Rover—Dog Sitters & Walkers Reviews

by Devenkferre

One day into My daughters vacation and the Rover sitter has lost one of her two dogs. My daughter is beside herself...My daughter and her husband just left Alaska yesterday for a much needed military leave as her husband is deploying in September. Less than 24 hours later she got the dreaded call that her Rover dog sitter has lost one of her two dogs. It has now been an additional day and she still has not found sweet Queens and they have done very little to find her, as the rover dog watcher is more concerned with her other jobs. My daughter is now trying to find a flight back to Alaska in hopes she can find Queens before something happens to her. She was last sighted on Cushman near the freeway in Fairbanks Alaska, but the Rover Dog Sitter was too busy showing a house and didn’t respond promptly to the call. A trip where all our families were so excited to see our kids before deployment, has turned into a nightmare for all. I believe there are some great rover sitters, but make sure you fully vet them to insure if a disaster happens with your baby they will respond 😢 It feels soooo helpless to be in Utah knowing your baby is lost in Fairbanks Alaska and that there have been sighting of her, but no one is responding timely😢😢😢 When I called the emergency number yesterday they told me they would send a professional team today to assist the rover sitter in the search. That has not happened.💔

by JoshuaMarquez0205

So on my dogs profile I put that he doesn’t not get along with cats or other small dogs! When I booked with them I made sure I put all that information on my dogs profile! Along with the filters for having a fenced yard and no pets in the home! When we had dropped off my dogs the person in charge said she had puppies I told her do you want us to have our meet them first and she said no, I can have my husband do it later with me. I asked her if she had any training in greeting dogs together she told me yes. On top of that lie she said nothing about having a cat in the home. I told her my dog is a Alfa dog and does not get along with cats or small dogs that we have to make sure they get along. But she said she would have them separate. The following afternoon I get a phone call saying my dog attacked her cat! I told her you never told me you had a cat nor did it say it on your profile. I have screen shot I sent them of her lying about having any other pets in the home! And also showed them screenshots of my dogs profile showing he does not get along with cats. But they didn’t care that the person watching my dogs lied to make money! They closed my account and probably still has her lies up! Watch out for who watches your dogs on RoverDogSittersWalkers! Clearly they don’t care about safety or the fact that she lied! No matter what precautions you take for your pet their is always away for people to lie!!!!

by AshlynLefevre

This was a nightmare!!!! I can not believe this girl. First off she asked us to pick him up because he was barking. It was obvious she was not giving him any attention. She left him alone long enough to chew through his leash and his paws are burned. Today I was coming home from my honeymoon and we were stuck on the plane. After days of messaging me how sweet he was other than barking she said he destroyed her things and how I needed to pay for them all. She said to either pay her or she would let my dog go, or take him to the pound. Which she was already paid to watch him and wanted to scam us out of our money. When we got to her she did not give us our dog food or toys, she said her boyfriend had them. Her boyfriend came out and we asked where his food and toys were and he said don’t worry about it while they both got in the car and drove away. His mom came out and we asked her about Bo and she says that he didn’t even stay there. So they gave us a completely wrong address. The mom called the son back and give us back our dog food and toys but I promise that I will never use Rover again. My husband and I tried 3 times to get rover to help us while we were out of state and every time they said well try to keep it civil. This is seriously the nightmare that I never wanted to come true and I feel so bad that I trusted rover with my dog. I hope that this girl never gets any other business. I am so disappointed

by RonaldsLady

If you’re looking to throw away thousands of dollars while you take a small trip here and there, this may work for you. I’m sitting here baffled by the prices. Even at $50 a night (which I thought was reasonable) you get gouged for additional dogs. That $50 becomes $50 per night plus $20-50 per night for additional dogs plus there are fees for hair, age, weight, playing, walking, etc.. Even for people who don’t even allow dogs in their home but only to stay on their farm. Why would I pay someone over a grand for a weekend trip? That’s absolutely absurd and not even competitive! There are local kennels that won’t charge that much with actual professionals and medical teams on staff. I downloaded RoverDogSittersWalkers hoping I could find someone who would make my babies feel at home while I was away and instead I find a bunch of people who don’t have jobs who want to charge money as if they are dog whispering gurus. It’s insane. Rover should keep these people in check. If they are actual certified professionals who open up their homes and charge a bit more, ok understandable. BUT don’t act as if a stay at home mom with 5 kids is someone I should throw a grand to because I need to leave for a weekend. Thankfully I have some good connections and will be flying out an actual professional and paying less than $400 to cover airfare, food and payment. Get your stuff together Rover and start getting people.

