Working in Australia

Working our way in to Australia with lots of different animals!
By Choi Connington

A while ago my friend and I decided to go on a bit of a working holiday in Australia. We stayed with this lovely family in Melbourne who really had a nice house and lots of pets. Our tasks were to look after these pets and keep the house in a nice and clean order so that we wouldn't get into trouble.

We had been offered free accommodation so it was a very good deal for us to have, and we were very happy to be able to do it. At one stage the family had to go away on a holiday so they left my friend and I in charge of their property and all their pets. I should mention that they had 10 budgies, 5 guinea pigs and 2 cats, so it was a lot of hard work for both of us!

Unfortunately at one stage when the family was away, my friend got really really sick after eating some bad chicken. We had to take her to the hospital where she was forced to stay for a few days. This made things all the more harder for me as it meant I had to do all the work!

Well I knew I could work with animals so I put on my hard working clothes and got to it! I would start each day by cleaning out the budgie cages. There was one large one and the hardest part was to not let the budgies escape while I did this. I managed to do this quite well and I think only once did a budgie escape so I was quite pleased with my efforts.

After I cleaned them I would then take the guinea pigs cage into my hands and clean that! That would sometimes only need cleaning every couple of days and I really loved the guinea pigs as they were very cute! It was always important though to not let them escape either and this was sometimes more difficult than I thought! The cats were the easiest to look after as I had cats at home so knew exactly what to do and what to expect. As they were indoor cats they would often have smelly cat litter. I would clean that out and feed them and that would usually be the most I would as a pet sitter.

After a couple of days my friend was out of hospital and was able to help me more which was good. It meant I wasn't as stressed as I had been! And I was also very glad that she was healthy as I was very worried for her when she was in the hospital.

When the family arrived back from their holiday they were very pleased at our jobs with animals, and we even cooked them a traditional Taiwanese meal for them on the first night they were back. It was a great time for us and we hope we can do it again!