We Love Plants & Animals - Ours, Others, Rescues

About this sitter

My husband and I are retired (early to do volunteer educational work) sign language interpreters from the college & K - 12 settings. We live simply now in an urban area with our rescue animals (who will be cared for by a grown niece) and we'd love to find some beautiful places to visit...with animals just making us feel more at home. We currently own a duplex and have 3 cats & 1 recently adopted rescue huskey (13 yr old Lizbeth, who has only 1/2 her ears & one eye - a permanent wink). We have had to sadly put to sleep 3 long-time pets (2 dogs & 1 cat) due to varying problems in the last few years. All of our animals have been rescues, some starting off in very poor condition (starving, hurt, sick, filthy, matted, etc.). For us, living things come first - meaning caring for animals & even plants come first before other responsibilities. And if we are home, the animals are with or near us.

Why they want to house sit

We're looking for opportunities to travel and to see new places* & peoples without incurring the large costs of accommadations. *After a housesit in Ireland we traveled & stayed in total more than a month & after a housesit did not work out in Italy, we still went & traveled around for a month.

Their experience

We are homeowners ourselves with a rental unit, so we know about maintaining a property. (Ours was a fixer-upper with only 1 plant on the whole property when purchased but is now a sweet little place complete with picket fence & cottage-style type trees & plants.) We have done housesitting from this website recently in Ireland with a dog and 2 cats on a 3 acre property and have housesat and cared for plants, cats, dogs, horses and the occational owl, squirrel & possum. We have done housesitting for friends - taking care of houses and lawns and gardens (once for several months while they were in Fiji). We have also cared for many people's animals - their dogs or cats staying with us or visiting their homes daily while friends were away. Rescue Horses - Twice daily care of horses for months and twice weekly care of one for years.. Caring for these animals (especially the dogs rescued from the streets, the street/feral cats we catch, spay/neuter & those rescue horses) & seeing them change from from emaciated & frightened to whole animals again has been rewarding.
(WE HAVE COMPLETED JUST ONE HOUSESIT THRU THIS WEBSITE - BUT PLS SEE OUR REFERENCES AT END OF LISTING, DETAILING PET, HOUSE, & GROUNDS CARE FOR SOME OTHERS)

What can they bring to the assignment

We love the outdoors and animals. We are a happily married couple (more than 40 years), good communicators, honest, non-smokers, drink moderately, and not party people.