Advice? Leaving review for sitter
Hi, all. We have had 3 excellent housesitters over the past 7 months (1 dog, 1 cat)— maybe too good, because it has set our expectations pretty high. We are thinking about leaving a four star review (for the fourth and most recent) for two reasons.
Before we confirmed the sit, for 3 nights, she came over to meet the dog and we mentioned that we would expect a photo and a brief report every night. She said OK. We confirmed, she was happy, & we sent her our welcome guide two weeks in advance. We also printed it for her. At the top, it asks that she send a photo and a report every night.
Issue #1: While she confirmed that she had arrived that afternoon, she didn’t send us anything the first night, so the next morning I asked if it worked for her to please send us a photo and a report. She was extremely confused. She said she did not know what a “report” meant, so I said we’d just like to know one thing that our pets did that day. She then did so, but we’re scratching our heads about how this could be confusing.
Issue #2: Although she has several five star reviews and said she was experienced, we failed to explicitly ask how much experience she has with dogs. When we got home, the pets were happy enough, but it was obvious that our dog had snuck upstairs to poop *three* separate times. In three days. This never happens— he never poops [edited: inside]. My sense is that she did not let him outside enough, or did not walk him enough, or otherwise ignored his signals that he had to go. (Honestly, I don’t fault her for not going upstairs; she had the entire downstairs to herself, and we told her there was no reason to go upstairs.) In our welcome guide and in our conversation, we had told her that he’s used to a lot of activity and she indicated that she was going to take him on long hikes. It’s fine that they didn’t go hiking— but again, I suspect she ended up taking him on very short walks that didn’t give him time to do his business.
It would be helpful to have some input on whether we are overreacting. (If it sounds like I’m overreacting, I will add that we had to make an emergency vet visit this week because of the dog eating part of a tennis ball – and part of me wonders if he ate it while she was at our house and she wasn’t paying attention to what he was eating. I watched him pretty closely the day we got home, and he was sick the next day.).