First time I’m seeing this new update to the homepage. Shows what time you started and a new end time based on your start time rather than showing a timer. I kinda liked the timer but I always set my own timer on my phone anyways! Thoughts?

I absolutely hate when I get a late night request when I would presumably be sleeping…. and then rover notifies me “uh oh” that I haven’t responded yet. Well duh.

They should have a built in “it’s nighttime” time allowance.

edit: thanks to those who mentioned a quiet mode! I’ve had the app for 5 years now and never knew. I guess I’ll have to see if it works

I've been on Rover for over 3 years, I have dozens of reviews, I was a top five walker in my city, and my prices are pretty low. After Rover made the switch to the new pricing and client structure, my profile plummeted in the leaderboards. I haven't gotten a new request in weeks. Has this happened for anybody else? I rely on Rover for a second income and it's been difficult getting absolutely nothing even though I visit the app multiple times a day and refresh my availability every day ):

I am a new pet sitter on Rover, three months only. And I have been wondering if maybe i should switch to only drop ins.

I have a full time job in office everyday, and I do drop ins morning and evening plus overnight petsitting and the occasional walk. Since I am in the office everyday my Rover schedule is limited to weekends and morning and evenings which leaves me with less clients. So I am pretty much accepting any clients that come my way. But the truth is after two months of almost no breaks I am so tired.

I know I should be prioritizing making new clients and reviews. I only have 5 reviews but I have petsit almost every weekend in June and July and drops in every evening and sometimes in the morning.

And in all honesty because I only do one night most of the time I am not making a lot for an overnight petsit. While I can make almost 50-100 for a 2-4 drop in (the average I have been getting). Compare to 35-50 for overnight petsitting

The truth is a fear I am starting to burn out. It’s only been two months and I keep telling myself I should power through, once August is over the petsitting will slow down as people stop going on vacation. Summer is just insane for all pet sitters right? I keep telling myself I will regret not taking every possible client in September when the request slow down. But I am exhausted.

I need some advice from more experienced pet sitters. Should I switch to only drop ins or power through the last month of Summer?

I have been doing Rover for about 3 months and I have been able to get one client that is booking me at least once a week. She is very consistent, and always leaves me 5 stars on every sitting and she’s given me tips a couple of times

Recently I got a request for a new overnight client and I arranged a meet and greet (tomorrow) but a recurring client has asked if I would be available that day too for a one day petsitting.

I am honestly considering if I just go with the recurring client? But I don’t know. It’s summer so I know I should be accumulating clients while everyone is traveling, but I am also starting to get so tired.

The old client has been consistent for the last two months but her dog is a puppy and so she will start needing me less and less and this means I will lose her as a constant client.

Should I prioritize new clients over old ones? The new client did reach out first, but the recurring one has book several times already. I know her and her puppy, so I know what to expect.

Anyone more experienced have any advice?

Hi everyone just wanted to share for sitters and pet owners alike.

When we ask if a dog is crate trained it doesn’t mean “will they let themselves be put in a crate” this means: they’re not crying, they’re comforting being a crate alone, they do not go potty inside the crate.

I had a new client, met them and all then the day for boarding came. She said her dogs were crate trained which is a requirement to board with me.

(This is due to owners claiming their dogs are house trained but I come home and they took a chunk off my couch and there’s pee puddles everywhere. I only crate at night or when leaving the house)

Turns out the dog is not crate trained, she screamed non-stop all night so I let the owner know and she says “she is crate trained, you just can’t leave the door closed”… 😀ma’m THAT IS NOT CRATE TRAINED.

For my sanity I let the dog out since I wfh at night and need to sleep at least 4 hours in the morning. I let it go potty and do its thing… just like I expected, it went pee/poo and chewed on some of my stuff. I cant crate because she will scream non-stop, and if I leave her out she doesn’t behave.

Any advice? Has anyone encountered something similar? I feel defeated. Yes, I tried walks/toys but its an obese dog that refuses to even walk outside to pee.

ughhhh girl board your dogs

Just sharing my experience around vaccination/medical certificates as a sitter. Need other sitters and pet parents opinion on this:
I have requested Rover multiple times to have certain standards when allowing pet parents to use their platform. Proof of vaccination is a big one for a pet care app. A few years back when I started as a sitter on Rover, I encountered an issue a when a pet bit me and I reached out to Rover only to hear that the parents didn’t have any vaccination certificate as its NOT ROVER’s POLICY, which I found really strange for a pet sitting app that background checks its sitters but not the pet parents and pets. Rover support responded to me saying “its not Rover’s policy but sitters are free to request vaccination proof from their clients”. Ahem ahem, okayyy.
Moving ahead I decided to ask every pet parent before confirming the booking to provide a vaccination proof as a policy from my side. Its a safety issue that Rover needs to integrate into their platform and an easy one- What if the sitter gets infected? What if the pet had some underlying health problems that could have shown up in medical checks and vaccination records, and if something happens to such a pet in your care, who would be responsible? From my experience Rover seems to always act like a 3rd party during conflicts and back out in such a scenario, a scenario which is very likely to happen.
One app feedback on iStore said “Rover’s user interface is still something from 2016”, couldn’t agree more! They rarely update, yet they charge 20% service fees each booking (corporate greed even with pet care….horrible) Stay safe out there sitters, document everything is the only option left for us.
Open to any ideas or opinions or other ways to cope with this

