u/Privatenameee

I’m genuinely interested to know if there are any sitters on here who happen to have some hobbies. I make and sell handmade jewelry on the side so I bring my hobby with me wherever I stay. It’s definitely good to help mellow out at the end of the day and to start my mornings. Sometimes I have to take a significant break depending on my schedule. I also knit.

Anyone else?

Since I got a decent amount of responses, I posted a picture of one of my earrings in the comments, and would love to see photos of what everybody else does!

I never know how to properly respond to an owner when they offer to pay for something that their dog broke or destroyed. I went to take this dog out of my car and found that she had totally soaked my backseat. I took her to go to the bathroom before we left and she did. Last time I had her in my car, I thought it smelled like pee, but I didn’t know for sure that it was her even though I’ve never had a dog do this before. When I mentioned it to the owner, she said, maybe it was nerves and I said that I thought it had to do with how strong of a marker this dog is. That’s her only focus when we’re out walking, especially in areas where there are a lot of dogs. Last time I had her at my house, she marked all these different areas of my Rug, which I discovered after she left and we had to throw it away and get a new one. I mentioned all of this to the owner and she offered to pay for everything, but I don’t know how to respond to that. What would you say?

I did not ask for payment. She offered. I did not mention the previous incidences because I never expect clients to pay or replace things, but it is being offered. So my question is and please be kind, would you accept and how would you respond to this message?

I have a waterproof cover for the backseat of my car that I usually use

I just want to preface this by saying I always feel guilty when I come on here and talk about a client or difficult dog. But this is the place I go for advice and I remind myself of that. I also go to communicate with other Pet Sitters to see what their experience has been.

Has anybody ever had any experiences W/ Mini Poodles? I had read a lot online in the past about how difficult they are, but this is my first experience.

This is by far the worst sit I’ve ever had & unfortunately it’s my house. I have never had a worse trained dog. First off, I was told she was potty trained, but to put out a wee wee pad “just in case“. the first day at my house, which was six hours before bedtime, she pooped three times in my home. Woke up the next morning to poop in my house and by 8 AM, She had gone two more times in my house. Every time I walked out of the room, she was pooping in my house. I was taking her out every three hours and the moment we’d get back in and I would walk away, she would poop in my house, MOSTLY on the pad.

2nd- She is impossible to walk. She doesn’t walk in a line with you, but does circles around you,army crawling, and pulling like she’s petrified of everything and everyone which she is. When I try to hold her leash closer as well as shorten it so she has to walk next to me, she lies flat and refuses to walk. She knows how to manipulate your body so if you give her a little tug, she’s not going anywhere. We have officially given up on trying to take her for a walk and instead, walk her around our property.

3rd- Whether I leave her for two hours or five minutes, when I walk back in the room, she jumps up and down, scratching digging into my legs, snapping her jaw like she’s trying to bite. And I figured out pretty quickly, That’s exactly what she was trying to do when I put my hand down to pet her and she snapped at me. We walk around now with our hands raised when she does this& bc of that, she started biting, my clothes, my feet and my legs. I have a large bin of toys available for the dogs to play with when they’re here and we had to remove it because she was ripping apart every toy and pulling out the stuffing. And these were durable toys, some of them brand new.

4- I keep my dogs separate from the dogs that stay over at night. It’s rare that I will bring a dog that is staying over upstairs to my room. In terms of safety, I feel that that’s the best course of action, but I also like my dogs to have a portion of the house that is strictly theirs. I will not bring a dog upstairs that isn’t fully potty trained, no matter how close my dogs may be with that Friend. The first night, this dog barked the entire night downstairs. The second night, I woke up to her in my kitchen after she broke through my gate where she then proceeded to go to the bathroom in my kitchen. Last night being the third night, I woke up to her barking outside my bedroom door upstairs. She broke through multiple gates, went to the bathroom all over my new rug, and ran up the stairs. These are gates that nobody has ever broken through before.

I feel like my house smells, even though I’m constantly vacuuming and swiffering & lighting candles. I feel anxious& worried about how the rest of these days are going to go.

Share with me your worst experience so that hopefully I can feel a little better knowing that somebody else had it worse 🙂

What has your experience been like with any geriatric dogs with bathroom issues? So far, I’ve only had small elderly male dogs who had issues with being able to hold their bladder, but never large dogs that I’ve worked with.

