Rover—Dog Sitters & Walkers

I love the concept of the app! 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.

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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 the app 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 the app 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.

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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 this app 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 the app on my phone, because it is well designed and the goal of the app is good, but I just can’t recommend this app 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 :(

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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

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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 this app 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.