Pondside Pet Care

Tammy has been my cat sitter for almost two years now, and has always been very accommodating, dependable, easy to schedule with, and given excellent care to my two cats. I can tell she genuinely cares about my pets, and keeps me updated while I am gone if anything out of the ordinary comes up. I travel frequently, sometimes with only a few days notice, and Tammy has met every request I’ve ever made without any issues or cancellations (probably over 30 trips by now!). It is a great convenience to have a sitter I can trust to leave my keys with on an ongoing basis, and schedule with just a phone call or email. My cats are older and have special needs now — one of my cats has Lymphoma and needs daily doses of medication and monitoring of symptoms, and the other one needs intermittent medication for a chronic illness, so they require extra attention and awareness, which I really trust Tammy to give them. One of my cats is also extremely shy around most people, but has really warmed up to Tammy. I have great peace of mind knowing that my cats are well loved and cared for when I am not there, and getting their medications administered properly by a trained professional. I would highly recommend Tammy to anyone looking for a sitter!

I contacted this business in October to set up pet care for my two cats over the Christmas holiday. I met with the owner who seemed very nice and very knowlegable and my cats seemed to like her. We were to meet at a later date for me to give her my keys and to finalize plans. Weeks went by and I heard nothing. My messages by phone and email were not returned and emails bounced back. She finally called me back in early December to state she was having surgery at which point I asked if she thought she could still pet sit. I told her my emails had bounced back and she told me she changed her email address (new one not listed on her website) She stated she could still petsit. Another week went by and I emailed her to arrange key exchange and we set a tentative date. She stated she felt she could still petsit. The day after we agreed to meet she sent me an email stating that she could not physically do this and that she hoped I could make other arrangments. Now I am not an insensitive person and I truly understand that one must recover from surgery and if she physically could not do this then I know her health comes first. My main issue is that she is irresponsible in that she assured me she could do this, changed her email address without notification, she confirmed a time to meet and the next day bailed on me leaving me to scramble to find arrangements to board my 2 cats for 6 days. I was unable to find another sitter at such short notice (4 days before I am leaving) and called several kennels to no avail as they were fully booked for the holiday. I called the Boston Cat Hospital and they were able to accommodate me (I think they were full but my cat recently had a lot of care there so I think they created space). I am happy I found an alternative but I am now spending over $ 200 more than I planned to spend. Again, I am truly sorry the owner is having a tough time recuperating and I wish her a speedy recovery but she should have told me that she could not watch my cats long before this. She seems like a nice person but I think it was irresponsible to notify me one day after we agreed to meet to set things up. If she had told me earlier I could have found another sitter.