Wag! Pet Caregiver Reviews

WagPetCaregiver has never been intuitive or been good about thinking about the obvious things that walkers want/need. However, it has gotten much better than it was a few years ago. I would like to be able to set different mile radiuses for walking and boarding for my notifications. For example, I would like notifications of walks within 1 mile but boardings within 10 miles. Also, I consistently get notifications for bookings that are over the 10 mile radius I have set: seems obvious that this shouldn’t happen. There should be a way for NYC walkers to not see walks from NJ, thinking of it in terms of miles doesn’t work here. Just because it’s technically within 10 miles doesn’t mean I’m going to figure out how to talk public transit to a different state. Also when you book a boarding, your ability to see the start and end time goes away, so unless you preemptively screenshot everything you request you’re screwed. It should be mandatory for owners to list the age of their dog.

It would be really helpful if walkers could see the previous walkers notes before requesting walks. Also, dog owners should have to fill out the dog profiles if they are going to use WagPetCaregiver . There should be a way to put in your preferred mile radius without crossing state boarders (I live in south Jersey and am constantly getting notifications for Philly walks) the town the dog is in should also be listed as some towns are not as safe as others. And the walkers should be able to defend themselves against false accusations. I have over 150 5 star ratings, and one 1 star rating due to “not feeding the dog” although it was never indicated that I should feed the dog. Also, dog owners put old pictures up and don’t fill out profiles so you think you are walking a puppy only to show up and find a 100+ pound dog needing a walk. And wag keeps a lot of money for the walks the walkers complete, I walk a dog that is listed as “leashed trained” and get pulled around the neighborhood by a strong dog whose weight wasn’t listed right and wag keeps almost half the money the owner pays. WagPetCaregiver doesn’t seem to care about the walkers. And if you do reach out to “customer service” you either get the same auto generated message over and over again, or you get no response at all. I find myself booking less and less walks because I have no idea what will be there when I show up.

I think its really tragic how subpar a lot of Pet Cargiver apps and platforms are. Obviously the company has to take a percentage out but not even owners want to just give all of the fees to the company and would rather give to the sitter directly. I tend to really dislike apps like this that force you to only email the company for very simple issues that can be done in-app by the sitter. I also don’t appreciate Wag’s specific culture of punishing the sitter for cancelling in the way they do. They make it so that you can’t make money although there are legitimate reasons for your cancellation. Even if you specify your reason as an emergency it still doesnt matter which is foolish to even ask if you are going to be penalized regardless of having to rush to a hospital or a last minute funeral. Furthermore, they dont care if an owner is wasting your time only “if you are wasting theirs”. I had to cancel a walk because an owner for a boarding never showed up and ofcourse were not answering so I had to cancel their booking as well and ofcourse Im being punish although I lost a walk because of them. You are better off paying for your own software if it’s possible because the only real options are Wag and Rover. You really get a sense that someone is using you while using some these apps.

WagPetCaregiver is very convenient and I tend to think of it as the uber of dog walking. I’ve had a couple of issues with it though. First being that when you end the walk, the diary log comes up which stops you from being able to access the codes to return the house keys and such. I understand losing access to the key boxes for safety reasons but there should be a way to end the walk, fill out the info then leave the dog’s account. This did happen to me and took over an hour to get an agent to respond back to which they were unhelpful. My second issue is the calendar; even though I am on a specific date, it will give me walk for different dates so if you’re not paying attention, or click by accident, there’s no way to cancel the walk (if it gets accepted) or ask for another walker to take it without being penalized. When I say penalized, you will lose the ability to request walks for unknown amount of time. These are just issues I’ve had in the 3 days that I’ve been using it. I would also like to recommend that if I am on a certain calendar day/date not to show me other dates under that day; that’s not at all how a calendar works!

WagPetCaregiver is convenient in someways but the frustrations with it out weigh the positives. I have recurring walks at 10 am and 3 pm but still get notifications for walks overlapping with those times. Constantly. There’s always the on demand walks or the $4 boost walks that I get spammed with when I’m on my way to a walk. Like…. If I put in WagPetCaregiver that I’m on my way somewhere I shouldn’t be getting a barrage of notifications about other walks I could take. Make it make sense!!!
I keep notifications on so I can book walks as they pop up but I have to weed thru ones that conflict with my schedule. The same thing happens with sittings. I get notifications for sittings happening the same time/overlapping. Also, I get violations because the owner didn’t change the time for a walk but it isn’t clear that if I don’t “shop up” on time I get penalized. It’s super frustrating!!! I understand there have to be penalties for not showing up etc, but wag needs to do better about making their policies clear for the dog owners and walkers. I wanted to be a dog walker so I could make my own schedule but at this point it’s almost not worth it and Ive only been doing this for three weeks.