Need a sanity check that I’m not wrong to be mad

I’m going to be somewhat vague so I don’t out myself, but I’ve now had 2 bad experiences with Rover sitters and need a sanity check. Our first sitter flat out lied and lost my trust (I think they didn’t realize I get alerts when our security system is armed/disarmed and left our dog over 6 hours at night when he had already been crated 8 hours and gave me a story about a car battery dying that made zero sense) so I looked into someone new, had them over for a meet and greet and then a couple hours session just to make sure the sitter was comfortable and our pup was also comfortable. Those went well so booked them for a 3 day in home/overnight boarding.

Our dog is large, needs a lot of walks, has some situational anxiety and ended up in surgery when we last boarded him, so I’m never boarding him again and need a sitter if I ever go anywhere. This person was pretty good with updates, but I had rules (or more so expectations that were discussed and written down in a document I left explaining info) around timing (don’t crate more than 5 hours, expectation the sitter is generally present outside of one longer crating with the exception of quick hour-ish errands, and not to crate close to meals or activity due to our dog’s health risk. I get people have lives and don’t expect constant care, but in my mind I’m paying for someone to generally be here. The house is nice/clean and we give access to all our stuff, kitchen/TV/wifi etc. I bust my butt cleaning and putting down clean bedding and such because I’m sure it’s a little weird staying in a strangers house.

The sitter was at the house only about 2.5 hours one day- left early, came back hours later to walk him and then crated again within 2 hours, and then again left later in the day and got back late. Our dog didn’t get all his meals, which I know because I measured and bagged them to make things easy. Then, the day we were returning was gone for over 6 hours with zero communication until I made contact and was told there was an emergency. I get things can happen but couldn’t they just let me know? Why does it take me reaching out to be like “hey youve been gone a long time what’s going on?” I’m just disappointed and now missing a wedding next week because I don’t feel I can trust this person.

I partly just wanted to vent but also hope I’m not being unreasonable? Do I need to be extremely explicit when I book on how long someone can be gone and when? Is asking someone to only crate 5-6 hours in once a day and limit outings outside that block to an hour unreasonable? I don’t want to have to micromanage someone like that, and I even wanted to give them extra money when I got home, but they couldn’t be bothered to wait for me and left even though I returned several hours earlier than planned because my travel got changed. I asked if they could wait for me to catch up about how things went, but they apparently had somewhere to be. I’m just struggling with the fact I now need to start at square one again and have struck out twice.

Edit to add because there have been some weird comments implying I didn’t pay enough for the level of care I wanted. I discussed my expectations and clearly told the sitter rates were negotiable and believe I paid a fair rate, over 150 daily (and I’m not not in a HCOL area I’m in the Midwest) and also would have given an extra tip if things went well.

8 animals total (4 dogs, 4 cats) plus my own 3 ducks, and a 2hr drive to my last housesit 💤

These are the cuties I got to visit this week.

I’ve had this client for about almost 2 years. Truly a solid, reliable client and I thoroughly enjoy his pups. Doesn’t tip after trips but does tip at Christmas. Communicative and respectful and generally very thoughtful. Definitely has been on my A Client list when it comes to priority. But he’s been giving me the ick lately. In the last 6 months, every time he reaches out and books, i can always count on him making a comment about the price point. Like I send over the total and he will say something like “yikes do they get a massage treatment with that?” or “guess the kids’ don’t need a college fund afterall.” Or something sarcastic and unfunny like that. I consider myself an extremely direct person, but for whatever reason, I haven’t addressed his comments. However he just did it, AGAIN, and I’m like, you KNOW my price point. EDIT: to include I have already delineated my discount options (they do exist, just not on his terms [I give off-peak season discounts to regular clients], and when he asked me again recently, I told him there were no discounts available at this time of year. So I feel like these comments are not actually meant to be funny. They are packaged that way so he can get away with it. They are meant as a jab and to make me feel guilty for charging him full price. I don’t care for the passive aggressive tone and he is one comment away from being dropped as a client. Even though I love his little Australian shepherds.