by Marylisab

I am currently waiting to start my full time job in August and I was looking for a part time job to make some income until then. I heard of RoverDogSittersWalkers from a friend and gave it a shot. Upon filling out all my information I realized that I had to pay $25 for a background check. I thought this over and I determined that the background check was important and reassuring to future clients. I paid the $25 even though it was a lot to me, considering I don’t have a job right now. I thought that I would earn the money back with time, but so far it’s been over a month and I don’t have a single message from a potential client. I am very disappointed because I was so incredibly excited to have something fun to do for a month and I was going to have the opportunity to meet cute animals. I am also disappointed because I did everything right, I posted good photos of me with animals, I had friends and past clients post amazing and heart warming testimonials about me, and I even chose to keep my rates distinctively lower than other rates I saw offered. I will keep RoverDogSittersWalkers on my phone, because it is well designed and the goal of RoverDogSittersWalkers is good, but I just can’t recommend RoverDogSittersWalkers to everyone. It was a waste of money (that I didn’t have) and there’s no way I’m ever going to get my money back, unless by miracle a potential client messages me. Thanks for reading :(

by Sbryng

RoverDogSittersWalkers is so lacking in information that if you use their services very often, you absolutely can’t get by with just RoverDogSittersWalkers . You have to go on the website. Even on the website the information you can get is next to useless. Example #1: you can’t view your upcoming services on RoverDogSittersWalkers . You must log into the website to double check that your future services are booked. #2: you have to contact multiple walkers to get service instead of being able to post what you want. Imagine need a sitter for a week & having to contact literally a dozen walkers to find someone instead of being able to post your job & get responses. That’s how this mediocre app works.
Also: you can’t view your dog walks in real time. This is terrible because if you end up with a dud dog walker, it’s very hard to discover this. By sheer accident I once discovered that my walker was just taking my dog down the street to the park & sitting on a bench for an hour while my bored dog got zero exercise. RoverDogSittersWalkers sure didn’t help me discover that. The report card almost never accurately shows the route of your dog’s walk. Basically, Rover needs to go check out the Wag app & do a serious overhaul. If Wag had walkers in my new neighborhood I’d be using that. If you have the option to use Wag! it’s a hundred times better.

by Eliiseeee

I’ve been using Rover for over a year now and it’s been great using RoverDogSittersWalkers to earn extra cash. I set my rates and my schedule with it and can talk with clients through RoverDogSittersWalkers . Also, I love that you can contact their customer support line to edit the booking if the client makes a last minute cancellation or date change. I’ve had great service with the customer support line every time.

HOWEVER. My biggest pet peeve is that IT IS ALWAYS CRASHING. I’ve updated to the latest software, I’ve deleted and reinstalled SEVERAL times, and I’ve reset my phone. Nothing has helped. It’s super frustrating because it’s always happening while I’m walking a client. In the middle of a walk, it’ll just shut off MY ENTIRE PHONE and my phone will restart. I can’t even open RoverDogSittersWalkers without it crashing 3 seconds later. Or I’ll try and add a picture/pee/etc, and it’ll crash. At times when I finish a walk or check-in, it’ll shut off my phone and when I try to open RoverDogSittersWalkers , the walks/check-ins will sit on the page and not send and I’ll try and send and it’ll restart my phone again. I get messages from owners because they’re concerned that they haven’t received a Rover card after it’s started and I have to explain that it’s a glitch. If this could be fixed, I’d give RoverDogSittersWalkers 5 stars.

