Kirkmichael, Scotland

About this house sitting position in Kirkmichael

Our Cottage is a beautiful, characterful country home surrounded by stunning Perthshire countryside. It is part of a small hamlet of three historic mill buildings dating from the 1800's, just a short walk along the banks of the River Ardle to Kirkmichael village where there is a friendly community shop and pub. Our garden is a haven for wildlife with regular visits from red squirrels, deer, many native birds and occasionally otters. We have 4 acres of meadows and a fledgling orchard that overlooks the river. We are keen vegetable growers with raised beds, a fruit cage and polytunnel. The house is located just 200m off the Cateran Trail - a 64 mile circular route that loops up into the Cairngorms National Park. There is also a network of other lovely paths and cycling trails on our doorstep with a diverse mixture of landscapes including woodland, moorland, rough pasture and meadows, all with beautiful views of the mountains towards Glenshee and the Cairngorms National Park. Your accommodation would be a king size room with ensuite in an annex connected to the main house.

We are a couple in our forties who both have a passion for nature, adventures and have travelled extensively. In fact we spent 18 months as full time housesitters ourselves, but this is the first time that we will experience this from a home owners perspective!

Our main priority is finding the right person or couple to look after our young dog Cally. She is a fabulous pooch, very friendly and for the most part well behaved! We would prefer housesitters that are experienced with dogs who would feel confident continuing with training an adolescent dog and dealing with any behavioural issues that occur at this time in their lives where she is testing boundaries (e g. stopping her jumping up, pulling on the lead etc). She has good but unreliable recall with a strong prey drive (lots of rabbits and deer around here) so she tends to stay on the extender lead much of the time at the moment, so will need someone fit that can do at least two long walks per day. She is used to having us around every day as we both work from home and does get a bit anxious when left so we would need you to be with her all of the time whilst you are here. Although she isn't 100% keen on the car she does love a day out and is very well behaved in pubs/ restaurants so you would still be able to go on day trips and explore locally. It would also be good to have housesitters that have some experience of gardening too as there will probably be a few jobs to do whilst we are away. The chickens don't require very much day to day attention so shouldn't take up much time.

On this occasion we are heading away for a friend's birthday party weekend and unfortunately we can't take Cally. It would be great if you could arrive on the Wednesday afternoon/evening so we can spend some time showing you around and introducing you to Cally, the neighbours etc before we leave on the Thursday.

Housesitters will need a full DBS check, be experienced with dogs and have good references. We would also like people to be fully covid vaccinated and also have a negative test before arriving to the house. We have vulnerable friends and family so are remaining cautious.

If you are interested it would be great to have chat via Zoom. Read more...

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