I had a sitting job a few nights ago to hang out with an anxious dog for 5 hours while his parents were on a date. Their only toilet had horrendous dried shit splatter all over the bowl & the seat was covered in pubes. No hand soap in the bathroom or kitchen š¤¢š¤®
After sitting for a while I am so surprised by how many people just let you stay in their home with stuff like this. So nasty! One of my biggest pet peeves.
Iām about to go away for the week for work. Iām currently turning my home into somewhere the King could stay.
I love my sitters and wouldnāt even consider not scrubbing it to a state theyāre comfortable in.
My home is their home while theyāre hereā¦which currently, is more often than me.
Totally disrespectful to expect someone to stay in a dirty house.
Thank you for taking care of your sitter! We appreciate you. Iām the same way I clean for days if someone is staying over. I mean , if you canāt do it at least hire a cleaner!
sorry you had to deal with that! this is why i will not offer house sitting. iāve become quite the germaphobe since covid and i would rather not make as much money doing drop ins and walks than deal with this. š
Its even worse cuz I don't drive so I'm paying train fees š problem is my calender suddenly went quiet so I got desperate. Won't make the mistake again.
I accidentally booked 3 weeks of back-to-back house sitting requests. I just got married and this is the least time I've ever spent with my husband in our entire relationship - I'm lucky I'm busy but damnn I need to get better at admin (and saying no).
I'm not good at saying no, so I raised my prices. I don't think I could really afford myself for my own dogs. But I'm doing this part time while I look for another job. I'm still getting requests though!
Ugh this is me! Grateful to be busy & booked but horrible at saying no/admin as well. I roped my sister into helping me but I still have a hellish month ahead. Sending you good vibes!
Ask owners if hubby can come with you or sleep over? I used to do this with my ex and most of them were very chill and welcoming. They get two sitters for the price of one.
I do this with my partner. Idk why but most of the time the pets like my partner more than me. The owners appreciate the extra love and attention their pets get. We get somewhat of a "staycation" sometimes bc a lot of clients have had rlly nice homes. It also allows me to sleep in sometimes bc my partner wakes up early and is willing to feed the pets and let them out if they're dogs. I give them a % of my earnings if they helped with that stay.
we have our own cats so it works a lot better if it's close to home.
some couples put both of their names in the profile.
Didnāt think about this angle but tbh youāre rightā¦.this is a steal for a client. Pets might never actually be alone, some can be walked or have outdoor time while the others are still being supervised, and so on.
I booked 5 weeks of back to back house sitting this spring. Three weeks at client A followed immediately by 2 weeks at client B. It was rough. I decided I wasn't going to do any more long bookings for a while, and luckily I haven't gotten any requests for long bookings since then.
good luck. you got this! it'll be over before you know it
Oh nooo. Congratulations on your new marriage though Iām sorry you created this situation! I wish roverās calendar had a different color for tentative/pending booking requests and this also synced with google calendar.
yes, iirc it says [U] for unconfirmed and I think it changes color when it's confirmed but I could be wrong. meet n greets show up too when you use the "propose a meet n greet" button
every single time iāve taken a client who was difficult about setting up a meet and greet, or unable to do one, that client has turned out to be an issue. they cancel randomly on short notice, they are insanely demanding, they text me asking why iām late when the booking started 1 minute ago, on and on, somehow i am always the issue.
and yet, im a broke b*tch and always want to take every opportunity possible to make money so i entertain every single one of these people until the red flags smack me in the face.
also donāt love people who request to book, arenāt sure about dates/time, and then ghost, but that one just bruises my ego, so definitely not the worst.
i think i just hate being treated like āthe help.ā
Iām annoyed with the cheap pet sitters in my area, they are mostly off app sitters but I feel like it sets the precedent that pet sitting should be cheap.
I see people on my small towns community Facebook page constantly offering prices ranging from $15-25 per day/night. I feel insane charging $40ā¦and yes, people pay it and sometimes even more. But itās crazy knowing that my competition is so much cheaper.
Iām a former insurance agent and the stories Iāve heard from pet sitters, let alone have experienced myself prove that this should not be a ācheapā service EVER. I understand affordability but cheap? No. We deserve to be paid properly for the massive risk this job entails.
It feels glib to say that there are people whoāll pay more for pet care and usually those people are better clients. Like, thatās my experience 100%, but it doesnāt invalidate what youāre saying about how cheap sitters saturating the market create a false perception of what the services are and are worth.
In some cases, individuals may go with the cheapest sitter and have an experience that leads them not to do so in future. But a) thatās just individuals and doesnāt shift widespread perception b) I donāt want to wish harm on anyoneās pets and c) there are some good sitters out there who just severely underprice their service.
I need to vent so Iām so glad this is here. This stay that Iām currently at has just gone from bad to worse and I need some support from my fellow sitters. I had actually started writing this earlier, but more things have happened since.
