Bull City Pet Sitting — Local services in Durham

Our experience with Bull City Pet Sitting was not great to say the least. Bull City Pet Sitting started off smoothly; they went out of there way to try to accommodate us even though we are slightly out of their region. The owner came by to visit us and meet our dogs; everything went well and she stated the dogs were fantastic. Next day the actual sitter that would be servicing us was scheduled to meet us at 2-230. We had to reach out to the sitter when he didn't show at that time to find out he wouldn't be there until 3-330. Once he showed, everything went well again with the visit; the sitter specifically said that he felt completely comfortable with the dogs and looked forward to hanging out with them. We even stated we were surprised how well the dogs felt around him and that they get even better with repeat visits. Later that night, we were scheduled for our first visit while we were away. The sitter was scheduled to come around 9pm, but somehow didn't show up to our house until 10:40 PM and was only there for 20 mins (scheduled for a 30 min visit). We even had to text him again to get an idea of when he was coming after he didn't show at the scheduled time. We received a text from the sitter afterwards saying that the visit went well despite the fact that one of our dogs was a little stand-offish and barked at him. Moving forward two days, we were scheduled for a work trip and Bull City Pet Sitting was scheduled to watch our dogs once again. We got a message on a app with no notifications that our visit did not go well, our dog was terrorizing our sitter, and that they felt scared to return and as such our upcoming visits were canceled. Despite the fact the it was an incredible last minute inconvenience and our work trips had to be re-arranged, it was incredibly unprofessional to send a message like that through an app instead of a phone call or email. We also never really understood their reasoning nor were they willing to try again. We also asked for our keys to be dropped off next day and they were not returned for another two days. Overall was not pleased with how they handled the situation, and would not recommend a company that can't be on time. What's the craziest thing is we have tons of friends with dogs that are moving to the area and we are in a spot to recommend a company for them to use; guess Bull City Pet Sitting doesn't want...

I can't say enough good things about Bull City Pet Sitting! I researched several local pet sitting services for our two cats before going on our honeymoon, and found their prices to be the most reasonable and that they were most highly reviewed service. We also looked into a local kennel and with only slightly lower prices, saw our cats would be staying in much, much smaller accommodations than our whole house! On our initial consultation, I was very pleased and encouraged by the enthusiasm Heather had for taking down every detail about our cats' very particular likes and dislikes. It was clear that BCPS holds their clients' (human and animal) well-being as the top priority! We have absolutely loved having Erica come and watch our cats - she texts photos and leaves wonderful updates for us when we return and it is very clear that she spends quality time getting to know our boys. I also love their online reservation system - it is very easy to use, and I can book at any time. It's great that they securely keep a copy of our key so we don't have to worry about transferring keys before we travel. We love the fact that they really go above and beyond their pet sitting duties to bring in our mail and rotate blinds/turn lights on and off. I feel completely at ease with BCPS and would strongly recommend their...

For all the people leaving good reviews...try coming back a day early and see what happens. That's usually how you catch pet sitters being lazy. That's what I discovered when I used this service.

Had pet sitting for my dog/cat about three years ago and wasn't overly impressed. We came back a day early to discover litter everywhere in the bathroom, a litter box that clearly hadn't been cleaned for days, and the two little plants that I had asked them to water dying of thirst. Making my cat go to the bathroom in a dirty litter box is animal cruelty.

I also left a small hand vacuum plugged in literally next to the litter box for easy access for clean up. Instead I got week-old litter ingrained into the grout of my bathroom tile. That took months to get out because no one had kept up with cleaning the area for a week. Owner (Jen) was very nice at the consultation, and maybe she just had a lazy sitter (Shanna), but I haven't used them since. Remembered my experience when looking for cat sitting for the holidays, which is why I just posted this review three years later. Not taking the chance on them again this year. I no longer use any pet sitting services because this outfit caused me not to trust the people I pay to...