I have been a dog walker for Wag! for almost two years now. If I didn’t love dogs as much as I do, I would have left a long time ago because of their app. Currently, a problem I’m having is that canceled walks still appear on my ‘Booked’ tab. When I try to delete them, the next time I log into WagPetCaregiver , there they are again. This is a real pain when a client has booked way in advance and then something changes on their end. I currently have 49 on my page. I’ve contacted Wag! support, jumped through all the hoops to try to fix it. Nobody on their tech team can figure it out. Another problem that I’ve brought up is that when I first log into WagPetCaregiver and check my earnings, the page won’t load until I TURN OFF MY PHONE and turn it back on again! Very frustrating. When doing a Drop In visit, WagPetCaregiver doesn’t show how much time is LEFT for your visit. I have to set the timer on my phone for that. Add to all this the fact that if you have to contact them LIVE for a situation, there is nobody to answer unless it’s an emergency (injury, pet got loose, etc). Anything besides that, you’re pretty much on your own. I could go on, but I’m sure y’all catch my drift. I love the dogs. Hate WagPetCaregiver .

WagPetCaregiver works well and is mostly well organized but there are still some bugs that haven’t been fixed. Sometimes messages sent in WagPetCaregiver disappear and don’t get delivered. This is frustrating because Wag doesn’t share phone numbers of pet parents. If messages aren’t going through you just have to keep trying or delete and reinstall WagPetCaregiver . This has been going on for at least half a year now. Additionally, Wag doesn’t ask pet parents to provide a secondary contact number. If there was a serious emergency, there’d be no way to talk to the owner. I do think customer support is getting better, however. I also like that WagPetCaregiver has surge pricing for the holidays. And I do think Wag handles most other things well such as the calendar and the sitting interface. I wish that I could set my distance willing to travel according to the service. I won’t travel 10 miles for a 20 minute walk, but I would for an overnight sitting.

There are times where when you say you are there and about to start walking the dog. WagPetCaregiver glitches and restarts saying you have not arrived yet. Makes the parent assume you are not there or running late: I would sometimes have to restart WagPetCaregiver just to make it work again. And when you are done walking the dog you have to write a small report , and I have had moments where it wouldn’t let me type anything .. and I would know what to do in that situation so again I would have to restart WagPetCaregiver and hope that it didn’t make me restart everything.

Overall I love how easy money I can make and how you can choose your time and days and what dogs to walk or baby sit.

There are glitches throughout but overall it is a good side job. You do get paid weekly and that is what matters.

Walking dogs for money is fun. Wag adds A LOT of extra bells and whistles that get in the way of walking dogs for money. Expect to be very limited, expect to be babysat by an App every step of the way, expect to fill out endless reports that don’t mean anything and don’t go anywhere, and if there is a problem with WagPetCaregiver and your Acceptance Rate drops, good luck because Wag will both refuse to reverse the percentage drop, and refuse to allow you to get a new account. I don’t want to fill out a report why the dog didn’t pee. I don’t want to fill out a report about why the Dog Parent’s house is locked or unlocked. My advice is to copy and paste a bunch of words into the reports just to meet the character minimum (oh yes there are character minimums). I look forward to the day I can steal all my clients, book with them directly without Wag at all, and get rid of the nearly 50% cut that Wag takes from each walk. I could not possibly be more displeased with the way WagPetCaregiver is structured. The term “feature creep” describes Wag very well; it’s clear someone in the company has way too many “good ideas” and nobody tells that person to calm it.

