’d like to share with you some helpful tips to plan your house and pet sitting assignments.
Follow our easy pet sitting process.
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Plan your house and pet sitting jobs with Trusted House Sitters.
As I mentioned in the Beginner’s Guide to House and Pet Sitting: everything you need to know we opted to go with Trusted House Sitters as they have a good reputation and a large client base throughout the world.
I also chose them because I liked their searching capability; their filtering tool enables you to narrow down by both start and end date of when you are available, time-frame of house sit plus lots of other options.
Our Easy Pet Sitting Process
If you are not sure what to do, you might like to follow my easy step-by-step process to plan your house and pet sitting jobs using the Trusted House Sitters site:
- Decide on the dates you are available to travel.
- Decide if you want to stay at one house long term or move around to several locations.
- Filter your search by location (if you know exactly where you want to go) or leave the field blank to see what is available. You can also browse using the Map function.
- Apply additional filters to search by the dates you are available, the duration of the pet sitting opportunities as well as the type of pets etc.
- Review the pet sitting opportunities and click the heart in the top right corner if you find one you like.
- Make a list of your favourite pet sitting opportunities. **See the image below for more detail**
- Review your list of favourite pet sitting opportunities.
- If you find a single pet sitting opportunity you like that perfectly suits your time frame then click Apply.
- If your plan is to go on an extended vacation with multiple pet sitting opportunities then you will need to apply for multiple pet sitting opportunities. **See the image below for more detail**
- Work out which of the opportunities are most suitable by organising the pet sitting opportunities on a spreadsheet or chart. **See the image below for more detail**
How to ‘Make a list of your favourite pet sitting opportunities’
I always put together a very detailed list of the house and pet sitting opportunities that I might be interested in. Included in the list is information like:
- Start and finish dates of the pet sitting opportunity
- Location
- Number and type of animals
- Whether the house looks clean in the photos
- Feedback from reviews that the pet sitting family have received
- Expectations of the owner in regards to the amount of time the animal can be left, number of times it needs to be fed or walked etc.
I then use this information to prioritise the pet sitting opportunities that I want to apply for.
How to ‘Apply for multiple pet sitting opportunities’
To get a successful result with your house sitting applications you may need to apply for several house or pet sitting opportunities at the same time and take whichever opportunity comes in first. Alternately you could apply for your favourite, give it a week or two and then apply for another if you don’t receive a response.
Some house sitters will approve your application straight away if they like the sound of you whereas other will wait till they have a large number of applications to choose from – this may take months! Sometimes you will see house sits with more than 50+ house sitters waiting to hear if they were successful. This can be very frustrating when you are trying to organise your travel plans.
If you are new to house and pet sitting you may need to pass up on the more popular house sitting opportunities for a while till you have built up your reputation and can be a bit more selective.
When you have submitted multiple applications, obviously the polite thing to do is to cancel all the others as soon as you get a confirmation.
I always write a nice note thanking for them for the opportunity but that we are no longer available.
How to organise the pet sitting opportunities on a spreadsheet or chart.
I highly recommend writing the dates down on a piece of paper or putting them in an excel spreadsheet like I have in the image above.
If you have a look at the spreadsheet above you will notice that I have a list of dates and then several house and pet sitting jobs against each date.
When planning where you will go, make sure you allow a few days break between each one in case an owner is delayed and you need to stay longer than was originally agreed.
You also need to take into account travel time for you to get from your different house or pet sitting jobs.
Based on the house and pet sitting jobs I have listed in the spreadsheet above, my first choice would be for options 6, 4 then 5 as the locations are all within a few hours drive of each other. My second choice could be to go with option 6 then 7.
What happens next when you plan your house and pet sitting jobs?
I would apply for option 6 first, wait to hear if you were successful and then proceed with applying for option 4 and so on, if I was to get knocked back on option 6 then I would need to go back to the spreadsheet and rethink my entire itinerary.
It might sound a bit complicated but planning you house and pet sitting jobs is really quite easy one you get the hang of it. The advantage of planning the house and pet sitting jobs in detail like this means that you will end up with the minimum number of nights where you need to pay for your own accommodation.
If you aren’t sure if house and pet sitting is right for you then take the easy ‘Should I do house or pet sitting” quiz!
Save ‘Helpful tips to plan your House and Pet Sitting Jobs: the ‘Snap Travel Blog’ Pet Sitting Process’ for later.
Do you have any other house or pet sitting tips. Share them in the comments below!