Iām currently at a 9 day stay taking care of two handicapped pups. Iāve watched these dogs before, and before only one used to be handicapped, the other was just older but could do things on his own. Fast forward to about a week ago and the owner told me that he no longer can use his hind legs and needs a harness (much like his sister) to walk around. Alright, no problem. Iāve been in animal care for about 6 years now, Iāve dealt with a lot and figured that Iād be able to establish a routine with him like I had for his sister. But I get here, and I can already tell heās kind of miserable. He tries to get up on his own, not understanding why he canāt stand up and walk around. He sleeps most of day, but when heās awake is when we have issues, he has trouble settling and getting comfortable, so I have to pick him up (keep and mind, both him and his sister are around 60-70 pounds) and move him around to help him get comfortable. He loves water, but canāt get to his fountain. He used to love wandering in their fenced backyard but canāt now. I canāt leave the room if heās awake or else heāll whine and bark because he canāt follow me. Everyday has gotten worse for him, heās more uncomfortable, harder for him to settle, not responding well to his medications anymore. And all the while, Iām letting the owner know everything about how heās declining. I really love these dogs, and to see him like this was truly heartbreaking, this stay was becoming so hard for me, not only physically with having to hold up two dogs whenever they needed to move, but mentally and emotionally because I could see how much he was struggling. Last night was the worst night for him. I took him out 5 times between 10pm-1am. He just could not settle. And I apologetically texted the owner at 1 letting her know that nothing she has suggested is helping, and Iām really struggling with this stay. She says sheāll call the vet in the morning and see if I can take him in and he finally kind of settles but every time I move, he jolts awake so I doubt he really got any sort of sleep overnight.
This morning he was so uncomfortable, crying, barking, canāt sit still at all. So I tell their owner how he is, and though I hated to ask and have never asked before, I asked if they could possibly come home sooner, not only because of his issues, but because I was becoming physically sick over the exhaustion from taking care of them and how difficult itās been and not sure if I could push through the rest of the stay. The owner told me that I could take him to the er vet and that the soonest theyād be able to get home is tomorrow. So I took him, and he practically screamed the entire way there (he hates car rides, and I tried to make him comfortable but he wasnāt having it) We walked in and we were seen almost immediately due to the amount of distress he was in. I explained to the tech and doctor what was going on with him. And they took him to the back to get his vitals and check him out. After a bit of waiting, I was taken to an examination room and they had told me to call the owner. I did and they explained what was going on with him, something with one of his hip disks, itās hard for me to remember even though it just happened. And they said the most humane option for him, since heās in so much pain and distress, would be to put him down. It was heartbreaking to hear his owner sob. Theyāre out of the states, so the soonest they could get home is late tomorrow night. So heās being hospitalized tonight so they are able to say goodbye to him.
It was heartbreaking. This whole stay has been heartbreaking. My gut knew there was something wrong from day 1 and I kind of hate that I was right. The owners are glad that I was here, and that I knew something was wrong. But I feel terrible for them, I know they love their dogs so much, their dogs are their kids. Iām staying with their other dog until they get home tomorrow, she seems okay for the most part, but itās obvious she knows somethings wrong.
Anyways. Thanks for reading my vent if you did. I just needed to get it out ā¤ļø
Oh hun, Iām so sorry you are going through all that. It sounds like a very rough sit. I think you handled it admirably. I am proud of you for recognizing your needs and advocating for yourself while balancing the best interests of the dog. It might not feel like it, but you did good. You did all the right things. I donāt know how old you are, but Iām sending you some mom hugs anyways.
Thank you. So much. I canāt begin to tell you how much I appreciate your response. Iām turning 21 next week, and have a pretty good relationship with my mom, but honestly, I could use all the mom hugs I can get right now ā¤ļø
It is the absolute worst feeling when youāre in a shitty situation that you saw some red flags but took the booking anyway because āIām probably over exaggerating/it will be fine.ā Iāve been there for sure š
Accepted a housesitting job with no overnights for a few days. She was a big Labrador. I met her and she was excitable, but not too bad. They said she wasnāt big on cuddling on the couch or anything. I get there the first morning and feed/walk her. Everything is good. I go to sit on the couch to hang out and she wants to be up with me. I figure maybe she does want to cuddle. Nope. She wants to tackle me and lick me with all her strength. She was probably 70-80lbs and pinned me down. I realized that staying there for 3 days straight except nights that I could not sit anywhere except for the kitchen table and had to play tug of war with her constantly so she wouldnāt jump on top of me and push me over when sitting. Nightmare.
Oh wow. I had a Rottweiler once that was like that. You had to constantly be giving her attention or else she would be on you. I work from home and had to use vacation time because I couldnāt get anything done. I wonāt be sitting for that dog again
You have to wonder - was she like this *because* she doesnāt get attention from her owners? Or do they simply not have jobs to balance against her needs
I know a dog who's 160+ pounds and he'll easily knock you down. He's almost as tall as I am - I'm 5 ft 3 for reference. He was nice, but he's the biggest dog that I've ever been in close proximity with.
So to be very clear NEVER comment on the FB group run by Rover. Been a member for years and was removed and blocked by commenting on the current situation with their changes. All I have ever done was post positives comments. No warning either. š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
May I ask what changes youāre referring to?
(Pls feel free not to answer if you think itāll bring further trouble. Rover reps probably do lurk here)
Iām caring for two special needs blind geriatric huskies that need 24/7 care and the owner just happened to forget to let me know that one of them poops IN THE CAR. I feel like Iām a patient and understanding person and Iāve cleaned 6 accidents in my house in 2 nights but the poop in the car was justā¦. Yeah.
