CASA DEL REY 

HOUSE SITTER & PET SITTER

Los Arcos, Cariari De Belen, Heredia,  Costa Rica

Saturday 30th November 2019 - Friday 27th March 2020

Responsible for 2 cats and 2 dogs

-Feed the cats and dogs and give them occasional treats

- Prepare dogs food and administer medicine with their food

-Give them flea/tic treatments

-Walk the dogs together twice a day

-Keep many large areas of various plants and trees watered on a daily basis

-Play with the dogs and give them lots of  love and affection

-Keep hosts updated on the welfare of their dogs while they are away

-Report any house maintenance issues to long term maintenance man

-Fill the pool twice a week

-Be available to let in pool cleaner and cleaning lady once a week

-Pay the cleaning lady and pools mans salary every week inc bonuses

-Use petty cash to purchase any items as and when required including pet food, cleaning products etc

-Take out rubbish once a week and recycling every other week

- Complete paid cleaning projects in owners absence e.g cleaning and organizing storage room

- Clean spare bedrooms thoroughly after guests depart including changing and washing sheets, making up beds, sweeping and mopping the floor, cleaning surfaces including glass tables and windows, washing rugs

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ACHIEVEMENTS

Within the second week - Helped one of the dogs to overcome his fussy eating habits.

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When I started one of the dogs called Pepe

(a cute Pincher breed) was taking a long time to eat his breakfast and sometimes would not always eat his dinner. This was a concern as his dinner contained

medicinal tablets. The original procedure for his breakfast take and one large joint pain tablet and crush it into a powder and then mix it with liver pate and place it into his mouth. I found feeding him the liver pate to be messy even with disposable plastic gloves.

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. One morning I observed that when some of the liver pate dropped into his food (scrambled egg with dry food) the food stuck tot he liver pate and he ate it up so it got me to thinking that I would try to mix everything together in the bowl for his next breakfast and see if he would eat it.

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The next morning I mixed his portion of scrambled eggs, dry dog food, powdered tablet and liver pate all together in the bowl and he ate it all up!

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Pepe skipped one evening meal in my first week of feeding him which was a concern as it contained two chewy medicinal joint pain tablets. Understandably I wanted to avoid him missing meals in the future . I observed on the next  evening meal that when I tried to use a spoon to feed him that some dropped on the ground and he ate it up but when I pushed the bowl towards him he backed away.

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I then tried putting his food onto two paper napkins on the floor and he ate it so to me  it seemed that he liked to eat off the ground and not from a bowl. I didn't want to waste the owners paper napkins and so I opted for a large plastic lid for the next meal and it worked. So I then combined mixing all his food together along with serving it on the large plastic lid and now not only eats his breakfasts quickly every time but he waits in the door way of the kitchen while I prefer so he now actually looks forward to his breakfast and dinners!

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This happened while the owners were away and when I informed them they gave me the insight that Pepe was a street rescue dog and so probably never ate from bowls.

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