I have a dog that is going to be 14 years old staying at my house right now. She is an old English Labrador. The owner‘s mother is 96 years old and lives in I believe Minnesota or North Dakota so it’s a flight for them to get there. Her mother is not in a position to move to where the owner lives and the owner can’t move to where the mother live lives so this is their situation.

The dog has taken a turn, which is really hard to say. The family contacted me the day before the booking just to let me know that things are a little different. I immediately overnighted extra large wee wee pads, and diapers to my house. This dog used to have a bladder of steel. No matter how many times we took her out, she would only go to the bathroom twice a day, sometimes only once. She would wolf down her food very quickly and now all of that has changed. She’s not finishing her food & tonight She didn’t even eat her dinner. Her bladder of steel started to go a few weeks ago so she’s wearing diapers and she can’t really lift her back legs so she’s in a full body harness to help walk her around. She still has life to her. Whatever my clients decide with their elderly dogs, I just lend a supportive ear. I just feel like this girl doesn’t have that much longer. She has a booking with me in two weeks and one in December.

I hate this part of the job. I also hate this part as a dog owner. My dog’s about to be 11 and I’m not ready for what’s to come in the next few years. I hate saying goodbye to them & the families

I don’t mean any pet peeves with owners, but when it comes to working with the animals. Mine is dogs walking behind me. I have a bunch who constantly do that and continuously tangle leashes. Also, I want to make sure I’ve got eyes on them and that they’re not behind me eating things or seeing something that they’re going to react to without my knowledge.

I posted a video recently that went viral. I’ve been posting on and off for the last two years. Generally my videos get anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 views, lots of likes and new followers. The company reached out to me, a reputable company, about selling the video to them. According to my research, they collect viral videos to use as distribution. I can sell the video and keep some of the rights but the amount you get for it isn’t that significant or I could sell the rights to the video and make thousands. Would this be an immature move on my part?

TLDR- Would you consider a 29 year-old man who wets the bed, something he has never been able to grow out of since being potty trained, the majority of nights an issue when he’s not using diapers or anything to protect, especially when you don’t have a washer or dryer or a laundromat in your town nor does this young man have his license to drive to one? What would you do?

My cousin with a disability who pays rent lives with me & he asked if his friend could move in & pay rent. His friend was living with a family member & was told he could no longer live there. I was persistent for a while on no & then agreed, but I was very clear that I didn’t want to take anybody w any issues/problems, who wasn’t taking care of themselves &/or would ask me for help in relation to. I’ve spent the last 10 years taking care of everybody else but myself. I spoke to this man privately on multiple occasions before about these boundaries.

After finding out about this, I kicked him out. I told him it’s bc I was clear on my boundaries. We also told him prior to moving in that we didn’t have any machines & he lied & said that wouldn’t be a problem. I told him that by not using diapers or bed pads & by not researching how he would get his laundry done before moving in was him not taking care of himself or properly managing this problem. When you come to me on my 1st day off in wks & ask me to find & drive you to & from a laundromat, & when I have to go out & buy bed pads that you should already have, that’s me helping & you not taking care of yourself. He kept telling me that this wasn’t an issue. he fought me the entire way not understanding why it was a problem for me. I would’ve been checking in w this man constantly asking if he had diapers, if he was using the pads, asking when he was planning on getting to the laundromat to wash & worried the room would smell like pee.

What would you do? How would you handle this?

Have you ever experienced one of your families going through something traumatizing and did you say or do anything for them? Have you ever met a family that you later learned secondhand went through some thing horrific and did you bring it up? What’s your limits when it comes to getting involved with families?

I’m an empathetic person & one of my biggest issues is that I get way too emotionally involved with my families. I found out one of the families that I work for was actually involved in a story that I heard growing up on the news. The husband’s dad shot and killed his mom for the insurance money. Somebody recently mentioned the story to me and I immediately went on the defense. The Son’s basketball coach is a family member of mine. I went home that night and googled it and discovered that he was right. I feel awful now knowing this. They are the sweetest family and this husband who I didn’t meet until about three years later, came up to me personally, shook my hand and said that he wanted to “thank the person who takes such good care of his family”.

Can anybody help? Does anybody have any suggestions? He has been living with me for eight years and he does have a learning disability, but he’s completely functional. He loves the Mets and the Jets, but because of the way he was raised, he now doesn’t have any friends. And the friends he keeps making at work are definitely not good ones.