I love how easy it is to connect with people who need their dogs walked and WagPetCaregiver is super user friendly. I do think that Wags takes a bit too much a of cut of my pay for the amount of driving and walking I do for them. I think in my area it would be more fair if I was able to get paid ~.50 cents per minute of walking. Then that would cover my gas mileage and time spent getting to and from each location. I also think that the emergency cancelation shouldn’t hurt the walker unless they cancel in under 24 hours. I got locked out for canceling a week before. Lastly, sometimes the walks get backed up when walking back to back and there is no way to not be punished if you are delayed because you are walking dogs for wags. I wish there was a way that we could request to delay a walk 30 mins and the owner can agree to it or cancel the walk or look for a new walker asap. I hope this helps improve WagPetCaregiver for all of the dog walkers out there!

I haven’t had much issues with WagPetCaregiver itself. Other than in the city sometimes I WagPetCaregiver may not get enough signal for you to start the walk or contact the owner for accessEven though I have enough signal for other apps to work. Otherwise WagPetCaregiver is good but my issue is with a compensation. What they pay the walker is very little compared to other dog walking apps and compared to the high fees they charge the owner.I still tried to book walks nearby if possible so that at least I’m not spending too much time driving just for very little money. However, it can still take me 20 to 30 minutes with traffic. To top it off they recently changed the cancellation fee to $5 so even if you drive 30 minutes and check in for your walk the owner can literally cancel while you’re at the property which happened to me today. That’s why I’m no longer using Wag and sticking to another company that has been more considerate of its walkers when it comes to pay and cancellation fees.

I’m first and foremost a student, just wanted to make some extra cash. This is a great app to do just that! I think it really started to pick up around this holiday season, which I’m guessing it the “high” season for dog walking given lots of ppl go away or just need the extra hand with their dogs. I’m not sure if this could be a dependable full time gig, but I really have no complaints about it. I get to request the dog walks, which basically allows me to set my own schedule - choosing what days/times I want to work. The flexibility is the biggest pro! I’ve had a good experience with WagPetCaregiver so far, and once I started it’s like I hit the ground running. Highly recommend this gig for someone with the time - who wants to work their own schedule, and looking to make quick extra cash. It’s worth the shot :)

I absolutely love Wag!!! I have been with Wag for over a year now!! Wag has been so rewarding for me!!! The instant connection with animals and the love and respect we have for each other is absolutely AMAZING!! It truly is awesome to meet a new pet and to become friends and to trust each other!! Being a animal lover it sooooo easy to do Wag!!! I know I am taking care of someone’s pride and Joy ( their precious baby) and to totally respecting their home and privacy!! I have so much FUN AND GET SO MUCH ENJOYMENT OUT OF WAGGING!!! I am so grateful to have Wag in my life!!! I have the opportunity to make a difference in an Pups life and help ease the pet parents mind that they are in great hands!! I am someone who cares loves and respects their needs!! THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WAG IS ALL ABOUT!! I am so thankful to be a part of SOMETHING SPECIAL!!!!!! I AM PROUD TO BE A PART OF WAG!!!!
Sincerely & Best Wishes
Traci ( SUPER DOG WALKER)

I’ve only been using the Wag! app for about a month now and so far I love it. It’s easy to navigate and your profile is customizable based on your availability and capabilities as a caregiver. I like being able to communicate with pet parents via the messenger app and send photo along the journey of our walks so parents know what’s going on and when. I started WagPetCaregiver because I was feeling depressed and my therapist said I should do things that make me happy. Being around animals is a huge serotonin boost! And I get to make money while I boost my mood, what more could I ask for. There are several different kinda of walks or caring a person can do and you get to set your own prices. Just be mindful, pet parents also set their limits too and that can prevent you from getting work.

I overall love WagPetCaregiver it has been super easy to use and a great way for people to get started since you can request services when people post them rather than the other way around and never get picked like other apps. Three things I wish WagPetCaregiver included:
1. Owners could set a time frame for a walk rather than one specific time in case say you could do 12 but not 12:30.
2. I wish you could message an owner you’ve never walked for prior to requesting the service to ask any questions before committing
3. I wish the details about the service and the comments left by other caregivers was shown to you before you request the service because that could change my mind about whether or not I am comfortable with a difficult dog, home access issues, parking, etc