It was ok. At night we would sleep in the room w the door closed bc the cat so she would be very vocal and upset about it but we had a talk and she stopped screaming and opted to just BLINDLY open the door, and then the locked door
Just got done with a 22 day housesit at what had to have been a $2m home. With all that money, they buy the absolute worst kitty litter on the market. I could never get that litter box fully clean- and also the older cat pees next to the litter box a lot, and they just put newspaper on the floor to catch it. I brought my own puppy pee pads to put down because I was sick of cleaning pee off the floor.
Same people have a dog who loves loves loves toys (especially plush ones). Owners have one toy.
They use grocery bags for poop bags, which is annoying when leash poop bag dispensers are so easy and inexpensive.
So I ended up donating some toys and a poop bag dispenser and was tempted to bring over some better cat litter, but did not.
Grocery bags for poop bags is how I know people didnāt grow up poor / donāt walk their own dogs. We reused those as shower caps and multipurpose bags when I was growing up so I have an *intimate* awareness of how selectively permeable (let alone outright fragile) those bags are. If you wanna reduce reuse recycle at least offer your newspaper bags god damn
Letting your cat just piss on the floor because you wonāt spend a little more for their and your peaceā¦..not giving your dog toysā¦at this point your animals are ornamental
I HATE the grocery bags as dog poop bags, especially if they don't check them for holes first. š¤¢ In NJ we don't get plastic bags at stores anymore, but when we did I'd use them for cat litter but I only ever used ones without holes.
Also peeved by rich people with 0 enrichment for their dogs/cats. It makes me so sad for them!
I use Rover and also have a kijiji ad. My current booking is from kijiji. They asked for May 19-21. Fine, no problem. So today I was confirming the pick up time and they said between 2-3 TOMORROW. I sent a screenshot of our messaging clearly showing they requested May 19-21. They replied that they were referring to the dates of the nights they needed, so the night of May 19, 20, and 21st. Itās not a problem to extend the stay, but I have never had anyone request dates that way before! Talk about causing confusion!
Ooh yeah, Iām calling š¤” client on that one. The booking period is for as long as the sitter is with your pet, till they part with your petā¦.thatās 5/19-22 in this case.
Thank you! I have never heard of booking dates the way he did, probably because it doesnāt make sense! Heās lucky that we donāt really have lives of our own so weāre almost always available Lol
Uggghhh I just made a post about this. My current peeve is owners who let their dogs off leash in their yard with an open gate- and then just fuck off to go work on something. So irresponsible š¤¦āāļø
I saw someone do this and their dog just wandered off down the street while they're cluelessly calling out to him looking for him and being blatantly ignored.
It's a nightmare to dog walkers who are walking a reactive dog.
The fact that small dog owners do this a lot is even worse. There are dogs that could EAT yours on sight and you just don't care?
Hate this shit. Donāt care if they claim they have electric fences. I donāt walk dogs past those yards, I wonāt work with those clients
Doesnāt even matter if my dog isnāt reactive or is large. Iām not going to expect it to not react if a 10 lb chiweenie torpedo flies out of the yard and latches on
Iād be down for that! Or at least, Iāll post another crowdsource-type post next Sunday. One I was thinking of was for people to drop their stock message wording or to request help with communications - Iāve noticed a lot of the posts here are from people who arenāt sure how to reply or word things, whereas for others (myself included) it comes a lot easier.
Owners that request a 5 am, 6 am or 7 am drop offs. I hate when over requesting a super early drop off they also text the day before to confirm the drop-off time (they make you think they are super into being on time) then, depending on the case this varies, but usually they end arriving 30 minutes or 1 hour late. These clients are my kriptonyte š¤¦
š¤”š¤”š¤”
Spent most of the meet n greet in the back yard. Dogs were nice, moderately well trained. Left through the back gate. Didn't look too closely at the house (big mistake) bc it looked lived-in messy upon first glance. They said they had moved in recently.
During the stay I quickly discovered the house was gross. Like uncomfortable to be in, I don't want to touch surfaces, some places smell very bad. Dog pee soaked into carpet in living room. Garage was full of trash that must have been there for months based on the amount of trash and the smell. I did not in any way judge them, it just made it really hard to be inside the house.
The booking was 2 weeks. I spent most of the time outside with the dogs (which the owners loved) because the back yard was normal and not gross. I counted down the days until it was over. The dogs were nice and the weather was nearly perfect for almost the whole two weeks, so it worked out okay.
They left me a $100 tip and a great review, so in the end it was worth it. They asked me if I'd be available again for some trips this fall and I said yes because I didn't want to risk a bad review by telling the truth. Sometime this summer I am planning to reach out to them to tell them I moved and they are too far to be in my service area anymore (even though that is not true). If anyone has better ideas I am all ears.
I sometimes wonder when clients come back to their houses and get hit with the smell, do they think, "Oh wow, we live like this," or "the sitter trashed my house." The fact that they tipped you suggests that they knew it wasn't on you. Good call being outside and glad the weather held...I beg you not to risk it again in the fall
I was worried about it so I took photos at the beginning and end of the stay. I left the home cleaner than I found it and I took all trash out from when I was there. I also kept the dogs out of the carpeted living room unless they were supervised. They had a front living room that was hard wood and the kitchen was laminate, so they still had plenty of space indoors.