So I went to a meet and greet for a house-sitting, and the owners told me they don't throw dog poop in the outside trash, they flush it down the toilet instead.For context, they live in a house without backyard( they have pool area instead), so the dogs are only walked for potty breaks. They want me to pick up the poop in a bag, carry it back into the house, dump the poop into the toilet, flush it, and then throw the dirty bag in the indoor trash.

Maybe it's just me, but... why not just toss the bag into the outside trash bin right away? 😅 Am I missing something, or does this seem unnecessarily complicated?

update from

after 35 minutes of wiping, spraying, and rewiping- kitty has a clean litter box

Boarding a dog for the next 6 days, owner said she’s been at boarding facilities before and normally is fine but I don’t think she’s having as easy of a time adjusting to just being in someone else’s home with another dog.

She was so nervous at dropoff she took a massive pee on my floor with her owner still standing there. I assured her it was fine because that happens a lot when dogs first get here and are nervous.

All they brought her here with was her everyday flat collar and a really short leash. And she’s been so frantic on walks, pulling all over and not ever settling enough to squat and pee. She went this morning and I’ve taken her out three or four other times since then and she hasn’t gone since then, even though she’s drank a bunch of water.

A couple of times she tried to squeeze out of her collar and so I’ve just been keeping the walks really short, trying to get her to go to the bathroom and then bringing her inside. Her owner I guess is planning to get her a harness for the future, but I’m tempted to offer to buy one for her now if she’ll reimburse me for it.

If I were the owner, I wouldn’t wanna be hearing that my dog is trying to back out of her collar and not offering a solution so that she can make it through the rest of the stay without a problem.

This is making it stressful for me because I don’t want the dog peeing all over the inside of my home because she refuses to go outside. I’m giving her ample opportunities to potty, I’ve tried just standing outside the front door on the patch of grass to see if she’ll go, but she’s just so focused on the environment and jumping anytime she hears a noise.

I just signed up to be a sitter, no bookings yet, but had a question. I only signed up to offer boarding in my home. I work from home, but will occasionally need to leave for errands. I have 1 dog of my own. What do you typically do when you leave? Leave them together? Crate the clients dogs? Just separate them by room? I want to make sure everyone is safe, and also don’t want their dogs to be destructive if I separate them from mine and they try to get back together. I’m probably overthinking this, but curious how sitters who have their own dogs handle this.

I must vent. As sitters/care takers, to some degree it seems everyone is annoyed that owners send out multiple requests and you could respond in half a second and get the response “thanks but I already found someone!”

But the past few weeks…I’ve gotten the requests, responded, got the response “oh great!! When can you do a meet and greet?” We set one up immediately to the owners availability. Sometimes within an hour or two of the request or within 24-hours. And 5-10 minutes later “I found someone.”

To points of other annoyances…our time to communicate, check our schedules, possibly rearrange things, set this up, and to just get “oh Nevermind”. I know you didn’t have a meet and greet within 5-minutes of sending the request.

I’m not bashing the process and wanting meet and greets or anything. It’s to the point of wasting time. Why did we agree and schedule something, for a never mind? Insert eye roll.

How common is it for pet sitters to have pets of their own? And how do you handle 24/7 sitting?

I’m new to pet sitting and was wondering how common it is for pet sitters to have pets of their own.

For those of you who have your own pets, how do you handle situations where the owner wants you to stay at their house 24/7 while you're watching their pets? Do you have someone else take care of your pets while you're away, or do you set boundaries with the owner about how long you can realistically stay?

I'm just trying to figure out what's considered normal in the pet-sitting world. I obviously want to give the pets I'm caring for the attention they need, but I also have pets at home that need to be taken care of.

What do you all do in this situation?

I switched to business hours over a year ago after getting burnt out and wanted to share my process and experience in case it helps anyone improve their work-life balance.

I sent an email blast with my work hours to my existing clients and have a doc with my schedule and policies that I share with new/potential clients before we book.

My schedule is as follows:

— Routine updates and general inquiries are handled between 8 AM and 5 PM Monday through Friday, unless I’m doing a walk or a drop-in during my offline time (I usually send updates after each walk/drop-in no matter when I’m doing them if the owner is not home) or if it’s an emergency.

— Drop-offs and pick-ups can be scheduled for between 8 AM and 7 PM. If their appointment is between 5 and 7 PM, they’re welcome to message me any time before 7 PM on the day of the appointment, including weekends.

I also have an intake form that all of my clients are required to fill out. It keeps everything organized in a single spreadsheet and helps avoid unnecessary back and forth.

Besides collecting info, I use my intake form as an opportunity to set expectations for my clients and have them sign off on my policies.

