Owners write long, loving notes about the dog and almost nothing about the building the dog lives in, then wonder why the sitter texts at midnight about a beeping alarm. The dog's routine travels with the dog; the house's routine exists only in your head, and a sitter staying in a strange house needs it written down. Cover the same six parts every time: security first, the alarm and its codes; then the bins, with recycling days marked; doors, windows and their locks; heating, plus the water shut-off and where it hides; post and expected deliveries; and finally a neighbour contact who holds a spare key. Walk the sitter through each one in the house itself, because a shown stopcock beats a described stopcock every time.
Alarms, Doors, Windows, and Locks
Start with how the house defends itself. Give the alarm code, how to set it at night and silence it in the morning, and what to do if it goes off by accident, including any monitoring company number and the password they will ask for. Then walk the perimeter the way you do without thinking: the front door that needs an upward lift before the key turns, the back gate bolted top and bottom because the dog can nudge it, the windows that stay locked because a cat flap or low sill is an escape route, and the internal doors that stay shut to keep the dog out of the study or the clean laundry. Keys deserve their own line: which key fits which lock, where the spare lives, and who else holds one. Five minutes on locks saves the sitter the particular panic of standing in the rain with a dog, a shopping bag, and the wrong key.
Bins, Heating, and Finding the Stopcock
Bins run on the council's calendar, not yours, so write the actual days: perhaps the grey bin goes out on Tuesday evening for a Wednesday collection and recycling plus food waste on Friday, with the boxes returning to the side path afterwards. A missed collection in a warm week announces itself quickly in a house with a dog. Heating needs the practical version: where the thermostat sits, the setting the house is usually kept at, how to nudge it up for a cold snap, and which radiators or vents should never be blocked by the dog's bed. The water shut-off is the item nobody needs until it is the only item that matters. Show the sitter the stopcock's location, under the kitchen sink, in the hall cupboard, wherever yours lives, and say plainly that turning it off is the first move if water appears where water should not be, followed by a call to you and then to the neighbour if you cannot be reached.
Post, Deliveries, and a Human Nearby
Post and parcels shape a dog's day more than owners expect: a sitter forewarned that the post arrives mid-morning and the dog barks at the letterbox will not be startled, and a note about the parcel box by the door or the safe place behind the gate stops packages vanishing into a neighbour's hall by mistake. Say which deliveries to expect during the stay, groceries, the dog food order, so an unexpected van is not treated as a suspicious one. Finish with the neighbour contact, a named person on the same street, with a phone number, who holds a spare key, knows the dog, and can help with anything from a power cut to a lift to the vet. Introduce them before you travel if you can; a familiar face at the door is reassurance for sitter and dog alike. KinsLe stores that house page where the sitter will actually look for it, alongside feeding and walking notes within one Pet Passport document the sitter can open on arrival.