There is no way in hell I will ever be going back there. They could offer to pay me double or triple and the answer would still be no. My exact plan is to text them (to their personal number) that I had to move out of state unexpectedly for family reasons and wanted to let them know with enough time to find a different sitter. Then block them on Rover so I won't show up in search when they're looking this fall.
the guest bathroom was practically taken over by the cat and i think they assumed i would shower in there but between the dirt and cat food i just used the master bathroom showerā¦ they also had 0 tv in the house and i felt like a pioneer
I don't like the way sitters treat other sitters. A huge amount of sitters (not all) have a giant owner bias, they tend to criticize and punish harshly instead trying to help out. Is not all sitters but a huge amount fall in this category.
Why do people refuse to crate train and just go straight to pee pads? š¤® That doesnāt count as potty trained and Iām sick of people trying to say otherwise
I hate the houses that smell. I always wear a mask at the m&g (I have lupus) and I can't smell through it. So, when I finally get there and it stinks I want to cry. I make sure these days to take a whiff before I agree to sit. If it's too smelly I can't do it because I get nauseous and will get physically ill if the scent is too much. At one 2 week long pet sitting I once had to message the client and ask as nice as possible where their air fresheners were because I was feeling ill. I mean, at least this time it was a good smell it was just too strong.
When I was working at another pet sitting place I had a client who had a cat. Their house reeked of ammonia. The guest room they wanted me to sleep in had been pissed all over by said cat. I washed the sheets, I poured baking soda on the carpets and vacuumed it up and still had to sleep on the sofa.
I just finished drop ins that lasted a week and a half. I had to BE at the house at 7AM. Not the worst but I do not normally wake up at 6AM so it was rough.
At a booking now where the client went overseas and forgot to mention her dog has been on her period for 2 days. I'm sitting for a whole week.
Another client who I did a meet & greet with a massive Alsatian. Not only was it a 40 min drive 1 way but the dog was not trained(kept jumping up and getting right in my face, kept going at my ears when sat down), she also had 2 cats and when I messaged to say it's not a good fit, didn't even get the decency of a response.
Another client with the most exhausting dog I've ever spent time with, would not sit still, kept digging the sofa pillows, jumped onto the kitchen counters to steal my food, kept barking at me when I sat down and last but not least, kept trying to steal the poop bags from my hand while I was trying to pick up it's shit and caused me to touch it.
The last one I took 3 days to recover from because I was so emotionally and physically exhausted š
I like this mega vent thread a lot. I'm just feeling kinda burnt out after a few years now, I'm suddenly just not finding myself worn thin that I'm in school and working 2 jobs. I have amazing clients and I love them all to bits, I'm just having a bit of a mid life crisis or something
An owner did not disclose his dog was food aggressive until I confronted him about it. He then said āmy apologies for not telling you soonerā my brother in Christ you own a 100+ pound dog that has teeth bigger than my pinky nail. Youāre gonna just say āsorry ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆā after your dog tried to eat a bone off the ground and I tried to get it out of his mouth? Fuck u man
I feel like I am on call for 12 hours a day for 2 weeks straight. I also sometimes work evenings, so I end up sleeping only couple hours having to wake up at 6.30am.
These longer term drop ins are always draining. I have 6 daily dog walks so its exhausting to get up early and stay out later for that one dog. The extra money is fantastic but ugh while you're doing it. I totally relate
I hate that I'm not more strict when it comes to making sure that everything an owner says about their pet(s) health wise is accurate. I had one person have a guinea pig that she said was neutered but on my last day of the second booking with her, she said that he wasn't fixed (but she had it on the schedule with a vet at a top NYC 24/7 vet for after the booking). Not that it's an issue since she was honest about it, but I wish she had told me earlier - since we did have two multi day bookings together and she listed on his pet profile on the app that he was neutered before he got neutered. Most owners are good about providing their vet's contact info in case of an emergency, but I've thankfully never been in a situation where I had to take a Rover client's pet to a vet, emergency or regular.
I should be more strict about it since there are laws about certain vaccines here in NYS, but I don't know what's stopping me.
It's not different, but it's strongly recommended to do such if they have a female guinea pig friend to prevent breeding between the two. It's more about whether a male and a female guinea pig will breed or not versus whether it'll benefit them medically. If it was a cat or dog, then it's more crucial to get them fixed.
Ah gotcha, didnāt realize there was a lady guinea pig involved in this situation too
May i ask how you price out guinea pigs and other non-cat/dog pets?
Most of the other non-cat/dog pets I've met are super easy to work with; they require maybe two-five minutes of work at most; the hardest part is taking out the fresh hay for them to eat since their habitats are small. If it's easy, then $5 max depending on how close they live to my apartment. If it's hard/further away than I'd like, then not more than $10 assuming that they're not the only pet in the apartment.
I have a dog right now, only a 2.5 hour visit, but for some reason I canāt put my finger on the dog and his owner just drive me a little nuts. I just took him on a walk and he made me go through the middle woods and I got attacked by mosquitos and need to do a tick inspection on both of us, only an hour left but Iām just so pissy ngl. Heās a great dog heās just too smart for his own good.
I tried to help a person out who was traveling out of country, last minute because the other place bailed last second.
I assume during drop off they said hell no. Because when the dog was dropped off he was a massive working Shepard with no control, and nearly hurt my toddler a few times. I feel bad for this persons friend as they were the emergency contact. But even they knew this dog had no business being rescued or sat in an environment such as mine.
Young people want to do the right thing by adopting, but they have no idea what that actually means or entails.
