@AllisonC Wow, she should charge extra to this kind of customers. Recompensation for additional cleaning effort and loss of sanity

I made some attempts at filming playtime with my kittens. But I feel like they're not very good. Particularly because I don't do a good job of playing when wondering how the camera is doing. Maybe I need a director/assistant cameraperson.

lol

@luserdroog its not easy

Turns out I don't need the two handed operation, though. Fannie started to take the bench once in a while so Finn can get a turn if he takes the opportunity.

most of my good dog videos were the doggo playing with someone else

@Elmy I keep saying the same thing. There should be a "lying pet owner" fee. (If you're honest that your dog isn't appropriately housebroken and the sitter is prepared, fine! If you say "oh she's perfectly housebroken" while handing over a stack of pee pads, you're a liar.)

When you are chopping something on the kitchen counter and turn around:

This particular one, in addition to peeing (and other things) everywhere as soon as the owner left, also spent a full nine hours literally screaming. My cats were stressed. I was stressed, my other housemate's dog was terrified. I left work early to go for a swim to get away from the noise.

”Of course I am not begging. I am showing very good behavior to encourage you to share your food with me!”

When it was all resolved, I spent a good amount of time writing a rather lengthy email to the service about how absolutely negligent toward the health and safety of their sitters and sitters' pets it is to not allow sitters to rate clients.

@AllisonC That’s so incredibly cruel, not just to the sitter, but obviously to the dog as well!

@Stephie that's either hypnosis (you'll let that juicy steak fall on the floor and forget about it) or psychokinesis (I'll move the juicy steak over the edge of the counter without touching it)

They background check and train all their sitters for "the client pet's safety," but there's no checks on a single client, and plenty of dogs who've come in who want to kill her cats, or get into major fights, or try to attack smaller dogs...

Every owner says their dog is a "perfect little angel, so quiet and well behaved." Half of them are LIARS.

@Stephie I agree! Especially since, like I said, it disregards the safety of other animals in the household, to not be able to add warnings like "this one plays rough" or "this one will go after smaller animals"

This isn't the first screaming pee-er she's had to throw out, there was another one a few days ago that she made the owner come pick up after a few hours. (This one's owner kept saying, "Oh but she's perfectly housetrained! She'll calm right down, she's just excited to play with the other dogs!")

NINE.

HOURS.

@AllisonC Yeah, it's simple: GREED. Every client check costs money and every refused client doesn't bring in any money

And it didn't stop because the dog suddenly started to behave. It stopped because another sitter took the damn thing and it was only here for nine hours.

@AllisonC Wow. I mean, I feel really bad for your housemate, but also for the dog

@Elmy My email brought up how Uber works. I've used Uber as a passenger, which lets you rate your driver (which is how Rover also works). But I've also known several Uber drivers, and they can rate the passengers too, so people who are rude, disruptive, or leave trash behind have warnings attached by the drivers.

@AllisonC Oh, that's a nice idea. Suddenly the customer is not the king anymore but has to behave like a civilized being

@Elmy My housemate is a lot more averse to confrontation than I tend to be. I told her, if the dog came in and immediately started screaming and peeing while the owner handed me pee pads and said she's housetrained, I would have cancelled the stay on the spot. "Sorry, you've misrepresented this dog, I can't keep her here."

@Elmy EXACTLY. I've worked enough service jobs to know the customer is not only not always right, but in fact, rarely right and usually entitled (at least here).

@AllisonC Yeah, let's agree on a definition of "housetrained" first...

I'd call it "only peeing outside"

(she took in an elderly foster rescue recently, a little rough shape but very sweet, and as it happens, extremely housebroken. He was barking a ton, on a guess I let him out, and he stopped barking as soon as he was back--he just REALLY had to go.)

@AllisonC Wow, that's what I call a good boy XD

@Elmy He is a very good boy (and very cute), I don't think he'll be in rescue long. Someone will give him a good home very soon.

@AllisonC whuch seems reasonable IMO

@JourneymanGeek people around here seem to really like adopting senior pets (which is great), and especially with being super friendly and sweet he should get adopted fairly quick

Oh, I meant peeing outside as being housetrained ._.

whoops. Yes, peeing anywhere other than outside is definitely not housetrained for a dog! (or anywhere other than a litterbox for a cat.)

@AllisonC there used to be an old scottish gent (well still might be!) who'd basically adopt large old dogs here. he had a goldie that had to be put on a diet cause he liked spuds and then a giant malamute

@AllisonC I think the local petshops pad train them these days. My late dog was basically would refuse to do it on anything but grass the moment he realised someone would bring him to do that

All the dogs we had when I was a kid were from breeders, we had to do some basic housetraining when we got them home, but being a farm, they actually tended to be largely outdoor animals (at least for a few years, now the dogs hang out inside again).

Apartments here but my neighbourhood has lots of green... 25 floors down

One of the surprisingly popular things right around here is actually adopting Korean meat dogs. I didn't expect to see how many of them were being sent into my area for adoption.

we tended to have a routine like clockwork

0_0

That's a long trip to the green

future place is 12 floors up

Well that's an improvement over 25!

My last two places only went up 3 floors

Oh I picked the highest floor

and well

I'm not sure about a dog in future

Fair enough. There's some advantages to being on the highest floor, too (no noisy upstairs neighbors)

Oh, there's 2 floors highrr

er highest available floor I mean

If I get the job I applied for, that's one moving part

fingers crossed for you!

Well at best I am 2-3 years out I think