How I Became a World Famous Celebrity Pet Sitter

‘So how does it feel to be the most famous pet sitter in the world, Tamara?’ A celebrity pet sitter … amusing.

‘Hello, what?’ Blush. Giggle. ‘You don’t think you’re exaggerating just a little?’

‘No, have you seen what people say about you? You are high in demand. And your reviews are better than anyone else on Trusted Housesitters.’

‘Well, I’m not sure about that, really? But I know they are good. It’s a great ego boost, thank you. And it’s interesting to get your take on it. I don’t often get to see it from the house owner’s perspective.’

I met Adam two minutes ago and my head is undergoing some major swelling in his company.

Not only him.

‘We love you, Tamara!’ Implores his delightful wife ‘Tash’ – Natasa, with a thick and beguiling Croatian accent. Then they say it in unison.

‘My husband’s looking at you as though he was in love with you,’ she adds. Or rather coos.

‘Well I hope not … for both of our sakes.’ She’s smiling. No sense of personal vendettas.

Let’s Pinch the Celebrity Pet Sitter!

So what has brought all this on? This huge gush of mutual fandomism for Tamara-ra-ra-ra.

Tash and Adam have dropped round to try and woo me into pet sitting their two dogs in Sydney in August. If they could have their way, my other sit – starting Monday – would vaporise into thin air and they would snatch me up as their sitter.

Her first message to me was pretty straight up … And lovely and personal.

‘Hi Tamara, Hope you are having an amazing day! I was wondering if you would be interested in house sitting. We have 2 gorgeous little dogs – Bella and Bruno, pug x and Maltese x. Looking forward to hearing from you. Tash.’

When Pet Sitting Becomes Home Hunting … or Party House

So why in a seemingly houseowner’s market, with an abundance of available sitters (a deluge actually), am I being solicited so sweetly? … And patently needily too. When I could see Natasa had received a full set of applications. The five it takes for the listing to automatically shut off as the owner ‘reviews applications’.

‘There are definitely so many applications that don’t have experience or even references,’ she writes almost crying through the screen.

‘I am getting anxious because we didn’t found anyone and it is so hard to find someone who you can trust your loved ones and home. You seem perfect – trustworthy, responsible and reliable. Thank you so much for your response and if wonder happens and your new pet parents cancel, please let me know. Best wishes, Natasa 😘

I’d just been hearing about how people are getting bombarded with dozens of applications, many of them from totally inexperienced sitters. I’d just missed out on one sit, having been shortlisted from a field of 70 plus applicants. Which by the time I was ‘interviewed for the position’ got down to two. Three if you count both members of the couple.

‘Here’s another statistic for you,’ Gerry told me, speaking about the frustrating process fielding sitters for that sit. ‘Of 72 applicants, most had no experience. And half of them at least had no reviews.’

Globetrotting Pet Sitters Without References

That is, zilch. Not a single one. Hard to sell your sitter charms without any references, but the extra competition is making things stressful for owners and experienced sitters.

The phenomenon started after Australia’s impervious to the world borders finally opened up in early 2022. The post-Covid sitting world was one of holidaymakers, primarily long-lost family members flying in from the UK to see their emigrated children. With hotel prices at record highs, young travellers were also going on sitting sites and offering to pay the owners to have their places to stay in. Talk about price and profession gouging for those of us who do this more or less professionally.

‘It’s so obvious to me that everyone bar you applying for this sit were UK tourists,’ Shelley told me in August 2022.

‘But then they would all be off sightseeing and Sam (the toy Cavoodle) would be left at home alone the whole time.’

At that point, it was still a sitters market, as international travel slowly chuffed back onto the rails again. Once it did, the wheel turned and sits slowly started to become thin and far between.

Then, with the housing, rental, interest rate crisis in Australia, suddenly, every Tom, Dick and Jane was jumping on the housesitting bandwagon. And the unscrupulous housesitting associations just collect those membership fees like Scrooge counting dollars. And don’t give two hoots about the havoc it’s causing both homeowners and experienced sitters. In my case, 30 years of.

