Whether short term or long term, keep your pets and plants happy, and your home safe, giving you complete peace of mind to make the most of your time away. I was raised in the country in a small village, near farms and fresh food from local producers. We also had our own huge garden, and our neighbours allowed for community pickings of their harvests. My mother was a neat freak and some of that ru
bbed off on me... though my 10 years working on 5-star private yachts probably had the most impact on my cleaning/maintenance skills. My father was a jack of all trades and we built our own rustic Canadian-styled home, and took on all our own repairs. Between the homefront and yachts, I have plenty of hands-on experience with maintaining all home systems, from electronics to basic plumbing. My family had a very large yard and our family always had at least 2 cats and 2 dogs, accompanied by various combinations of other pets. Among the other animals that participated in my youthful love of animals: a couple of mice, several turtles, many hamsters, geese, rabbits, chipmunks, and loads and loads of dogs. At one point, when we had a recreational mushing team, our household added up to 13 dogs in addition to the other pets. We of course did all our own basic grooming. But the oddest pet we ever took care of was a chimpanzee. A friend of my dad's was in town and asked us to housesit for a couple of months... that didn't go so well, after the chimp bit my dad's ear, the owner was asked to retrieve it. :)
My graduate studies were in a herpetology laboratory, handling numerous kinds of amphibians and reptiles, assisting with the husbandry of hundreds and hundreds of individuals. I am not Cesar Millan... but I'm able to achieve a successful degree of communication and trust from most pets. My previous housesit owners have stated that the pets were better behaved after my stay at their home! (But they were all generally well behaved when I got there ;)
Housesits longer than 3 weeks are free within Whitehorse for normal duties expectations and up to two pets. Housesits 21 days or shorter (up to two pets):
$35 / first half hour
$10 / additional half hour
$65/day
Travel fees apply beyond 10 km from base. I work a full week schedule, so I'm not home at lunch times.