by Dmarshall46

Five dogs in the house is too many. Our dog was afraid of Jessie's own two big dogs, so our dog spent a lot of time in her cage. Otherwise she would growl and bark at the two large dogs. Jesse was tending three dogs in addition to her own two large dogs. We prefer our own dog to be tended by herself without other rover dogs being brought in at the same time. Next time we will request that no large dogs be in the house where are our very small dog is being tended. Our dog is a high anxiety dog with lots of fears. PS we can’t figure out why there were no openings for our dog weeks in advance. Because of that we had to schedule someone that was a half hour drive away making one hour round-trip out of our way and another hour out of our way, after we arrived home to pick up our dog. Then just a couple of days before we left there were all kinds of openings close by in our area, but we had already scheduled for six day stay to be with the sitters who are far away, so we thought we would add better stay with the schedule. We plan to stay with Rober because the because of a previous positive experience. However next time this happens, we will request a last-minute change if needed to have a sitter close by. (we do live in a very populated area.)

by Apeelvis

Here are my thoughts. We use Rover or try to use rover while we travel with our dog. 50% of the time we end up using a professional boarding location as opposed to a rover person. Here’s why. Many if not most of the rover hosts are doing this to earn extra money. Which sounds great and all but there are draw backs. Typically we will have to contact 6 to 10 hosts in order to find one that is available. Why is it that people have themselves lists on RoverDogSittersWalkers if they are not available. Even ubuer has the option to turn availability on and off. There is nothing more frustrating then reading through the profile finding the perfect fit for our dog then reaching out only to have them say ....”Sorry I’m not available”. This happens over and over and over. Again this just happened so we are going with a local professional boarding business.

Another filter option Rover needs to add is filter by hosts that accept un-neutered males. We have a large bread mastiff. It is recommended to wait until a minimum of 18 months to neuter in order to limit joint and growth problems. So again when you read through all the profiles and find the perfect host only to have RoverDogSittersWalkers tell you they don’t accept unfixed males when you try to contact them. Why not filter those profiles out before out base on our dog’s profile? Or make it a filter option.

Anyway rover is a neat concept but only 50/50 in usefulness.

by True Stable Genius

I like overall design and functionality of RoverDogSittersWalkers . But one thing I do like to point out: Rover doesn’t seem to care about dog sitters’ safety or interests. For example, they only do background checks for dog sitters but there is no check on dog owners. Although most dog owners are very nice and polite, sometimes there’re rude or skeptical people. Another thing is that Rover only allows dog owners to review dog sitters but not the other way around. Despite most dogs I have sat are well trained, some dogs are not. Meet and greet normally is not enough to tell if the owner is telling the truth. If the dog peed and pooped all over your house or did something aggressive or dangerous, except for leaving a note for yourself and Rover, there’s no way you can share it with other fellow dog sitters. So dog owners don’t have any consequences if they lie or their dogs create damages. Other dog sitters just have to go through it again. Rover should allow dog sitters to see reviews from other dog sitters so that dog owners will have consequences if they lie. If a dog is badly trained, dog sitters can make informed decisions to either reject it or charge extra. I complained about these issues but every time Rover just said they will record the suggestions and nothing happens afterwards. I guess they just don’t want to hurt the business

by JPat_10

The concept behind RoverDogSittersWalkers is great and is SUPER useful. However, RoverDogSittersWalkers leaves much to be desired in terms of user interface. The menu to switch between the different inboxes is incredibly confusing. I understand the desire to see past or archived conversations but grouping it with the upcoming/pending boxes isn’t useful.

Then, when messaging with sitters, there is limited functionality as only the sitter can actually modify the requests. What would be useful is allowing the clients to submit modification requests to the sitter directly if needed rather than trying to communicate it via messages. I’ve experienced several issues in communication that could’ve been avoided if this was possible. Furthermore, when a sitter makes a modification, you can view details, accept, or decline. When you confirm, it automatically changes your card without requesting confirmation. Again, something that can be a nuisance when a sitter is requesting several modifications (due to changes on both ends) and you are being charged multiple times for these transactions.