When I was a year into pet sitting, I got a booking request for 2 dogs and 3 cats. The total amount was pretty good for me back then and they lived 10 minutes away so even though it was a last minute booking I thought- okay this is a great opportunity to get extra money from one booking.
I came to the meet and greet and this couple lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate. Apartment had shit all over the place and you literally had to squeeze in between boxes and furniture and other things that were piled up everywhere, they said they just moved in which I kind of understood but they had 2 huge dogs and one of them was a partially blind diabetic senior boy. Iāve never taken care of special needs pets before but I was willing to learn and help the owners who were desperate to book a sitter last minute. They showed me how to administer the insulin shot and told me to keep the water dispenser full each visit because he drank a lot! The other pup was relatively easy to take care of but she had lots of energy! But I could handle that so I agreed to book them and would start my first visit tomorrow at PM time.
They only booked 2 visits a day and assured me that the roommate would take care of the pups during the day. (Allegedly the roommate worked night shifts and thatās why they only needed me twice early at 6:30AM and 6:30PM.) they told me to put the dogs in crates after I visited and the roommate would let them out as soon she would get home after her night shift. Cats only needed food and water plus litter robot checked for any malfunction. Cool no problems there.
First visit started the next day in the PM, the dogs were in their crates. I fed them dinner, administered the insulin shot to the senior pup and took them on a walk. Put them back in their crates overnight. Came early in the morning before 7am, senior pup peed a huge puddle in the crate and was completely soaked in it plus he threw up his food so it was a huge mess! I cleaned up everything with toilet paper because I could not find any paper towels and bathed the dog in the shower. Let the owners know and got no response. Locked the dogs in the crates again (knowing that the roommate will come back soon from her nightshift and let them out) Came back for the PM visit and the dogs are still in their cratesā¦ the senior pup has peed all over himself againā¦ I cleaned him up, including his crate and the floor around it. Reached out to the owners once again and got no responseā¦ took the pups on a walk and when we came back I noticed that the roommate was home. I asked if she took them out during the day and she said ānoā and that she didnāt even know she was supposed to. I tried calling the owners to figure out the situation. Overall I spent almost an hour cleaning the mess and the pup himself plus 20/30 minutes walking and feeding cats afterwards. I would spent over 2 hours at their place when they only paid for a 30 minutes drop-ins. Next day exact same thing happened so I left the poor senior pup in the bathroom with a gate up and he threw up and peed everywhereā¦. I cleaned once again and he starts drinking and throwing up his dinner just as I finished up cleaning the previous mess. This time I knew yo bring paper towels and gloves with me to clean it up. Still no response from the owners!!! This would happen for the rest of the booking, which was roughly for 5 days straight. The owners finally called me back and apologized for the mess and that the roommate misunderstood them and thought I was coming 3 times a day and she only needed to check on the dogs from time to time. (Which she never did btw! ) -
and the other poor pup was confined in her crate for almost 20 hours a day!! I asked if i could maybe leave her roaming around in their bedroom to which they said no and that she's used to being locked up for prolonged hoursā¦ she obviously was miserable and whining all the time as I would leave or arrive to their place. I felt so bad for these poor pups that I decided to walk them for a bit longer and hang out with then for some extra time to which the owners said there was no need to and the dogs would be fine. Finally the last visit of the booking ended and I was ready to go home and sleep and forget about this nightmare of a bookingā¦ the owners call me around 4/5am next morning saying their flight got delayed and the dogs need to go outside soon and the senior needs his insulin shot. I was soooo exhausted and mad but i agreed only because my heart was breaking for those dogs.
The owners finally arrived back that afternoon and asked me if I could bring the keys back because that was the only set they had. I dropped off the keys and they said thank you and here's a tip for your awesome pet care and handed me an envelope. When i opened it in my car, there was a card saying thanks for your help this week and $5 in $1 billsā¦
needless to say next time they asked for my help I declined.
I knowā¦ I wish I knew back then that I couldāve reported them, those were the worst 5 days not only for me but for those poor dogs! It happened back in 2018ā¦ I kept thinking about them for a long time and wondering if they were doing okay. Eventually half a year later the lady reached out to me again asking if I could watch only the senior pup, who by that time was completely blind, and he only needed to be taken out once a dayā¦(he could pee in the shower during the day) and the other pup allegedly was given to her mother who had a house with a yard.
Oh, where to start.
* Long time client, love her and her animals, but she has yet to pay for the last trip, *again*! This crap has been going on for years, and I'm so tired of it. She always does pay eventually, and with a nice tip or a gift card to a local restaurant, but come on! I'm tired of the excuses! "I'm on work duty this week." "I'm off work this week so I didn't leave the house." "I'll be by this weekend to drop it off." The weekend is over now, where the heck are you? Times like this make Rover sound really good for payment options.
* Long time, older client who has become increasingly wishy washy with age has yet to confirm exact dates for the first of June, when she might need my help watching her daughter's dogs. She seems to have abandoned me for her own dog's care; it's a new dog, and she seems jealous that the dog likes me. Her mind seems to be slipping as of late. But she does this kind of crap all the time: Calls to see what my availability is, talks about needing help because she can't care for her own dog and her daughter's dogs at the same time, then suddenly changes her mind and does it all herself. But this time I have another client who wants the same time frame, so I really need an answer...
