Taking art to the streets of London

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BBC Learning EnglishPeople and PlacesUnusual jobs – the Pet SitterAndrea: Welcome to "People and Places" – where we meetinteresting people and findout about more about them – right here onbbclearningenglish.com. Hello, I'mAndrea Rose.
　　Catherine BrownMy name is Catherine Brown and I run a business called HappyHounds and Cooler Cats which is a dog walking and pet carebusiness.
　　Andrea: Catherine Brown has a very different job. She spendsmost of her day working with animals, because she is a petsitter. Yes, just like parents get someone to look aftertheir children when they go out in the evenings, a babysitter, Catherine does something similar but for dogs andcats. She walks them and looks after or cares for them. Butit’s often the owners who are harder work than the animals.
　　Catherine BrownQuite often you are reassuring¹ the owners much more than youare the animals. So if you've got particularly needy² ownersthat need a lot of reassurance³ then that’s what you have togive. The animals to be honest are often easier than theowners.
　　Andrea: Catherine says that the owners are often harder todeal with than the animals.
　　They sometimes need reassurance. They need to be told againand again that everything will be ok with their pet. Anotherword for someone who needs a lot of reassurance is ‘needy’.
　　Catherine says that ‘to be honest’ the pets areeasier to deal with.
　　Catherine BrownQuite often you are reassuring the owners much more than youare the animals. So if you've got particularly needy ownersthat need a lot of reassurance then that’s what you have togive. The animals to be honest are often easier than theowners.
　　Andrea: So what kind of experience or qualification does oneneed to be a pet sitter?
　　Catherine BrownWe do a lot of training with anyone who comes and works withus. Generally they are complete animal lovers anywayotherwise they wouldn’t be interested in it. They come outwith us for about 2 or 3 weeks walking. We show them basictraining. We never take out more than 4 - 5 dogs anyway. Butno, you don’t need a qualification or anything like that.
　　Andrea: You don’t need a qualification to be a pet sitter.
　　You just need to be an animal lover. Catherine and her teamgive new pet sitters basic training for 2 or 3 weeks and theytake out 4 or 5 dogs at a time. So really you just need tolove animals.
　　But how about animals that aren’t just cats or dogs. HasCatherine ever looked after some more unusual pets?
　　Catherine BrownFerrets – we’ve looked after ferrets. We were expectingwhen we started that we were going to get pythons andtarantulas and all that kind of stuff. But no – it’s beenpretty much gerbils and guinea pigs and things like that. Soit’s all been pretty harmless to be honest.
　　Andrea: Did you catch all the animals that Catherine talkedabout? Have a listen again and see if you can hear all theanimals she mentioned.
　　Catherine BrownFerrets – we’ve looked after ferrets. We were expectingwhen we started that we were going to get pythons andtarantulas and all that kind of stuff. But no – it’s beenpretty much gerbils and guinea pigs and things like that. Soit’s all been pretty harmless to be honest.
　　Andrea: Catherine has had to look after animals other thandogs and cats. These include ferrets, gerbils and guineapigs. But luckily they’ve all been harmless. They haven’tbeen dangerous. She thought they might get pythons andtarantulas.
　　But so far so good!
　　I think it sounds like fun. Let’s quickly recap of some ofthe languageCatherine used:
　　reassurance needyto be honest animal lover qualificationferrets, pythons, tarantulas, gerbils & guinea pigs harmlessUntil the next time, it’s goodbye frombbclearningenglish.com