All in all, I like the platform, I like the site, I probably will not be using RoverDogSittersWalkers until modifications are made.

by CoulCarlee

My friend told me about RoverDogSittersWalkers and I decided to give it a try as a side job. I was a little skeptical when I had to pay for a background check. However after being a pet sitter for over a year and starting my little enterprise, this has really turned out to be a worthwhile investment. I love how I can modify my rates, create a profile with my own pictures, and write my own bio. Plus, everyone I have sat for have been extremely friendly and grateful that their fur babies were taken care of. If you love pets and don’t mind waking up early when the dog wants a walk, this is for you! And if you are a pet owner looking for a trustworthy app, this is RoverDogSittersWalkers for you! Plus RoverDogSittersWalkers is constantly updated to be even more detailed and convenient, such as video calls in place of meet and greets during the pandemic, and modifying a booking after it’s been confirmed.

My only issue was that one time a false account contacted me about sitting their puppy. The person with the same name contacted me twice with different dog pictures on both profiles. Thankfully I did not meet up with this person and reported it. But I wish Rover would require a picture of the owner, or at least a picture of their pet, because now when I receive requests with photoshopped photos, or requests without photos, I sometimes feel skeptical about sitters’ safety.

by Dog Psychoanalyst

I've worked for a couple of dog walking companies, and Rover is my favorite. I get to set my own wage. If I'm getting burned out, it's easy to temporarily turn off my availability to new clients or alter my calendar. Rover is great when there is an emergency, very supportive and willing to pay for vet care. The fee they charge for providing customers to you and insurance during stays is a lot less than the other company, meaning I don't have to rip off my clients to make a good wage. RoverDogSittersWalkers is great. I've hardly ever had issues with it and it doesn't need to be updated constantly. I would like if the walk map was more accurate, but that is a minor concern. The big difference with Rover, is that I get to talk with customers instead of going through a middleman, which makes me more comfortable when meeting new customers, and creates less problems with gaining access to the dog. Rover also allows you to decide with the owner what times work best for both customer and walker. The one downside with Rover is that they don't have an option for giving tips, which can be frustrating when you go above and beyond for a client. Other than that, I do love Rover!

by Annoyed KCAD Student

I have been a dog walker and pet sitter on Rover for a couple of months now. I’ve gotten connected with many people in my neighborhood and make good money doing it. My only issue with RoverDogSittersWalkers is that it’s not the most user friendly for those trying to book services.

For example, I had a woman asking me to check in on her pets over 4th of July weekend. She has 3 dogs and a cat and wanted me to check on them once on the 3rd, three times on the 4th, and once on the 5th. The first issue with that is that is that she would have had to create at least 2 separate bookings because RoverDogSittersWalkers doesn’t allow users to choose a different amount of visits for different days. My second issue was that RoverDogSittersWalkers should have charged her my holiday rate (x3 days), the additional dog rate (x2, because she had two additional dogs) (x3 days), and then one additional cat rate (which is $0 in my case, cats are easy). Instead RoverDogSittersWalkers tried to charge her for 9 total visits and the holiday rate for each of her pets which brought her total to over $700 which is wayyyyyy over what her actual total should have been. Luckily we caught this before going through with our booking. I’ve had several other instances similar to this, but this was the most extreme. RoverDogSittersWalkers needs to update its UI so this issue doesn’t occur.

by KaylaMassacre

I am a full time mom and have been sitting through Rover for almost 2 years now. I absolutely love the pets and people I’ve met. I love how RoverDogSittersWalkers is now that it’s updated. RoverDogSittersWalkers is great because of the drop-in options. Pets can get quality time with a sitter while owners are out of town. I’ve only ever had one request to walk their dog. Overall I love everything but I really debated between 3 & 4 stars. Rover really needs another option to receive payments. I’ve been using PayPal because I don’t want to wait for a check during slow times and it’s only $20. I really don’t trust PayPal though. I should be able to securely connect my bank account directly to Rover. My only other concern is fake profiles. I’ve gotten a couple that requested an outrageous amount of drop-ins with no photos and no info whatsoever of the animals. And never heard back from them. So every time I get a new request I get suspicious, because so far all my recent ones have no photos or info. Rover needs to require this info before allowing owners to book.
If it weren’t for all of my regular clients I would quit using Rover altogether for both of these issues.

