Travel Rambling With Borrowed Dogs - Cheryl Rivers

Cheryl is an Australian living in Toronto, Canada, and is retired from her academic career, where she taught International Business. She came to Canada because her partner was offered a job, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. She’s still here and still doesn’t understand cold weather. 

I’m grateful to be at the glorious Sole Sister age – with time to do what I want and at least a modicum of energy to do it.

High on my now-I’m-retired list is a desire to travel and do walks in far-flung places. A close second on said list is an entirely contradictory yearning to share my life with a dog. By dog, I mean two greyhounds with tucked-up tummies because owners end up looking like their dogs, right?

I know my two desires are at odds with each other, but a woman has to try to find a solution. There are other issues too - don’t even get me started on how expensive accommodation is when I get off a plane, and I want to sleep somewhere that at least nods to the fact I’ve reached my sixties (i.e., no shared bathrooms!).

I reckon I’ve discovered a mighty fine solution, albeit it doesn’t include owning two long dogs. It does give me walks in far-flung places, and it gives me a trusty four-legged companion to scamper alongside me. Drumroll, please…dog-sitting. 

There are various dog-sitting websites out there. I’m rather devoted to Trusted House-sitters. It is a wee bit like a dating site. But unlike a dating site, the dogs are consistently good-looking, and I’d venture to say they all have fine characters, too. I especially like that this site works on trust; no money changes hands between the sitter and the home/pet owner.

Yes, both of us pay a yearly fee to register on the site, but then, it costs nothing but time, a discerning eye, and trusting your gut instincts. The home/pet owner posts a sitting opportunity with dates, and then we sitters can apply. If the homeowner reviews applications and likes the look of us, we do a Zoom call. If we’re the chosen ones, they will offer us the opportunity.

After the sit, there is a double-blind review platform for the homeowner and the sitter to complete. Sitters see how previous sitters rated the homeowner on communications, hospitality, cleanliness, pet behavior, and the accuracy of the listing. Sitters get rated on organization, reliability, self-sufficiency, tidiness, and the pets' level of happiness.

It all makes for interesting reading—sometimes between the lines. I was recently invited to apply for a sit in the U.S., and their previous sitters were scathing about cleanliness and communication. Yikes! I constructed a very brief ‘Sorry I can’t help you’ reply.

By the way, if you’re reading this as a pet owner and thinking of joining, inviting folks works way less effectively than putting up a listing with the dates you’re away. Honestly, if you love pets and are willing to take the time to care for them, this has to be the ultimate win-win travel on a budget setup out there.

Fancy two weeks over Christmas and New Year in a flat in London, with views and just a hundred meters from a tube station, to look after an adorable greyhound called Sage? We did just that over Christmas 2023. Based near Mansion House, we did our everyday walks through Finsbury Park or Clissold Park. One day, we walked Sage to ‘Ally-pally,’ which wore all of us out. Our Rambles led us to discover the canal known as the New River and followed it through various suburbs. Sage was our inadvertent tour guide.

What about three weeks looking after a mansion (to my little mind) in the countryside of Wiltshire, caring for a cutie-patootie cockapoo and two cats? Our sit over Christmas 2024 wins the title for poshest yet, although a farmhouse with three dogs in the Scottish Borders comes a close second. There, an award for an OBE was hanging in the downstairs loo, as is the wont of a certain class of Brit.

You might think that caring for a dog would limit our ability to travel, but in Britain, dogs are welcome just about everywhere. I could have easily titled this article "Rambling to a Pub with a Borrowed Dog." Our walks with Coco took us through the World Heritage site of Avebury, to both Wells and Salisbury Cathedrals, along various stretches of the Kennet and Avon Canal, and, of course, to a fair number of pubs. While I’ve always had a soft spot for pointy-nosed pups, I’ve got to hand it to cockapoos for their ability to seamlessly tuck themselves under pub tables in a way that a long dog simply can’t manage.

Duffy the cockapoo in Exeter led us to some of Devon's finest pubs, and guided us through Dartmoor and parts of the Jurassic Coast. The thing about walking with a dog is, people talk to you. The "Oh, who's this?" and "Sorry, she wants to be everyone's best friend—get down, Coco!" is an immediate ‘in’ when traveling, giving you the local experience in an instant. Plus, caring for a dog—walking in the rain, picking up its poop—keeps you grounded in the present moment, which, let’s face it, is a lesson we could all stand to practice at this stage of life.