Would you consider a 29 year-old man who wet the bed the majority of nights an issue when he’s not using diapers or anything to protect his clothes or his bedding, specially when you don’t have a washing machine or dryer, nor do you have a laundromat in your town nor does this young man have his license to drive to one?

My cousin lives with me and he asked if his friend could move in. His friend was living with a family member and was told that he could no longer live there. I was persistent for a while on no and then I agreed, but I was very clear that I didn’t want to take anybody in with any more issues in my house. I took my cousin in eight years ago who has a disability and it has been hell. He’s finally in a better place, but he’s not in a place of living on his own. Prior to that for two years, I took care of my mom who was dying of cancer so I’ve spent the last 10 years taken care of everybody else but myself. I spoke to this man privately on multiple occasions before he moved in about how I couldn’t take anybody else that needed help anymore. Because of my job there are so many families that I am currently helping through some situations and it’s been very emotionally draining.

After finding out about this, I told him he couldn’t live with us and he did leave and I told him it’s because I was clear in that I didn’t want anybody else in my household who had any form of issues and he told me this isn’t an issue. he fought me the entire way not understanding why it was a problem for me. I would’ve been checking in with this man constantly asking if he had diapers, if he was using the pads, when he was planning on getting to the laundromat to wash his clothes and blankets. I would’ve been constantly worried that the room that he was staying in would smell like pee & yet he gave me an incredibly hard time about leaving and didn’t understand why I was claiming this was an issue. So I ask you, does this sound like an issue to you? AITAH?

Edit: he won’t go to the doctor because as he told me, he tried when he was a kid & the medication didn’t work nor did potty alarms and so this is just how his life is and how his life will be. I told him that’s not OK living in this household because I’ll be too worried about if he’s properly managing it and if it’s going to affect this household. And I told him that I was very clear that I wouldn’t take in Anybody else who had any issues. This man persisted that this isn’t an issue and that it’s something he “manages“ & it wouldn’t be my problem.

Edit #2: his way of managing it according to him prior to moving in was just washing his clothes and sheets every day, but he knew when moving in that we didn’t have a washing machine or dryer and he didn’t check the location of the town to see if we had the laundromat that he could get to. He doesn’t have his license so he would solely depend on the bus or train to get him to a laundromat. I obviously have my license and a car so it’s not an issue for me.

I don’t get it. I recently met a new family who keeps reaching out to me often about coming to their house and “babysitting“ their dog. They had a couple of emergencies recently and reached out saying that they needed someone immediately because they had to leave the house. I just wanted to say to them, “so leave the house“.

I don’t get these people who revolve their whole life around someone being home with their dogs. It’s not healthy for them and it certainly isn’t healthy for the dog. And as I tell anybody that I have met, you can’t always guarantee that you can be home for the next 10 to 15 years that your dog is alive. You might have an emergency that prevents you from being able to stay at home and then your poor dog is going to suffer because you didn’t do what you needed to do to prepare them for your absence.

Have you had any experience in meeting owners who refused to leave their dogs at home alone and what was their reasoning? And have you boarded any dogs who had never been left alone where you then left them alone in your home? We did that once and the dog caused so much damage to my house.

You know when you think about something and then it happens? I had been thinking a couple weeks ago how really lucky I was that none of the families I worked for ever Had any emergencies that prevented them from getting home to their pets. What made me think this, had to do with all the Reddit posts through this past year that I read of people who were in similar situations.

Last weekend I get a text from my client that his girlfriend had a medical emergency in Costa Rica. I worked as a Pet Sitter separately for the two of them and then they ended up dating. They now live together as do their dogs. They thought she had a pulmonary embolism. It turned out She had a heart attack. While getting a procedure done on her heart, she suffered a stroke and now she can’t walk. She is 54 years old. She was finally medically Cleared to take a special flight home from Costa Rica back to our state to another hospital & will be back locally tonight. It’ll be a long road in getting her home and she could use all the thoughts and prayers from anyone & everyone.

❤️

This woman was in a loveless crappy marriage. When I would go hiking in the morning and see her, we would walk and talk together. She’s extremely active both personally and professionally. She had found a good man, and they were extremely happy together, just purchasing a hometogether in which they were just starting their nine month remodeling on where they’re supposed to move out for the time being. The boyfriend told me it was going to be a long haul in getting her back home. I hope this doesn’t mean that she will have lifelong paralysis or damage that prevents her from continuing as she has been doing. There are just some people who don’t deserve the things that happened to them and she is one of them.