by MansonsMom

I have been using rover for over a year now. I’ve used about 10-15 different dog sitters and I’ve had a 95% success rate. I have had mostly awesome experiences and 2 bad ones (sitter wasn’t home when I dropped off or picked up and didn’t answer calls) :( but if that’s the worse thing, not too bad. My one suggestion to RoverDogSittersWalkers would be to develop a block function. A way for me to block certain sitters from coming up in my future searches. Sometimes a sitter tells you they won’t watch your dog, or if you have a bad experience (like them no showing up) ... it would be nice if they didn’t keep showing up in your searches. If they added this feature RoverDogSittersWalkers would be nearly perfect in my opinion.
It is a bit annoying for me to try and remember which sitters had already told me no in the past or had some other reason for not being able to watch my dog. Then I end up having a weird conversation with them all over again. That being said - I can’t speak for all areas and sitters (because I’ve heard horror stories) ... but I’ve tried many sitters in So. Cal. (SGV) and I keep coming back for more because the good far outweighs the couple unreliable people out there.

by I'm Going To Live

I love the concept of RoverDogSittersWalkers ! It’s a great way to connect owners to qualified sitters in the area. However I believe River needs to do more to ensure the safety of the sitters. They have a rover guarantee that will cover vet care and expenses if a dog is injured during a stay but offer no such protections for sitters. I understand that watching dogs is a risk but the fact that owners and dogs aren’t subject to background checks or vaccination requirements is a bit annoying. I got bit in the face while playing with a dog and ended up having to get stitches and have permanent scaring. Rover covered absolutely nothing and the only way to get the owner to pay was to take them to civil court and sue, which I decided against out of fear of lowering my Rover reputation due to a bad review from them in retribution. After the fact I found out that this wasn’t the first time the dog had expressed aggressive behavior during play and had bit his owner a few time prior to this incident. This was not relayed to me during the meet and greet when I asked if the dog had any aggressive tendencies or toy possessiveness. I followed all steps of the Rover policy prior to and during the booking and feel that I should have had some protections against this incident. It’s crazy that the dogs expenses can be covered but not the sitters.

by NickDxx

I am a hairdresser, so I don’t get out of work until 7pm which is usually the cutoff pickup times for most doggy daycares. I used this service and even made friends with some of my sitters! RoverDogSittersWalkers is slightly buggy (for some reason my friend who is on the sitting end of this and right near me doesn’t show up on the map for me, also, it doesn’t let you have the sitters listed by distance). But it’s such a good app. It’s great to have people who love dogs watch your pup, and have flexibility. Oh but one thing- it would be nice to be able to block sitters (probably customers as well) who don’t work out. I had someone not good and I can’t make a notation and she pops up on my rebook page, and in my search. Also- it would be nice if there were some way to work with the fact that I’m using the filter that I have a puppy, but get filtered out because he isn’t fixed. Many people say they take puppies, and I assume they would be fine since he’s too young to fix until he’s 6 months old! Normally I’d agree with that rule- but adult dogs and infant puppies not fixed are entirely different things!

by Vikki Jase

RoverDogSittersWalkers is amazing! I would not have clients or even be able to have a business if it was not for a roller. RoverDogSittersWalkers is amazing and I definitely recommend it to everyone. I am able to have a repeat clients and make a good amount of money just using RoverDogSittersWalkers. RoverDogSittersWalkers has provided me with supplemental income and also long-standing clients that want to repeatedly use my services no matter what. RoverDogSittersWalkers works really well and it really makes it great to stay in communication with clients. The only thing I wish RoverDogSittersWalkers did have is that when you go to the calendar to do your availability I do wish that RoverDogSittersWalkers would also show your upcoming bookings like if you have three clients booked for a few days and then you got somebody coming a new it should show all of your bookings and showing what you have in the calendar so when you look at the calendar you see three bookings for Monday and then on Wednesday gonna get just dog for example and then two we’re leaving on Friday like it should show the bookings like that that would really take RoverDogSittersWalkers up a notch.

