I always look for pet sitters using the various associations.....
http://www.petsit.com/ http://www.petsitters.org/
You find someone in your area and then can start learning about their services, get (and check!) references, and then meet a sitter and see if its the right person for you.
I used this to find the pet sitter's I used while lived in CA when I had my lab mix. I've just now started looking for Elphaba...we actually have the first "meet and greet" this Friday.