Highbury, South Australia

About this house sitting position in Highbury

Hi prospective house sitters! Come for a holiday in our home. :-)

We're looking for a wonderful person or couple to care for our dog Arlie, and home, while we take our very delayed honeymoon (meant to be 2020!) to Europe.

Please note, we're currently locking in dates but it will be early May to mid to late June 2023 - approx. 6-7 weeks.

We are located in the North East of Adelaide in Highbury, just back from the Linear Park.

Benefits for you:
- Clean, comfortable house with lovely gardens and views of Black Hill
- Wood fire place
- Close to Linear Park and the Highbury Aqueduct - great walks and especially beautiful that time of the year as everything is so green
- Found-Space Infrared Sauna
- Queen bed and own bathroom with deep bath
- Lovely neighbourhood and neighbours
- Only 13 mins on the bus to the city from Paradise Interchange (5-10 mins drive from house with free parking)
- Close to Tea Tree Plaza for plenty of shops
- Close to Campbelltown which has a range of delicious Italian eateries (Mercato is our favourite!)

Things for you to be aware of:
- Arlie is a special needs dog (of sorts)... That's probably being a little extreme as he's genuinely great, but he has a few things that we want to be very upfront with. By the time you sit, he will be 8 years old. We rescued him at age 2, and he had unfortunately had quite a difficult start to life. As such, he is on medication morning and night. This is a couple of capsules given in some food, so you'd need to be comfortable with giving him these medications - it's really important he doesn't miss them. He is a great human dog, but doesn't get along with a lot of dogs, so you will need to come without animals sorry. He is great on a walk, loves the local area, you just need to be vigilant of others who may have their dog off lead and step to the side or change course in the event that dog owner can't recall their dog. The main thing for you to be aware of is his separation anxiety. He is absolutely fine in the house on his own, he just settles (sulks) and sits on his bed - so you don't need to worry about him destroying anything or going out for the day - he's fine alone. The thing to be aware of is that he can get quite triggered when you leave the house for the day (or he perceives you to be leaving the house). For example, keys jingling, spraying perfume, walking around the house quite quickly and gathering things, etc. One of these things by itself won't upset him, but if you do them all at the same time he can begin to get suspicious and has on occasion lunged and growled at the person's legs to stop them from going. This is genuinely VERY rare - in fact it hasn't even occurred in the last year - but I want you to have the full picture. We can run you through some tips and tactics for your routine to avoid this from happening, and I have no doubt there will be no issues, but it's important that you're willing to do these as it will help avoid him getting triggered. We've tried training etc, and the medication helps, but ultimately it comes down the human's behaviour.
- We have a fairly large garden but at that time of the year there will be minimal maintenance as the grass hardly grows. If the lawns get a bit long, and you aren't comfortable mowing, a family member of ours would be happy to come over and do so.
- We have an outdoor fish pond so the fish require feeding morning and night please.

What we're looking for:
- Ideally someone that isn't out of the house full-time (i.e. you may work from home or work part-time) - only because Arlie has got used to us working from home most days of the week so it might be a shock to the system to go back to full-time by himself.
- A good communicator - we don't expect updates every day, but would love to see photos of how our little man is doing and hear from you every couple of days to know all is well. We'll miss him a lot!
- A dog lover! Bonus if you've worked with dogs with anxiety before. Arlie loves to be around his humans and show them how great he is at chewing his toys. He doesn't require much walking, a short one per day or even every two days will be fine.
- Someone who takes pride in their home. We love our house and want someone who will treat it with the same love and respect we do.

If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask. We look forward to hearing from you! Read more...

Amenities

Home has external security cameras

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