by Ally Reaves

I’ve only been using rover for about 3 weeks now as a sitter and it’s already brought in a significant amount of income for me. I’m a stay at home mom and have been searching for something I can do from home and so far rover has worked out perfectly. I take pretty much any client as long as they get along with kids and other dogs. I already have tons of booking and a few repeats clients. I’ve liked the small updates RoverDogSittersWalkers has had but just yesterday, all of my pending bookings are showing a “pending owners response” highlight at the top of our messages as if I sent them a booking request. Which I haven’t to any of them. I’m not sure if it’s just a glitch on my end but if it has actually send requests it may cause me to look bad and potentially lose clients and money. I almost always meet the family and dog before sending a request or accepting one so this is an issue for me. I’ve tried logging out, deleting RoverDogSittersWalkers and everything else I can think of but the “glitch” won’t go away. I’m hoping this issue is resolved quickly.

by Spilly34

I loved the sitter we used, so much I had them watch my babies multiple times.
We were out of town when my Boston was bit by another dog that was being watched. Not the sitters fault at all. My dog was bit on the eye, all three eyelids were punctured, his eye bleeding. I took him to the doggie ER. They were concerned the bite may have hit his cornea (it did). They sent me home with meds to fight off a nasty infection. This was going to be an ongoing injury that was going to take time to figure out the diagnosis (he still may need his eye removed). This was devastating news to me with him being my “first born” and all.
Then Rover called and said that their insurance would cover the cost minus at $250 deductible for a 30 day window.
This was great news. However somewhere the lines were crossed and I was under the impression that because it was an ongoing diagnosis that they would still cover the costs. I was wrong. Now I’m on the hook for whatever medical procedures are needed due to his injury. This is flat out wrong in my opinion. Some may not see it that way, but my dog is now blind in his eye due to retinal disconnection from the dog bite. I won’t be using Rover anymore, nor would I ever recommend them to anyone. My dogs are family. I wish I had paid better attention to the fine print.

by Kati(:

I used Rover for the first time to have someone check in on my cat while I was out of town. While everything seemed to be going fine, I came home to find my balcony door WIDE OPEN. It’s a miracle that my cat didn’t run away. Not only was my cat’s safety compromised, but so was the safety of myself and my home. My sitter, Gabby, went out onto my balcony and didn’t lock the door behind her. It was extremely unprofessional and irresponsible. I immediately reached out to her and she admitted she went out on the balcony and “must not have shut the door all the way”. I then reached out to customer service. They said there was nothing they could do and I had to ask the sitter for a refund. And, of course, when I reached out to Gabby for a refund, no response. It has been almost two weeks now. I reached out to customer service again stating that there was no response and after almost a week, still no response from customer service either. I used Rover’s app to purchase a service and Rover refuses to respond or do anything to help me. While I was hoping to be a frequent customer, this terrible experience has left me never wanting to use this service again. How can you trust someone to come into your home when you know that no one has your back if something goes wrong?

by KingbrunoIII

To all the dog owners out there, DO NOT USE ROVER! I work in San Francisco and work as a GHR dog walker. For the owners that don’t know what that is, GHR stands for Guaranteed Hourly Rate, which is a program that pays $20/hour for 3 hour shifts throughout the day for eligible walkers. If you sign up for this shift, you must take all ASAP walks that come up in RoverDogSittersWalkers in your specific region of the city. They have a NE/NW/SE/SW region in San Francisco. This program, which started around June/July of 2017, has been a disaster for owners, because walkers like me take shifts because the money is guaranteed to us, so even if no walks come up during our 3 hour shift, we still get paid the $60 per shift. And while you may think you’ll get a regular walker for your dog on a recurring, weekly basis, no one wants to do those anymore because we can make more money doing GHR shifts, and having a recurring, weekly walk doesn’t allow you to work a shift during the time of your walk. So if I sign up to do a walk every Monday for Teddy at 12pm every Monday, I’m out $45 because I can’t do the 9:30-12:30 shift. So if you live in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, and LA where these shifts occur, that’s why no one wants to walk your dog on a regular basis. To be honest, it works very well to network and find a sitter you may like and use off RoverDogSittersWalkers in future sittings, but other than that it’s a no go for me

