Community Forum: September Round-up

As the seasons change, we’re here again to round up some of our favorite Community Forum moments from the last two months. There have been some wonderful examples of community spirit, building trust between sitters and pet parents, a heartwarming photo of a wild beaver, and how Team Trusted has been celebrating pet happiness. Phew, that’s a lot of love, pet people! Let’s dig in…

Must-read discussion

@AtElla kicked off an important conversation by asking fellow forum members to open up and share their thoughts on how it feels to leave a pet with a stranger. A great question! Within a few hours, our lovely experienced sitters came back with comforting reassurance, admirable advice, and some real pearls of wisdom about the importance of building trust between a pet parent and a sitter.

All the responses were incredibly heartwarming. However, we thought @StrawberryJen’s advice summarised it well:

“The majority of pet sitters are animal oriented, and gentle in nature, as well as being sensitive to the individual animal’s needs. Communication is key before and during the sit and if your animals have any specific needs, these should be clearly disclosed beforehand [...] An animal remaining in their own home with a trusted individual is SO much better for their well-being than the stress of being left in kennels. House sitting, at its best, should be a worry-free, wonderful experience for animals, sitters, and homeowners alike.”

@HappyDeb made an excellent point about who else can help with creating those good first impressions:

“I know it’s scary, but relax. Your dog is a great judge of character and SO ARE YOU! Your dog will know as soon as your sitter walks through the door whether they are dog people or not. We personally, stay with the dogs we care for waaaay more than the actual owners will, as they have a normal life… and we don’t.”

Forum member shout-outs

When we started this shout-out section, we knew we’d always have a bountiful selection of members to shout out about. If we could, we’d do a call out to all 17,000 of you, but that might make for a slightly longer read… Instead, we make the difficult decision to only pick out a few. But know we’ll do our best to keep sharing some gratitude each round-up!

@StrawberryJen, @Gabba, and @Garfield thank you for being super supportive and sharing some great advice about pet parent/sitter trust, particularly with new members!

@Ziggy, you always take the time to make sure the forum team is aware of anything that needs our attention, and this is a real help!

@SharonDC is always there with open virtual arms to welcome new members to the forum and offer loads of informative, helpful advice.

@AndreaLovesAnimals we love the super positive vibe you bring to the forum! Your positivity and energy are infectious and you always find ways to keep those good vibes going.

Top pics

@DavidZ081 shared some fantastic photos of a beaver that he discovered building a dam!

@PVGemini shared a stunning sunset in Quebec City as part of our share something beautiful discussion…

And @Silversitters shared this adorable floofy photo from our brilliant Long Cat Pictures discussion!

What else has the community been discussing?

How selective are sitters when choosing sits?

@TheMaverickSitter brought up a very important topic about giving sitters a space to discuss how they choose sits, particularly after experiencing sitter burnout. As always, there was some great advice and support from fellow members tackling a tricky question.

Full-time pet sitting is a way of life for many of our members, and we’re really glad to see those sitters taking some time to reflect on how to have the right balance.

Sitter and pet parent experiences with video chat

@NewPetLover shared a really interesting discussion about the sitter and pet parent experiences with video chat. Making sure the sitter and pet parent connect is super important, and this discussion shared lots of interesting and helpful perspectives.

If you’d like to join the conversation, we’d love to have you head over to our Community Forum to get signed up!

What’s new?

Season of Pet Happiness

Back in July, we launched our Season of Pet Happiness campaign to celebrate the joy and happiness pets bring into our lives. As part of this, our forum members (and our Instagram followers) had the opportunity to pick the brains of some of our fabulous pet experts. Rob Kuty, Certified Master Dog Trainer, Karen Schuppert, experienced TrustedHousesitters Combined member, and Kendall Schulz, Adoption Services Director at Helen Woodward Animal Center, (Forum link tbc Friday) all shared some interesting insights over the last month.

Most recently, the wonderful veterinarian Dr Marc Abraham OBE (otherwise known as 'Marc the Vet') took to the forum for our fourth and final Pet Expert Q&A. Be sure to visit the forum on Friday, September 27th where our lovely forum team will be revealing his answers and sharing all his top tips and expertise!

Community Forum book club

Calling all pet-loving bookworms! Did you know the forum has a book club? It’s run by our wonderful Community Moderator, Maeve, and if you love books as much as you love pets then you should pop over to the forum and get involved.  

Join the conversation

Want to add your voice to the mix? Come and join us over on the Community Forum - share your thoughts and experiences, spark up a conversation, and connect with other pet lovers like yourself!