* Speaking of that other client, not looking forward to it at all. I love the client, and their animals, but they now have five dogs and four cats. Four of those dogs are a year or under. Four puppies! Dear God. And it's overnight. Nor have I had a lot of overnights lately, so I'm out of the habit. I need the money since things have been slow, but this...
* And a long time client (going on 7 years!) whose dog I let out at lunch twice a week just informed me she's thinking of retiring in August. She's my best paying regular, and the easiest dog I care for. I do not need this right now, and I'm really depressed that I'll be saying goodbye to my girl after all these years...
* Long time regular client recently added a puppy. I assumed they would increase the pay; they paid extra when the stepdaughter's puppy stayed there for two weeks. I was mistaken. Not even a freaking tip. They already get away dirt cheap. I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to them about raising prices, due to economic and personal circumstances of late.
> to drop it off
How does she pay?! A carrier pigeon laden with bags of coins? These days 95% of people have a device which can handle Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, cash app, and more with them 25/8. If you werenāt venting with the desire to receive suggestions please ignore this next part: instituting a late payment fee and communicating this to your clients would be totally justifiable. Your clients who pay on time wonāt pay it any mind, and any who serially delay payment will either take notice or pay extra for the privilege.
Lol, it's actually my fault. I'm low tech; cash or check only. I don't even have a smart phone. I don't text. All old school. I find it so much less stressful, most of the time.
I live in a small town, where everyone more or less trusts one another to do the right thing. She's a local doctor. She is trustworthy, just not punctual, lol. She lives just a few blocks away, so she personally delivers the payment to me. But I love the idea of carrier pigeon! I wonder if we can train her grackle to do that...he would be more punctual than she isemote:free\_emotes\_pack:thinking\_face\_hmm
And thank you for reading! I'm just venting into the void. It's been a rough few months.
Iām extremely privileged to not currently need Rover/pet sitting as my main form of income; as a result, my prices are pretty high and Iāve majorly pared down my regular clients. I had 2 problem clients; one of them I cut loose, the other I chose to keep on.
Fast forward to now, I landed a regular client who is extremely wealthy, has a huge mansion, and 2 sweet and easy dogs. Even though we had already agreed on a price prior to our third stay, at the end of it the client basically asked me to name a price. I sent them the remainder of the total we had agreed on, and they casually tipped me $200 on top of that. Immediately after, I had a sitting for the problem client. Like my āgoodā client, #2 is pretty well off, has an extremely nice home, and 2 easy senior dogs. Unlike #1, though, #2 is extremely stingy and questioned my price at the end of the 8-day stay. I explained that my actual rate is a lot higher and that they were welcome to pay whatever they felt I deserved. They then claimed they had no problem with it and didnāt fulfill my payment request for 3 days; I finally had to tell them they had until 5pm on the third day to pay me, to which they claimed to have forgotten and immediately paid. It really pissed me off bc I know going off app opens up that risk and Iām really careful with who I take off because of that. And I think what made it worse was the direct comparison - #2 is very status/appearance obsessed, so it was just laughable when they were whining about the price, meanwhile #1 is telling me to name a number and throwing Benjis at me, lol.
Sitting 2 dogs. Dog "a" and dog "b." Dog "a" is fixed, female. Dog "b" is male, not fixed. Dog b tries to hump dog "a" at every opportunity possible. Harrases her continuously, doesn't let's her relax, he is always on her face. Bites her ears. Dog "b" cries and whines when I put him on crate to prevent this from scalating. He jumps all the time. Dog "a" had enough and snapped at him several times for the humping and in general annoying behavior. Dog "b" doesn't gets the message and keeps harassing her. This is going to be a long wekeend...
What I now tell other sitters is to not get too comfortable with a client, even if you think you have a great relationship. I walked for a doctor for a year when I found out I was expecting. I was always reliable, on time, and showed up for last minute requests. I continued walking and boarding until three weeks before my due date. I went all summer and winter long walking with no complaints. I didn't even slow down and continued getting a mile or a little over a mile in. On the very seldom days I wasn't available he had a back up walker that he hired a few months before I delivered. Well the delivery did not go as planned. I planned on starting back up a week after having my baby but my daughter needed to be saved and I ended up getting an emergency c section. The doctor claimed he understood and told me to let him know once I had clearance. Due to his dog being a puller I was told by my doctor that I had to wait until 6 weeks post partum. Well when the 6 weeks was up I told him I was ready to go......he replaced me with the back up walker. I would walk in crappy weather if he wanted me to and like I said, I would go above and beyond to make sure his dog was taken care of with last minute bookings. I would board his dog as well and took his dog many times when I was at my limit already. If it was only walks and boardings here and there I wouldn't have cared but this was many walks and boardings every week so I lost a lot of money right after having my baby. I still have many awesome clients but I'm a little more hesitant with that situation.
*Also, there was no reasoning why. I already had a child so that wouldn't have been an issue to continue.
I just would really love for owners to stay up to date on the flea & tick meds. I donāt have the time or energy to comb for ticks post walk- but if Iām coming away from a walk with ticks trying to reach my waste band, your unprotected puppyās going to end up with more than one tick. It really sucks, as a sitter, knowing that Iām lowkey putting your dogs at risk every time we go for a walk.