by Lejg000000001

From the prospective of a sitter on Rover there are a few things that could be tweaked on RoverDogSittersWalkers to make it a lot more functional. Clients should be able to send messages that aren’t attached to a visit. We have repeat clients that will have questions about availability on certain dates for the future that maybe they aren’t ready to book yet. To be able to ask us this or any question when they aren’t ready to book they have to find an old booking and ask a question on that previous thread. As a sitter you then have to find that message in your past or archived visits.

Also, there should be an inbox for any new messages. This should be whether it is on a past, archived, upcoming, or pending booking the new message(s) should all come to one place rather than having to find the booking request in the correct category.

As a sitter you should be able to click on your calendar on any given day and see all the bookings you have for that day. Not just your availability. As is, you only see all bookings for the current date. You can’t look at the calendar and click on a previous or future date and see what bookings you had/have.

by Sassylandi

I love the doggie keeping aspect....but I have found that even though I’ve had a criminal background check none of the owners are as vetted. When my prices were lower I only had one legit owner that’s awesome, now about 3....but some were scary...especially people who approached me to house sit. I’m not going to the silence of the lamb place to keep a dog. I called and asked rover to check out an owner that I felt uneasy and they said no they do not check owners. This is scary to me. I raised my prices and some of that stopped. Also I clearly state no aggressive breeds and now I find out that rover will call around for the owner and find them a sitter when they need help finding a place. They will lower your rating when you decline a stay...even when you say you clearly state that. No one reads your post! Rover doesn’t require vet paper which is bogus! I do personally or I won’t watch a dog, but come on Rover! Protect the dogs and humans! Rover needs to offer contracts for sitters in case a dog years up your stuff or bites someone. They need to help protect the sitter. I’ve not had any bad incidents to date but this should be signed by dog owners. They also need more interview questions from owners about the dogs. Owners get in a hurry and might forget to say something like the dog likes his crate in the bedroom with you or he gets anxiety...it’s the little details that help me know what your pup loves!

by Alyson1002

I am both a rover sitter and a rover customer. We have found a reliable and trustworthy sitter that we use repeatedly for our pets and RoverDogSittersWalkers works great.

From a sitter perspective, there are a couple of tweaks I would like to see. I wish there was a way to combine housesitting and drop-ins in to one package deal. For pets that require extra attention such as multiple drop-ins during the day, it isn't a very efficient system. I have one client whose dog had bladder surgery and needs to be let out 4-5 times a day. While I am staying the night at the home and providing a morning and evening service, the extra day time drop-ins are awkward to set up for the owner. I feel there should be a booking for overnights with morning and evening service with an option to add full daytime service as well.

I did encounter one very uncomfortable situation as a sitter and as soon as I reported it to rover, their team was on top of it and provided excellent customer service. I really felt like they supported me and had my back. It was nice to know that the 20% they take from charges is being used to pay for excellent staff!

by KAILEY THE AMAZING

I have been pet sitting on Rover since September 2017, just part-time alongside a full-time job and full-time college course load. That being said, I have made over $5,500 with my Rover bookings since I started, and that is only doing it around a pre-existing 40 hour per week full-time job. I’m paying my car off early thanks to Rover, which I never thought I would say! Great customer service, you choose who you want to work with and when you want to work. Charge what you want, set a service radius and even create modified rates by pet type, client, etc.

One note I will give is that the sitter perks could use some attention. Lyft drivers get branded swag and/or cash bonuses for hitting certain goals; Rover currently has nothing like that. There used to be a web store where you could purchase stuff to help promote your business but they took that away. I think some of these items (shirts, bandanas, business cards, etc) would be great to give sitters as rewards for hitting specific milestones.