My partner Vivian and I are semi-retired, avid travelers, and amateur photographers. Vivian has worked for the past seventeen years as a mortgage broker and prior to that as a pharmacist. I have had a worthwhile career as a psychologist, providing psychological services in a number of venues - both as a subcontractor and in private practice. In my semi-retirement, my practice has focused on providing psychological services to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Vivian and I have been together for the past eight years and during that time we have had the pleasure to visit twenty-two countries together, as well as exploring, in some depth, our home province of British Columbia with briefer visits to the other prairie provinces. We have driven as far north in Canada as one could at the time, Inuvik, Northwest Territories and with the road now apparently extended to Tuktoyaktuk it has been added to our bucket list. Most recently we visited South Africa where, as volunteers with Wildlife Act, we spent six weeks assisting in the monitoring of endangered species on three separate game reserves/national parks, with a focus on the African Painted Dog. Before we met, Vivian had visited an additional sixty-two countries on all seven continents, and I managed to visit an additional thirteen countries.
We are non-smokers and rarely consume alcohol and even though Canada has just legalized marijuana possession and use, Vivian and I have no inclination to take up the practice!!
Our primary reason to house sit is to facilitate our love of travel, meeting new people, and learning about new places and cultures. In addition, given our love of animals, we would look forward to sharing our time with a furry friend or friends and provide us with periodic, much-needed pet fixes.
We would like to provide people with the opportunity to have a vacation away from home knowing that they are leaving the care of their home and pets to a mature, responsible and reliable couple, thereby ensuring a relaxing and healthy time away.
Vivian and I both have a love of animals in general, but most of our experience has related to loving and taking care of dogs. Recently, as volunteers with Pacific Assistance Dogs we helped raise and train a beautiful black lab that was being groomed to become a assistance dog for someone with a physical disability. Prior to that we had a yellow lab who passed away at twelve years old. Vivian has also raised a rescue dog, a Doberman Pinscher for four years until it passed away at fourteen. In addition, in a previous life (albeit a somewhat short-lived six years) I operated a boarding stable where I was responsible for the care of seventeen horses (six of them belonging to my family), several dogs and a few cats. Many years ago Vivian was raised on a farm that housed a milk cow, chickens, pigs and a horse along with a variety of dogs and cats.
Vivian has volunteered for several years with the Alberta Spay and Neuter Task Force, an organization providing free spay and neutering to dogs and cats that helps with the control of feral and neglected dogs and cats in First Nations communities.
As relative neophytes to the house sitting community, Art has only completed one previous house sit of about six months in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, but informally we have house sat and cared for pets for friends and family on numerous occasions.