Catherine

Hello! My name is Cats (Catherine) and I am an Australian citizen living in Dunedin since October 2023.

I am currently doing my 14th house sit since early December 2023 and I am absolutely loving caring for everyone's fur babies and looking after their homes and gardens.

I am a teacher aide working with amazing children at a special school. I am also a children's book author and illustrator and I want to spend as much time as I can working on my latest book.

I absolutely adore animals and plants. I have always had pets, usually rescued and/or unwanted ones and I have been an animal activist for many years. As well as cats and dogs, I rescued 6 ex battery hens which came to me in a very poor state of health with hardly any feathers. Within a few months, their feathers grew back and they were able to enjoy the freedom of roaming around in the garden, taking "dust baths" and I soon discovered that each one had such a strong personality! One of my hens, Milo, would walk into the house and sit in front of the fridge and wait for someone to open the fridge door as she knew we usually had grapes in there which were her favourite. Our two cats were quite frightened of the chickens, which is quite funny really, and would only observe them from a distance.


After having been a "cat-mum" for many years I then also became a "dog-mum" when I rescued my first greyhound. Greyhounds are such gentle giants and are really couch potatoes who actually don't require a great deal of exercise. Sleeping is probably their favourite thing to do! I have done quite a lot of dog/cat sitting this past year, including looking after a diabetic poodle who required daily injections of insulin. I have also recently looked after an Italian greyhound and his lovely home. His parents have already booked me in for when they go again next month and I realised then that it is quite hard to find a good house/pet sitter.
I was born and raised in Switzerland which makes me a bit of a neat freak! I like the house to be clean and tidy. I am a non-smoker, non-drinker and prefer a calm environment.
House sitting for you would mean I will be able to concentrate on my writing and illustrating and it also means that I will be home most of the time looking after your fur babies and your plants!