Paula & Gareth

We are Paula (42) & Gareth (48). We've been full-time home and pet sitters for the past 10 years, we are not taking time from our careers but rather, are acting as house and pet custodians on a permanent basis. We are focused solely on your pets welfare and well-being and can devote our entire day to this. We have built up solid relationships with homeowners and very fun relationships with their pets over the past 10 years and almost all of our sits are with regulars. This is great for continuity of care and we have spent years in the company of various cats and dogs. We've been doing this for so long now that we have sadly seen some of the animal pass on but we are lucky enough to now be looking after the next generation which gives us great satisfaction.

While we don't have our own car Gareth does hold a full, clean, current driving licence and has often been added to homeowners car insurance when a car is necessary for the sit. We do ask that homeowners cover the cost of transport to their property, this would be a train fare within the UK which we always endeavour to get as cheap as possible.

We have travelled the U.K and abroad for the past ten years engaged in both house/pet sitting and a work exchange program. For the prior four years we had been living in the North East of England while Gareth completed a journalism degree. During our time in the North East of England Paula was employed in the financial sector, but formerly her career background was in Spa management.

We were sick of the 'rat race' and left our old life to find a better way. We are both hard working and practical people who were fed up of working just to pay the bills! House-sitting allows us a great degree of freedom and the opportunity to visit new places, meet new people and become temporary pet guardians.


Our experience
Over the course of the past ten years we have acted as caretakers for property and guardians for pets in four countries and two continents, each house and pet sit has its own unique set of requirements and we will provide regular email updates and images of pets for owners peace of mind. We have acted as pack leaders for eight rescue dogs in Thailand which allowed us to learn a great deal and gave plenty of satisfaction in seeing them interact with each other in a pack dynamic. We have been trusted to house-sit for hosts, which has included looking after pets, maintaining the property, dealing with any pet/house emergencies which may arise and where required providing guest services for rental/holiday accommodation.

So far we have had the opportunity to house-sit in Portugal, where we also looked after a holiday rental business, pets and 30 acres of land while the owner was absent. We spent six months in the South of Spain where we house and pet sat for three homeowners and also provided guest services for a holiday rental property for one of the owners. While in the U.K, we have cared for homes and pets in Surrey, North, West, South & East Yorkshire, the Lake District, Greater Manchester and Oxfordshire to name but a few although most of our time is now spent in Yorkshire and The Peaks. We have had experience in caring for pedigree cats, so far Maine Coons, Birmans, Ragdolls, Siamese, and of course, plenty of moggies. We've cared for many breeds of dogs from very large Akitas, Newfoundlands, Bernese, to very small Maltese, Jack Russels, teacup dogs and everything in between and we've loved them all.

We have been living in other peoples homes and property for the past ten years and are always respectful toward them, the homeowners wishes and their pets. We are able to amuse ourselves quietly, we are not party people, and would intend for most of our time to be spent at the property. We are both animal lovers and your pets would not lack attention from us.

We are reasonably new members to this site but we have 50+ five-star references from another house & pet sitting website, If you send us a message we can add the attachment with these references.

Hope to hear from you soon.