Rebecca

My partner and I had some concerns over Rebecca's behaviour while on holiday based on snippets we saw while checking on the cats with our home cameras, so upon returning we reviewed the footage properly.

The footage confirmed the below issues taking place during her cat sitting, and for context we had initially contacted her for two 30mins visits a day.

- On average she seems to have spent only 40 minutes a day with the cats or doing general things (litter trays, changing water in their water bowls), and the rest of the time (20 mins and sometimes more depending on the day) sat on the sofa scrolling on her phone with no interaction with the cats. Our cats clearly needed the extra attention (play/petting) and we did repeatedly ask her to give them more of it (including suggestions of things to try), so relaxing was not appropriate.

- We sent her messages on multiple occasions asking her to play with the cats more and actively pet them because they are very much 'people' cats and used to lots more human interaction as we both often work from home. Even when one of our cats Coffee followed her around and brushed against her, the majority of the time she didn't pet them, and when she did it wasn't for more than a brief moment. Throughout the visits we've reviewed she would only stroke them a single time, once or twice a day.

- She did not attempt to play with the cats every day and when she did she stopped after 1 minute of starting, despite us asking her to make sure she played with them, providing suggestions to encourage play and informing her that they do take some time to get interested.

- We also had been messaging her for a month before booking anything, but only at the meet and greet did she tell us she would not do two 30 min visits per day due to her work schedule, but would make sure to do a full hour of quality time each day. As the meet and greet was unfortunately so close to our leaving date, due to plans falling through, we agreed to having overall 1hour throughout the day (flexible in terms of morning/evening) as long as the cats were still being fed using our timed feeder on days when she only came for one visit, and provided the cats would be given plenty of attention. Despite this at least on one occasion she came over for only 30 minutes in the entire day. After that day we did notice luckily and made sure to clarify that as much as we could be flexible with time spent morning/evening this could not apply to separate days as it further affects the cats wellbeing. We did also make sure to mention "1hr quality time" in that message.

Had we not had home cameras we wouldn't have been aware that the above was taking place. Rebecca was very reassuring in the meet and greet and even through messages she seemed eager to make sure our cats were happy. It was only through reviewing the footage fully that we realised her actions did not align with this.

Pawshake have been extremely helpful in resolving this matter and providing compensation. We did also contact Rebecca personally but have not been able to reach a resolution, despite having evidence of our claims. Pawshake's Happiness Guarantee is ensuring amends are made and we will happily use Pawshakes services again.

Rebecca looked after our two elderly dogs for one night - she was very friendly and clearly loves animals and we received reassuring photos during her stay.