House and Pet Sitting Services

Hello!

We are a caring and conscientious retired couple in our 50s who enjoy spending our time exploring the world. We enjoy it so much that we even moved to another continent, so that we’d be closer to new destinations! Together we’ve owned several homes and acted as “pet parents” to several generations of dogs and cats – at peak capacity pets outnumbered us 2:1. Back in our working days, we often used house sitters while went on our own adventures; we know first-hand both how valuable good house sitters are to your peace of mind and also how nerve-wracking it can be to find “the right ones”. We also know that finding house sitters who will take good care of your pets is part science and part art, so getting to know more about us is vital.

While we both had a pretty nomadic early life, we spent the last 20+ years before retirement in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, specifically in a suburb of Seattle, Washington. Like a lot of people, the 2020 pandemic prompted us to reassess our lives. We retired from the working world and now live in Northern Portugal. (If you’d like to know more, this is covered (exhaustively, some might say) here on our blog.) We are interested in exploring the world, and especially in taking advantage of our new freedom to get off the “tourist track” and see more of the actual world out there. We aren’t much on shopping – we prioritize sites of archaeological interest as well as art museums and interesting theater. Plus, we’ve never met a cuisine we didn’t want to get to know better! One of the great things about pet sitting for people in their homes is that these opportunities can be anywhere. Sure, people have pets that need care in the great capitals of the world, but they also live in the towns and villages everywhere else, and those places are just as interesting to us.

So, great, that’s why we want to do this, but why should you want us to watch over your home and your pets? Start with the easy bits – we don’t smoke, do any drugs stronger than ibuprofen, nor do we drink more than socially. Our idea of a wild night out is dinner and a show; not that that’s not fun, but it doesn’t have us out at all hours. We also run a bit towards introversion, so while we love to explore we don’t particularly like doing it for too long. Plus, and not to put too fine a point on it, we really like animals. We only don’t have them now as a quirk of our lifestyle, and we expect that to change as the years go by. In the meantime, we revel in the chance to spend quality time with your pets instead.

So, we’ll feed and play with your pets, great; but that’s the easy part. Over the years we’ve had pets that needed medication administered to them in almost every way imaginable – in their food, injected with syringe, squirted in their mouth, rubbed in their ears, etc… Poking and prodding critters when necessary holds no fears for us. Also, we had sporting dogs for many years so long walks, swims, active play and suchlike (long fetch sessions, dog park visits etc…) are things that John in particular actively misses. The best sign of good pet care in our own experience was that when we arrived back home from a trip our pets were happy to see us but not frantically overjoyed – that told us that their lives hadn’t been disrupted more than necessary and they’d been well tended in our absence. Our goal now is for that to be your reception when you return home.

We understand the trust you place in us to take care of your home and pets while you are away and we take that responsibility seriously. We will happily send you loads of pictures if you want them (although we’ve also known people who like to unplug from everything while on the road – that’s fine too, obviously) and can take care of small errands while housesitting. We aren’t horticulturalists but can manage to water your plants, mow the grass and similar. We’ve owned our own homes so we’re used to handling common household problems and are comfortable reaching service people if something is beyond us.

So. That’s us. What do we want from you? Well not money, that’s the easy part. We are all for a 100% barter situation – we don’t pay for the use of your home, but you don’t pay us for the care and stewardship we provide. We appreciate some kind of contingency fund for pet or house care, but we’d never forego anything needed because there wasn’t money up front. We handle our own travel arrangements, although if you don’t live in a relatively dense/urban environment we’d strongly prefer the use of a car – general rule of thumb, if you need to drive for your own day-to-day life (shopping etc…) then assume we will, too. (We’re willing to pay for an insurance rider if that’s possible and something you’d like.) If you’re in a city or similar situation where you can walk to amenities or good public transportation, that’s just fine. We prefer a house sit length of at least one week, and while prior commitments are always a possibility, if we’re available we don’t mind coming on short notice. Our lives being what they are, we do need a modern internet connection – no dial-up or rudimentary satellite service, please.

We can provide references upon request. Please don’t hesitate to contact us!