Alternative to boarding: House+Dog sitters?

[Heather]

Have any of you pet owners had a house sitter come in as an alternative to boarding?
I'm pricing out dog boarding for our summer vacation this year (July 23 - Aug 6), and it is going to be well over $1000+tax. 
I found a couple of web sites with listings of people who offer to house and pet sit.  The people registered like to travel and visit new places.  But, we don't live in a beautiful Victorian mansion in England.  We just live in a simple shoebox of a house, albeit on a lovely forested 3 acre property.  We are in Ottawa Ontario Canada. 

I could try posting on the local kijiji, but I'm a bit nervous to take the plunge. 
Have any of you tried this (either as the house sitter, or the sittee)

[KMMK]

You might be able to find someone you know. You could start by asking at your vet clinic. We always had a few of the younger staff who still lived with their parents who were often doing long term pet sitting at someone's home. Or a child or niece/nephew of a friend. It's always easiest to be a pet sitter when you don't have your own property to take care of as well.

[Rural]

I'll second the suggestion to ask at your vet. This is a great gig for vet techs, and you'll know them a bit and at least know they love animals. Likely they'll also be familiar to your pets.

[maryofdoom]

My brother-in-law is in college and is usually up for house/pet-sitting our dog when we go out of town. We leave him $100, some frozen pizzas, and the menu for the local Chinese place, and ask him to walk the dog and get the mail.

Of course, my father-in-law loves our dog so much that while we were gone the last time, he came over with steaks and made one for himself and one for the dog. So when we got back, we gave the dog kibble and he looked at it and walked away. (He ate it eventually, when he got hungry enough, but still.)

Do you have any younger family members in the area who could do this?

[Heather]

Good suggestions so far.
Our younger family member in the area is coming along on the trip.  We're just outside of the area serviced by buses, so that would not be so great for somebody dependent on transit.  Though, we are within easy biking distance of high tech campuses and bus routes.
I'll ask our local vet.

Heather.

[Jamesqf]

It's also another good reason to be on good terms with your neighbors.  If I have to go away for a few days, mine are always willing to take care of my dogs - and vice versa, of course.

[minnie1928]

I've been lurking for a while, but this was the first post I thought I might actually be able to make a real contribution! :)

I've recently discovered www.dogvacay.com.  A friend of mine mentioned it to me when I was discussing our upcoming vacation and we were unsure what to do with our 1yr old yorkie.  Anyway, it's a website for people to list their dogsitting services as well as a place for pet owners to find a great sitter.

We ended up finding a family that watches our boy for $20/night, much much less than what a kennel would charge AND he gets amazing care.  He even gets to sleep in their bed at night!  The spoil him something wonderful!  They also send me daily texts/emails/videos to let me know how he's doing.

Some of the people on the site do dogsitting in your home, while others do it in their home.

Good luck!

[MMMdude]

$1000 for kenneling that amount of time.  Wow, sounds nuts.  Here in Edmonton it's about $25 per day and if you have multiple animals you get a discount or they can share a space if they are small.  We decided to have a friend stay here and gave her about the same amount of $ as we would have spent on the kennel.  Initially we weren't sure if she could do so and put an ad up on Kijji.  We got about a dozen replies in a day.  A few of them seemed OK, but didn't follow up once our friend could do it.  That's a good idea re: checking at the vet.   There are also sites that specialize in finding house sitters, but the ones we checked had people looking for one month or longer 'assignments'.

This whole experience though has made me realize that this could be a Moustachian way of making $.  Down the road when semi-retired, I could see this as a  quasi business - either checking in on vacant homes, or being a live in house sitter (although that would then require you to check in on your own home).

[totoro]

We dog share half-time.  Never a need to kennel.  You advertise for reciprocal dog sitting if you are up for that.  I bet someone else would like to have a family look after their dog when they go away.