Within a week or so of signing up to house/pet sit, we were able to land our first sit in in SW London (Wandsworth). The owner was definitely in a pinch, so we were glad to be able to help her out on short notice. Unlike most house sits, nobody was home when we arrived–just the two dogs and cat. This made for an initially interesting experience, since we were basically wandering around in a complete stranger’s home, but it ended up working out just fine.
The owner had two dogs and a cat (Bruno, Truffle, and Arnold). Bruno was a cockapoo puppy, Truffle a bichon frise rescue dog, and Arnold a large cat. All of the animals were great, and we didn’t have any issues at all (after the initial why-are-these-strangers-in-our-home barking spell).
Our sitting responsibilities were pretty straight-forward. Each day we had to feed all of the animals, take the dogs on a couple of walks, and make sure the cat was inside the home overnight. That was it, so nothing too difficult. Bruno was a high-energy puppy (is there any other type?), so we ended up taking the dogs to a beautiful park nearby to wear them out a bit each day. We really enjoy taking walks ourselves, so the dogs ended up going with us pretty much everywhere while we were in Wandsworth. They enjoyed this, as it meant they ended up taking up to five walks in a day.
Overall, our first sitting experience was great. We didn’t really have any problems–except trying to remember not to walk out in front of traffic. The owner was very pleased when she arrived, and even brought us a gift from France. She also extended the house sit a day, which helped us out, since we had several days in London after the house sit, but no accommodations arranged. We eventually found another last-minute sit in East London, so we didn’t end up having to pay during our 11-day stay (or stay with a “nudist/naturalist” Couchsurfer, which was one of our few options…).