If you would be comfortable, I think a lot of people could really benefit from a tick related educational post on this subreddit. I made a joke about tick season to a wag walker I pass on Sundays and it was a totally new term to her. And I only consider myself, like, 60% educated on ticks
Oh, Christ. Reminds me of the time I wanted to get checked for Lyme & the nurse didnāt have any idea why I was so concerned about a bug bite.
Just in case anyone does read this- Lyme disease diagnosis & the ticks that carry Lyme are on the rise, in both rural & city areas. Iām currently in a suburban area on the east coast, Iāve already had to pull five ticks off of myself in the past two months. Please, please check yourself for ticks every day that you do a walk. Lyme disease isnāt a joke and can be life threatening if left untreated. Wear the bug spray & check all the little crevices on your body.
This one that will always be known as the Dirty House. They had 2 cats and booked me for 2x per day. At the M&G they had several extra cars that they said they were holding onto for family (in reference to where I could park). The husband half of the couple was who I met although I'd been talking to the wife on Rover, and he was a bit unkempt and smelled of weed but they both seemed nice. He showed me the basement where the cat care was located, and there was a bunch of junk but also some senior care stuff lying around, so I thought maybe they'd recently been caring for an elderly relative in this basement apartment and that's why there was a mess and a musty smell.
Somehow, in that brief visit, I failed to really register how filthy the house was. Two of the cars were up on blocks and fully rusted-out once I took a closer look. The smell was such that I wore a mask the whole time I was there. There was a pile of stuff that needed to be recycled in the kitchen. They had invasive weeds growing INSIDE THE HOUSE, creeping up the window like a horror movie. There was a massive dead spider in the sink. Both cats were grossly overweight, and the one had had mats cut out of his long fur (so they weren't grooming him). They had 2 litter boxes, and the cheap scoop snapped in half the first time I used it so I brought my own. When one or both of the cats peed partially outside the box, I found only dinner napkins (brought my own paper towels after that); I asked about cleaning supplies and they said there should be a bottle of Simple Green in the kitchen. There was - it had about a centimeter left in the bottom, and was so old/disused as to have COBWEBS on the handle.
The worst, though, was when I ventured upstairs because I hadn't seen the other cat at all for the whole week and I just wanted to get proof she was alive (in the 2 weeks, I only caught a glimpse of her tail once downstairs). Now they hadn't said anything about upstairs; there was a basement kitchen where they had their food and the litter boxes. But as soon as I started to ascend, a smell 10x worse hit me - old dirty house and old newspaper and rot and, yes, cat urine and poop. I discovered they had 2 more litterboxes in the laundry room that were disgustingly full with poop scattered on the floor around them. Not a word about this to me and it was so disgusting up there that I just left it, figuring they at least would have clean boxes in the basement. The kitchen was also indescribably filthy up there, with food splattered on the walls and stove, garbage overflowing, mounds of dishes in the sink and the open dishwasher. I have no idea how anyone could live like that - the basement apartment was one thing but this was clearly their main space (I did manage to spot the 2nd cat so I never went up there again). Honestly, if these people had had children, I seriously would've considered calling the nonemergency line for a welfare check or something - that's how awful the living conditions were. I fully admit that I only stayed 10-15 minutes for those 30 minute visits because that's all I could stand.
This was over a year ago but I still think about that house. They reached out to me again last summer and I turned them down, saying I had just gotten a new job and was going to stop petsitting. The job part was true, but I kept on a few preferred clients...just never in a million years this one.
Joined Rover a few weeks ago after 5 years with Wag and just got my first negative review from a client. Iām really upset because I do not think I did anything wrong, and this is only my third review so my rating is shot. Basically it was a very last-minute walk, about 30 mins notice, so I didnāt get a chance to chat with the owner or meet the dog beforehand. The dog was barking like crazy when I got there, with his tail wagging but I still wanted to give him space to warm up to an unfamiliar person in his home. I have walked hundreds of dogs through Wag and this is generally my approach when a dog seems agitated. So I just tried to talk to him in a friendly voice and got his leash to get him excited to go out. As soon as Iām outside with him, I get a call from the owner asking me why I didnāt pet her dog or greet him properly (she had a puppy cam and had been watching). I explained that I usually give new dogs their space, and she seemed to understand. Fast forward to now and she left me a three star review saying it was ākind of creepyā that I just āstaredā at her dog, āgrabbed the leash,ā and ādidnāt seem excited to see an adorable pup,ā and that she ādoesnāt trust people who donāt react to dogs properly.ā I left a polite response explaining what happened, so hopefully future clients will understand. Anyway her house was disgusting, lots of trash and flies, and her dogās bowl was full of chicken nuggets, so sheās clearly a bit off. Still frustrating to have my rating nuked so early in my Rover career
I am a sitter/dog walker and one of my clients walks the dog with me. Whatās the point of hiring Me? Heās elderly but even so, he doesnāt hire me 24/7 so thereās no benefit
For sure. And heās a nice person to talk to but I have always been use to walking dogs alone. And he tell me he was gonna walk with me. Itās just annoying that thereās people that expect dog walkers to be some sort of company
I had a sitting job a few nights ago to hang out with an anxious dog for 5 hours while his parents were on a date. Their only toilet had horrendous dried shit splatter all over the bowl & the seat was covered in pubes. No hand soap in the bathroom or kitchen š¤¢š¤®
I would be anxious tooā¦I literally carry a pump bottle of antibacterial hand soap in my car trunk out of fear that I will encounter this
After sitting for a while I am so surprised by how many people just let you stay in their home with stuff like this. So nasty! One of my biggest pet peeves.