The house was nasty and I felt unsafe. So I brought my boyfriend with me to stay. I went to use the restroom and there were bugs running all over the bathroom floor (in both bathrooms) I fed the dog an hour earlier than the schedule because I had a family event later that evening. The kitchen was moldy also. The dog had slipped out of the harness while we are outside and we had to chase after him to get him. There was medicine next to the schedule that said give the dog every 8 hours so I did just that. The owners also came back early so we did not end up spending the night. With that being said, the owners have filed multiple complaints about how I did not follow the feeding schedule. Fed the dog old medicine, and will be suing me if their dog gets sick. You guys must background check your workers but don’t take any insight into the people who you are sending these animal caretakers too. It’s pretty pathetic. (I am a full time college student and this is one of my MANY side gigs to make ends meet)

I was looking for extra income and came across WagPetCaregiver. It’s so perfect for me because I love animals!!! Not only will you get paid to spend time with animals but you get to exercise too! Haha! Pay me to walk (exercise) with a cute pet? What a dream! So it’s the best of everything I need right now.

WagPetCaregiver is so easy to set up and use. Very user friendly. Once you’re all set up it’s so easy to book walks etc. You create your own schedule! Definitely a great source of extra income! It doesn’t even feel like “work” because I get to spend time with a cute pet and exercise at the same time.

I highly recommend WagPetCaregiver to anyone who is a pet lover and is looking for additional income. It’s a dream come true! Definitely 5 stars!!

When I first started Wag they had easy support access for walkers and flexibility but now it’s a nightmare as a Walker! The accuracy of how far away a walk is is terrible yet you get penalized for cancelling a walk. Walkers use these apps to have their own schedule! We barely get paid anything and on top of that have to use our own cars and supplies, to upside was supposed to be flexibility and now they have completely taken that away. They make money thanks to their walkers yet treat us like garbage. We don’t even have a support team to call anymore of something goes wrong! We’re in the middle of a pandemic and instead of making changes to HELP their walkers they are making it more difficult. I have a lot to say about what a terrible company this is but an Apple review is not the place for that. I can’t wait until they push their walkers to the point of striking, that way they learn that they are nothing without the people doing the actual work.

I’ve been a caregiver on Wag for a while now and I’m so lucky to work with the wonderful families in LA caring for the best pups in the world ^_^ WagPetCaregiver can be glitchy at times but for what it’s worth the improvements I see and the willingness of the support team to help makes the difference. ❤️ Update 12/25: A pet parent informed me that the videos that I upload to my caregiving services timelines have no audio of what is happening in the actual video. This is definitely a huge miss. Often times the video is being sent to report real time status with the pups and the parent needs the audio to discern what to do. If the developers could please allow the videos sent in babysitting and boarding videos to maintain the original audio from the caregiver that would make a huge difference.

I’ve had so many problems with WagPetCaregiver. There are random glitches every week. Today WagPetCaregiver won’t load. The help section loads fine though. I’ve had several days where I’ve called and they’ve had to start and stop my dog walk. Like I’ve had to call or chat each time I needed to do something in WagPetCaregiver . Once you’ve started a walk or drop in you can no longer see the dog profile, so if you don’t study it before hand you have no idea anything about the dog, if it’s a girl or boy and medical information. You have to rely that the owner put it in the description of the walk. And drop in visits and sitting you can’t even see what the owner says about the sit or drop in visit anymore once you’ve started it now. Also when people request me it automatically cancels. So i can’t get requests from people who want me to walk there dog. It’s ridiculous. They need to get some better people to help with WagPetCaregiver.

Walkers should be able to know if the residence is a house, condo or apartment on a pets profile. This information will help walkers save time and decide if they are comfortable with making a request. Also, they should be able to see other walkers tips before making a request. If walkers SAFETY is a priority for Wag please make pet parents fill out the dog notes and behaviors!!! some profile have missing information.

I once walked a dog that was very aggressive, not leash trained, and the leash provided was a rope (unexceptionable)! I was not aware of this until my request was accepted and read other walkers tips/notes. It was the worst experience. Wag needs to also set standards and requirements for pet parents because the SAFETY of walkers should matter.

I have been a top dog walker in my area with wag! for several months now with consistent five-star ratings. The other day I was given a negative review by a client that made false accusations about me, which will affect my ability to book future clients when they see my profile. I went through the process of disputing this rating, and even noted that I had video/photo evidence to back me up. Within 24 hours, I was told by support that their policy is to support the pet parents regardless of whether or not the review is truthful (because this is their personal “experience”) and it would not be taken down. I was not even able to submit my own evidence. This company clearly does not want to advocate for/support it’s dog walkers despite the fact that we give wag! a significant percentage of our earnings. Extremely disappointed and will be seriously reconsidering my future with WagPetCaregiver/making this experience known to potentially new wag! users and dog walkers in the future.

