Family offers responsive pet-sitting

More information about this house sitter

Hello, we are Sarah (44), Till (43), and T. (7,5), and we offer experienced, responsive, and gentle pet-sits for periods upwards of one month. We are currently based in Germany, and have been using a different platform for sits in Europe. However, we spent 3.5 months in Perth, WA, in 2024, and would love to return for another sit near our friends there.

We are happy to send more pictures, police clearance, recommendations and contacts of our friends in Perth, including a family we house and pet-sat for last year, via chat.

The adults among us are educators/coaches/therapists/researchers, one of us is in the position of a governmental clerk in Germany, where we usually live. T. (7.5) dreams of having an animal sanctuary and has boundless affection, attention, and patience for their needs. He is also experienced in respectfully adapting to temporary accommodations.

To T’s great regret, we currently don’t have ‘at least one dog and cat’ of our own because we hope to move countries soon and travel a lot in preparation. We therefore pet-sit as much as we can in the meantime, both in Germany and during travel. (See below for more on us.)

We are well experienced in living in and taking care of other people's homes, as well as caring for a variety of non-humans. We favor non-dominating approaches and have excellent experience with problem-solving gently around various needs.

We won’t be a good match for anyone who continuously feels unsafe around children in general, but outside of that, everyone we have met so far appreciates T.'s abundance of attention and availability for cuddles and play. Pets with allergies, health-related support needs, ‘difficult behaviors’, and initial anxiety around new people and outdoors are welcome.

We require accommodation with access to stable WIFI for work and research.

We prefer non-smoking homes.

What we offer:
We will care responsibly and reliably for your house, garden, and pets in such a manner that you find them in the same condition you left.

Anxious or ‘difficult’ pets with allergies and medical needs are very welcome as long as they can generally feel safe around young children.

Our approach is non-dominating, responsive, and gentle. We enjoy gently working out what our entrusted friends need to feel safe, gain trust, and have their needs met, and we prefer to look for what might be behind any 'challenging behavior' and problem-solve around that.

This not only feels best to us, but has also helped anxious and 'difficult' pets gain trust and a sense of safety quickly with us.

Before the sit:
We care about digital privacy and avoid posting pictures online (not only of ourselves, but also of the pets we meet and houses we stay in). However, we appreciate that pictures build trust and are happy to send you more via chat.

We prefer investing more time into the pre-sit process to ascertain as best as possible that it’ll be a good match for everyone and hopefully minimise the risks for last-minute cancellations, as it’s harder for us as a traveling family to find suitable alternative accommodation. Outside of unforeseeable emergencies, we therefore prefer to make sure that both sides can happily uphold any agreement we come to. We are happy to provide police clearance (which is required for our work anyway) and put you in touch with long-term references in Perth and Germany.

We are happy to arrive early for the best-possible handover if we can find matching tickets.
We would, of course, also expect transparency and reliability in terms of plans and timely communication in emergencies that require unavoidable changes of plans.

During the sit:
We prefer longer stays (upwards of 4 weeks) and have stayed in a variety of homes or short-term rentals over the past years.
We don't smoke or consume recreational drugs, we eat plant-based foods, use allergy-sensitive cleaning products (that we'll buy ourselves), and have some insight into allergies of different physiologies (humans and some animals).
While things won't consistently look like an IKEA ad during our stay, hygiene and leaving homes just as we found them are very important to us.

We usually have quiet routines during our travels and spend at least our mornings and evenings at home. During afternoons, we enjoy meeting up with friends, going swimming, to parks and pursue other physical or cultural activities. While we like being active, we prefer quieter areas and have become good at finding them, even in busy cities. This also seems to work well for any anxious dogs that enjoy coming along.

We aren’t experienced gardeners, but are happy to water and weed gardens, run (some) errands, buy specialized pet foods, and drive to vets if we have access to a vehicle.

This year, one of the dogs we regularly sit for required sudden, life-saving surgery for a previously undiscovered tumor while under our care. Thankfully, it all worked out very well, but while we hope to never have this happen again during a sit, we think that maintaining good communication is crucial to keeping everyone as safe and happy as possible.


More about us:
Sarah is an academic and educator/consultant around child development, nervous system responses, educational justice and inclusion, multilingual, and has lived in lots of different places.
Till is, technically, a music teacher in a governmental clerk position, but is currently changing gears and studying psychology. He didn't use to travel as much before he met Sarah, but he's enjoyed spending time in different places since. (He doesn't make music in anyone's home, of course).
T. is a self-directed learner (multi-lingual home-education) with good community ties in multiple places, an explorer and immensely passionate about all kinds of things, including some gardening and watering plants.
He has loved pets, especially dogs and cats, since the age of 2 and grew up thinking of animals as separate persons with their own personalities and boundaries. He has been around anxious, ‘difficult’, avoidant, or simply senior dogs and cats, is immensely patient and will sit still on the ground for hours if a cautious cat initiates (very) slow contact.

Please DM me for further information and we can arrange a chat. Read more...