“Our pet sitter, Natalie from Sunderland, fed our elderly sick cat the wrong food, causing him to lose significant weight over a fortnight. She didn't notice that our dog had vomited and peed in her crate, meaning our dog had to sleep in her own vomit and wee for many days on end. She brought flour mites into the house, causing over £100 of damage to our food and meant we had to spend 3 hours cleaning the kitchen when we got home. She got blood on the sheets and didn't even bother to clean it up. She broke both hot taps in the bathroom. She failed to carry out the most basic instructions and lied to us to say she had done something when she hadn't. It was only because we used a petcam that we could check up on her and know for sure she hadn't done what she said she had. She left dirty knickers at the house after she left. She left the bin overflowing in the garden. She left food wrappers under the bed and kebab skewers in the kitchen. All in all, the absolute worst service I have ever experienced in all my life.”
“In July, we used Pawshake Finland (https://www.pawshake.fi/) to find a cat sitter to take care of our cat during our holiday abroad. The cat sitter cancelled the reservation in the middle (or rather, at the very beginning) of our holiday with no valid grounds and we sufferred huge stress during our holiday. Pawshake is biased towards the cat sitter (apperantly the sitters is the source of the profit of Pawshake) and only presents the best score of the customer on the sitter's profile on Pawshake (the review system on Pawshake's website is very MISLEADING) - which is further explained below.
The cat sitter from Pawshake we engaged (for privacy, I call her (Miss) X) is extremly irresponsble and difficult person with no empathy to our cat. We are shocked that this kind of person is listed as a cat sitter on this platform. After our report to Pawshake, Pawshake did not take any measures regarding that sitter. Instead, Pawshake tried to COVER UP by only putting our highest score 2 to the cat sitter's profile (we rated 1, 2, 1, 1, 1 out of 5 stars in each dimention) AND for each dimensions, this cat sitter appears to have 5 stars respectively - it is very common that the sitters thereon have "perfect" scores - but that is not true. It appears to us that Pawshake coded MAX instead of AVG there when it comes to customers' reviews, and in our opinion, this is dishonest and misleading to consumers.
Our cat is a horrible traveller using any means of transport, but we still managed and handed her over to X in decent shape. We allowed for some shower which is stressful for many cats including ours. Just in case we also provided a medicine that was needed one year ago during some +30 C days in Finland which she was not handling very well. Otherwise a year ago she was declared a "healthy old cat" by the vet and we did not notice any health issues since then. We explained as detailed as possible to X and she acknowledged all the information and said that she would take care of our cat during our holiday. We said good bye and were looking forward to our holiday.
As soon as we landed in Paris the second day our stress levels went through the roof. According to X, our cat did something nasty and for that reason X threatened to cancel the rest of reservation. What the ... ? So we were on a holiday with limited connectivity and we had to think of the unthinkable. Due to the high season for travelling Pawshake was our last option. We had to push our friends who already have cats to take care of our cat potentially causing danger to both sides (because our cat does not get along with other cats). We were still extremely grateful that they helped us and it went ok.
For Pawshake X has claimed that our cat was "very sick" for which she provided no evidence. Our cat had lots of stresses from the car travel which we explained in full on the first day to X, but X let her roam around with confidence very soon after the arrival, and X showered her twice on the very first day of arrival of our cat to the new environment - that is a good recipe for causing high stress to a cat, which may take some time for the cat to recover. But this happens naturally and there were no grounds to call our cat very sick. When our friends "evacuated" our cat, she did not have any health issues based on the descriptions, pictures and videos sent by them.
Communication with X was problematic at best full of offending materials and potential threats to the wellbeing of our cat (we really thought she will be kicked to the streets). For the first several hours in Paris, we received X's emotional and rude messages - we could not do anything but to stay in our hotel and chat with her until we found this approach very exhausting and proposed a call to better discuss the situation at around 5 pm that day. She remained silent for the rest of the day nor has she sent a single picture or video to us regarding our cat (even after our request for just one photo). We had sleepless night thanks to this sitter. We still heard no update from X on the following day until we asked for an update on the status of our cat - she only replied that she would cancel the reservation without offering any meaningful help to remedy the situation. These events have completely poisoned the beginning of our holiday. Never were we so shocked by something that we have actually paid for. It is uncertain if our trust in these types of services can ever recover.”
“The website has good intentions, but still left me without a cat sitter over Xmas. My sitter never turned up to the meet and greet and I had to ask my neighbour to jump in.”