I have gone through the process through WagPetCaregiver . All worked well until it was time get my background check. I paid for the background check and was sent a link through WagPetCaregiver . THE LINK DOES NOT WORK. I have contacted, 3 times, Wag support - by email. I have contacted, twice, Wag support by phone. I get no answer to my emails. When I call on the phone I get a voicemail that says there is no one available to take my call and to please leave a message. Wag has my money but through WagPetCaregiver , link, email and phone, I am unable to complete my application. I’m to the point where I think this is all just a scam to get my $40 (which by the way is NON-REFUNDABLE). Wag, I am not impressed.

Update- after a little more than a week of back and forth “try this/try that” I have finally gotten in to my Wag account. It really shouldn’t be this hard to apply. None of the support members seem to know what the issue/cause was but at least it’s fixed.

I would love it if in WagPetCaregiver after you press the “I’ve arrived” icon if we could still see the customers address along with the access info, because the only way to see the address again is to refresh the page but then that will indicate to the customer that we have access which isn’t true. And also one time for I had attempted to indicate to the customer that I was On my way, the walked was scheduled for 12:00am and I was 30 mins away, but WagPetCaregiver refused to allow to indicate to the customer anything, it kept saying that I was too early, it finally allowed me to let the customer know when the hour of 12 hit. So that also might be something that helps

1) it would be nice to add photos from your camera roll. As far as I can tell, pictures only show up if you take the picture in WagPetCaregiver ?

2) it would be REALLY nice if you could have more specificity about which walk notifications you receive. For instance, I usually just say I’m available from 12am-11pm, but on M-F I’m in work from 8-5, but I still get ALLLLL the notifications, even though on those days I’m only available starting from 5:30. For the weekends, however, I would be available all throughout the day. I’m getting notifications out the wazoo but only 1/5 of them apply to my availability. Being able to choose times of availability for specific days would be great.
Thank you!

Wag makes it so incredibly difficult for you to communicate effectively with your clients.

There are people who will spam and harass you and wag will do nothing about it.

Pet profiles are a joke. You can’t communicate with caregiver prior to booking and cancelling afterwards (say their dog isn’t compatible in a multi dog household) will negatively impact the care takers future visibility.

If you’re going to walk a dog the notes aren’t available to you until after you’ve completed the walk?

If you want to see a pets profile, good luck. You can’t.

God forbid you have your locations settings turned off like a monster. Wag will show you as a stationary object and not notify the owner services were turned off. So you look like a jackass not walking when you really did.

You have to save every photo of someone else’s dog on your phone because wag is incapable of loading a picture from their app.

Wag doesn’t care about you or your pet. They want to make money off of you like any other business. So just make the extra effort to reach out to your people and set up a phone call or meet and greet or SOMETHING to ensure everyone’s comfort and safety prior to boarding.

I had to request a cover because I was sick. I didn’t want to be more than 20 ft from a bathroom in case I puked, and the walk was with a deaf and blind dog. I didn’t feel I could perform it safely for her, so I had to request a cover!
I made sure not to request any walks until I was feeling considerably better, and now that I am feeling better, I can’t request walks. It said that having a higher than average cover rate “could” negatively affect my ability to request services. And apparently yes, my requests don’t go through. I looked into it, and apparently it’s an indefinite penalty. Support will only tell you to check back every 24 hours to see if requests are able to go through.
I’m switching platforms for a few reasons, but Wag has definitely lost a walker.
I don’t recommend working with this service, they’re shady

The Wag walking experience is worthwhile overall - it’s a wonderful way to make extra $. That being said WagPetCaregiver is inconsistent. Sometimes you will accept a “boosted” walk (meaning wag is supposed to pay more than the 60% base they pay you for a walk), and WagPetCaregiver reverts back to the base pay. Hopefully this is just a bug they fix.

WagPetCaregiver also tells you the distance to an owners house as the crow flies, which is misleading because it always ends up being further away driving.

If Wag raised their walkers take home percentage even 5-10% and gave frequent walkers a small amount for mileage this rating would be four and a half stars. Still imo worth it for the pups.