Of course, cats are a breeze to care for. A strategically placed cat-sitting gig means you can wander for hours, blissfully unencumbered by the usual pet duties. Don't even ask me how we managed to snag ten days in Munich last October to look after Malinka and Zorro.

My favorite spot in Munich? A legendary outdoor store, Sporthaus Schuster, has four glorious floors of enticing gear for future rambles and dog walks. It was heaven—especially since some German women, like me, have big feet. I left Germany with a pair of women’s walking shoes in size 42. YES! So, a big thank you to Malinka and Zorro for needing our care!

It’s not all a bed of roses, though. Wonderful Wiltshire in December 2024 included the great fire incident. I was slathering on body lotion and getting ready to get dressed when I looked out the window and saw two-foot-high flames coming from the compost heap near the stables. Being Australian, I immediately thought, ‘OMG, the compost heap has self-combusted,’ ignoring that I was in soggy old England and that December is not peak fire season in there. Does England even have a fire season? Clothes went on lickity-spit, and my partner was screamed at to get dressed as there was a fire. I raced downstairs, leafed through the homeowner’s emergency contact list, and frantically called the neighbor. 

By my reckoning, the fire wasn’t a real threat to the house, but the stable block (thankfully empty) could’ve gone up in smoke, and I needed help. I had no clue where the nearest hose was, so I threw on my gum boots and dashed out only to find the gardener—of course, they had a gardener—standing there with a rake and a leaf blower!

Oh, flippin’ heck, I totally forgot the gardener was coming today! I’ll just say it: leaf blowers are not the best choice around fires, in my humble Australian opinion. And seriously, he should’ve told me he was lighting a fire! It’s the rule in country Australia in December, and naturellement, it should be the rule everywhere not to aim a leaf-blower at a flame! Ah, the things you learn on dog sits, eh?

Then there's the whole missing-animal drama. There was that free-range cat near Mt Tremblant in Quebec, Canada, who didn’t come home one night. I shook her treat can and called her name, my panic levels rising faster than my voice. Thankfully, Tabby strolled in around 11 pm, and I swear I aged a year or two in that time.

And let’s not forget Bella, our very first sit. She was a Saluki who was allowed off-leash in safe areas, which included fields in the Cotswolds, England. I was casually walking across the fields when, without warning, she bolted after a deer. Now, Salukis are fast, and me, clomping along in my gum boots across the stubble, was no match. I’m out there calling her name in this encouraging, desperate way. Fortunately, she lost sight of her prey and returned to me, where I was crouching in the mud, muttering, "Oh, good girl."

Pet sits can sometimes involve vet visits or looking after sick pets. After a few experiences, I’ve adopted a new rule: no dogs over ten years old. The hardest part of any sit is saying goodbye to these little companions who’ve shared great walks with us, snuggled up next to us, or on top of us. They've come to depend on us to meet all their needs, and you can practically see them warming up to these weirdo interlopers who’ve replaced their humans. Saying goodbye to an animal you’ve grown attached to is tough, and honestly, there are bits of my heart scattered all over England, Scotland, Canada, and Australia. It’s like leaving a piece of yourself behind every time.

On the day we leave a sit, our conversation inevitably ends up comparing the dogs we’ve just cared for with ‘ours’—even though, technically, they weren’t ours, except for that fleeting moment in time. On January 2, after farewelling Coco and the cats, we found ourselves in The Crown, a pub nestled in the picturesque village of Aldbourne.

We were reading up on how the village had once been home to the men of America’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division as they prepared for D-Day. As we sat there, musing about how Coco was getting on without us, my phone pinged. It was from Sage-the-Greyhound’s owners, asking if we’d be interested in coming back to look after Sage over Easter. We said yes, tentatively—and, well, now it’s locked in. Some goodbyes are just temporary.

I hope I’ve managed to spark your interest in giving pet sitting a go, especially if your heart’s in the right place—by that, I mean big and open. Pet sitting leads to some pretty unforgettable Rambles in places you might never have visited otherwise.

If any sole sisters want to join Trusted Housesitters, Cheryl has a discount code that will get you a 25% discount on membership and she will get two months added to her yearly membership. The code is RAF271236.

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