For Gerry, he had to sift through applications and start all over again each time the system reached its limit. But he still hadn’t come up trumps.

Pet Parent Despair Over Untrusted Housesitters

‘I have a feeling that this website is quantity over quality atm,’ Tash tells me in another message. ‘Some people do not even find it necessary to provide references or ID identification. Thank you very much once again.’

Thank you, because I’d offered to try and find a friend who might be interested in this sit for her. So as the Trusted Housesitters coffers swell under the influence of green newcomers, owners are happy (and desperate enough) to find sitters off-site. Thus throwing the whole membership thing into doubt and making something of a mockery of the Trusted Housesitters brand. All is not well in the state of Denmark!

So much so, that Tash and Adam are prepared to go out of their way to meet me and discuss this. Even though they know I’m taken until August 7 – and they’re wanting to leave in a week’s time, on July 20. Actually, I suggest they split the sit between me and another sitter if they want me that much. I can take over from the 7th.

Tash and Adam drop around for a cuppa (bringing Bruno and Bella for a play date with my current charge, Archie). The dogs are in the cutest baskets in the car.

Now I learn, astoundingly, many of these inexperienced, largely unverified members present themselves as sitter candidates with an odd choice of photos …

‘Not of them with animals or cuddling pets, you know. But with party hats, tinnies in their hands and friends draped all over them,’ howls Tash.

As a friend of mine once asked in completely different circumstances, just what are they selling? Their ability to drink your bar dry and burn your house down.

‘There is no way I would leave my pets – or my house in their hands,’ she says.

The Attraction of Foreign Place, Foreign Pet

Don’t get me wrong. I believe very much in a free and open market. And my heart bleeds for the trillions of people affected by the current housing crisis.

Sure, for me too, there’s always been an element of needing to have a roof over my head in pet sitting. I guess I’m not just doing it for the lifestyle. But mainly it has presented a perfect accessory over the years to a vagabond life and an innate travel itch. For a travel writer, the lure of foreign places and foreign pets is irresistible.

But the dynamics of the current situation means that pet sitting often has nothing to do with pet lovers. The idea that you are not guaranteed to have your pet (and house) looked after by taking on a sitter is absurd.

For me, a love of travel meets with a genuine love of pets in pet sitting. Pets are my travel companions. I’m there to see them as much as the sights. In truth, there are hundreds of other sitters like me – with their hearts in the pet’s place and amazing reviews. (And I’m sure you have realised by now my facetious references to a celebrity pet sitter.)

5 Star Sitter

‘Compare this to you, Tamara, with 25 5-star reviews.’ Tash even knows one pretty much by heart.

‘She said she will try not to be selfish and recommend you even if it means losing you.’ …

Dear Pamela, I am as reluctant to lose her from my grip as she is me from hers.

So within an hour, the deal had been sealed. Tash and Adam had incredulously postponed their trip to Europe to have me as a star sitter – wrapping their dates around my availability. And I had waylaid – possibly foregone – my Europe trip, in my eagerness to please and bask in my celebrity sitter moment.

Pangs for Europe

‘We’re a team and it has to be for the benefit of all,’ says Adam. Yes there are aspects of this sit that suit me too, of course. Otherwise I would never have taken it on. But with the infallible antipodean separation, it’s not happened without playing on my heartstrings a bit. You can’t have it both ways. The distance between Australia and Europe makes that message loud and clear, and occasionally heartbreaking if you have emotions invested as I do on either side of the world.

As to Natasa’s poor mum waiting for her daughter after a 4 year COVID hiatus (and on July 21 to be reunited for her birthday) … ‘She just says make sure you choose the best thing for the fur children then the rest will work out,’ Tash says. ‘We will celebrate her birthday every day we’re there.’

So, I will leave Breakfast Point and head to Lindfield to look after Bellisima and Brunolicious on August 7.

‘7th of August is my birthday. It must be a sign,’ Tash says.

I’m trying to take it as one too. Despite some regret about still not getting back to France, things have come together nicely. Sometimes when you’re living all the uncertainty of life out of a suitcase, that’s a sign enough.