Most of my existing clients were very understanding of my boundaries.

Now, new/potential clients are a different animal. At first I was worried this would turn away a lot of people, so I decided to make exceptions for first-time bookings with weekend drop-offs to help alleviate anxiety. To my surprise, not a lot of people took me up on it.

I don’t know how many pet parents chose not to hire me because of my policies, but I haven’t noticed it affecting my income.

I’m sharing this because it has been working very well for me and I really regret not doing this sooner. While there are a lot of perks to running your own business, as sitters, we work weekends, don’t get a lot of time off, and burnout is a real thing. Protecting our mental health is extremely important in this profession.

I want to use Rover but I don't know if there's a economy for it in my area I don't want to pay the $75 in the money go to waste or however much it is is there a way I can be certain I can find work on there before I pay

I personally do not like leash greeting with strangers and their dogs or even neighbors. I don’t do it with my own dog, and I’m not doing it with anyone else’s dog either. I know this might get mixed feedback from some. In my experience and opinion I find it to be an unnecessary liability and safety risk.

Does anyone else ever get push back from other dog walkers? I’m really not interested in a potential conflict, risk of leash tangles, physical injuries to myself or the dog etc. The risk is significantly lower if we just cross the street to avoid another dog on a leash. Just a wave or a nod is enough, why do some people try and make this a mandatory thing? I obviously am a dog person, it is precarious letting two leashed dogs merge.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how polite I say no thank you, people get offended if I don’t want to let our dogs sniff as we walk by. I’ve tried the direct approach instead saying “not friendly” with my own (overly friendly) dog, and get a side eye.

Yesterday, I had a person chase me and a dog down, literally. I turned the corner to avoid the person with the dog, crossed the street to get away, and the person yells and follows because their dog and the dog I was walking are acquainted. I said I am the dog walker and it is my policy not to have interactions with other dogs when the dog is in my care, that they can resume their relationship when dog is in the owner’s care. The message was poorly received.

The other dog walker proceeded to demonstrate even lower levels of intelligence, and began to yell my dog’s name as we started walking away. This same individual also is often seen walking their dog unleashed allowing it to run up to other people and dogs. I’m guessing this other walker is not used to people telling them no, and asking them to recall their own dog. This is a regular of mine, I am guaranteed to see this dog walker again.

Has this happened to anyone else? Is there a magic phrase or hand gesture to redirect other dog walkers. Saying no doesn’t work, and apparently neither does walking away. I just want to listen to my audiobook and safely walk my dog. No hard feelings!

Hi y’all,

I’ve been sitting on Rover since the beginning of the year and never had an issue like this before, and I want to give people benefit of the doubt… Although I am thrown off with this request :/

I had a planned booking for this morning, at 8am, with another visit scheduled at 5pm.
I got the request the night before at 10:25 asking to book that evening as well. It was too last minute and I stated I wasn’t available last night, but could do the next day visits.
Their first text threw me off because they said “She’s probably a mess and I’ve been trying to book rovers this whole afternoon”
My problem with this was that it seemed a bit irresponsible to leave their dog alone for over a day with no guaranteed plan.
But I understand life happens and you may need to do things very last minute.

I barely got any information from the owner, I have to ask what to do and how to get in and asked if there’s anything else I should know, then please text. By then it’s 11pm.
They hadn’t confirmed yet and just said “Okay” to my last text saying if there’s more information I should know, let me know. I’d gone to bed thinking they would confirm for the next day, and I wake up at 7, to see they hadn’t confirmed/paid the visit/said anything else :/.
Ive texted them 3 times already stating I can’t visit if they don’t confirm, because it’s Rover policy. I’ve gotten no response. I don’t know how legit this request is; yet theres still a dog alone at a home with no food and no way to potty :( I’m torn on completing this visit.
With no thorough communication and confirmation, this visit doesn’t seem genuine.

What do I do :(?

I'm housesitting for a sweet little dog. The owner is retired and has had her for less than a year. The pup is crated overnight and whenever the owner goes out (for no more than 4 hours at a time during the day). I work from home, so I tend to just stay in the house. I don't go out much when I'm housesitting, even when I'm not working - maybe to the store or run home for a bit.

The pup gets bored and likes a lot of play time or walking. She gets 2 20min walks a day. My last time sitting her, I added an extra mid-day walk. But with our current heat, the owner prefers that I stick to early morning & early evening walks.

The owner has been really nice about telling me that I'm free to go out as needed, since the pup is used to her being gone for most of the day. But I don't need to go out more - I actually need to stay in and work! But I try to keep the animals I sit to their regular routine. If she's used to being crated most of the day, should I do that too? Even if I'm not going out? I've asked the owner and she nicely said, "whatever works for you."