Iām about to go away for the week for work. Iām currently turning my home into somewhere the King could stay. I love my sitters and wouldnāt even consider not scrubbing it to a state theyāre comfortable in. My home is their home while theyāre hereā¦which currently, is more often than me. Totally disrespectful to expect someone to stay in a dirty house.
Thank you for taking care of your sitter! We appreciate you. Iām the same way I clean for days if someone is staying over. I mean , if you canāt do it at least hire a cleaner!
sorry you had to deal with that! this is why i will not offer house sitting. iāve become quite the germaphobe since covid and i would rather not make as much money doing drop ins and walks than deal with this. š
Some of the houses I sat when I was young, dumb & broke ā¦Iām surprised the global pandemic didnāt originate from one of those basements.
I took on a twice daily dog walk that is 1 hour away, whyyyyy
Woah. Thatās quite insane
I'm regretting it so bad
oh man if itās financially feasible please consider lowering your radius. Thatās so much time and gas spent
Its even worse cuz I don't drive so I'm paying train fees š problem is my calender suddenly went quiet so I got desperate. Won't make the mistake again.
I have completed my share of desperate algorithm bumping bookings. I see you.
ā¤ļø
Iāll say it: most people should NOT have pets
Ong most people need a trial year with a fish.
A pet rock really
This needs to be repeated more often
I accidentally booked 3 weeks of back-to-back house sitting requests. I just got married and this is the least time I've ever spent with my husband in our entire relationship - I'm lucky I'm busy but damnn I need to get better at admin (and saying no).
I'm not good at saying no, so I raised my prices. I don't think I could really afford myself for my own dogs. But I'm doing this part time while I look for another job. I'm still getting requests though!
Ugh this is me! Grateful to be busy & booked but horrible at saying no/admin as well. I roped my sister into helping me but I still have a hellish month ahead. Sending you good vibes!
Ask owners if hubby can come with you or sleep over? I used to do this with my ex and most of them were very chill and welcoming. They get two sitters for the price of one.
I do this with my partner. Idk why but most of the time the pets like my partner more than me. The owners appreciate the extra love and attention their pets get. We get somewhat of a "staycation" sometimes bc a lot of clients have had rlly nice homes. It also allows me to sleep in sometimes bc my partner wakes up early and is willing to feed the pets and let them out if they're dogs. I give them a % of my earnings if they helped with that stay. we have our own cats so it works a lot better if it's close to home. some couples put both of their names in the profile.
Didnāt think about this angle but tbh youāre rightā¦.this is a steal for a client. Pets might never actually be alone, some can be walked or have outdoor time while the others are still being supervised, and so on.
I booked 5 weeks of back to back house sitting this spring. Three weeks at client A followed immediately by 2 weeks at client B. It was rough. I decided I wasn't going to do any more long bookings for a while, and luckily I haven't gotten any requests for long bookings since then. good luck. you got this! it'll be over before you know it
Oh nooo. Congratulations on your new marriage though Iām sorry you created this situation! I wish roverās calendar had a different color for tentative/pending booking requests and this also synced with google calendar.
you can sync with Google calendar and it will show pending bookings!
Oh snap, didnāt know that! Is there anything on the GCal sync that differentiates them from confirmed?
yes, iirc it says [U] for unconfirmed and I think it changes color when it's confirmed but I could be wrong. meet n greets show up too when you use the "propose a meet n greet" button
youā¦youāve just done a very good thing for me
every single time iāve taken a client who was difficult about setting up a meet and greet, or unable to do one, that client has turned out to be an issue. they cancel randomly on short notice, they are insanely demanding, they text me asking why iām late when the booking started 1 minute ago, on and on, somehow i am always the issue. and yet, im a broke b*tch and always want to take every opportunity possible to make money so i entertain every single one of these people until the red flags smack me in the face. also donāt love people who request to book, arenāt sure about dates/time, and then ghost, but that one just bruises my ego, so definitely not the worst. i think i just hate being treated like āthe help.ā
Iām annoyed with the cheap pet sitters in my area, they are mostly off app sitters but I feel like it sets the precedent that pet sitting should be cheap. I see people on my small towns community Facebook page constantly offering prices ranging from $15-25 per day/night. I feel insane charging $40ā¦and yes, people pay it and sometimes even more. But itās crazy knowing that my competition is so much cheaper. Iām a former insurance agent and the stories Iāve heard from pet sitters, let alone have experienced myself prove that this should not be a ācheapā service EVER. I understand affordability but cheap? No. We deserve to be paid properly for the massive risk this job entails.
It feels glib to say that there are people whoāll pay more for pet care and usually those people are better clients. Like, thatās my experience 100%, but it doesnāt invalidate what youāre saying about how cheap sitters saturating the market create a false perception of what the services are and are worth. In some cases, individuals may go with the cheapest sitter and have an experience that leads them not to do so in future. But a) thatās just individuals and doesnāt shift widespread perception b) I donāt want to wish harm on anyoneās pets and c) there are some good sitters out there who just severely underprice their service.
I need to vent so Iām so glad this is here. This stay that Iām currently at has just gone from bad to worse and I need some support from my fellow sitters. I had actually started writing this earlier, but more things have happened since. Iām currently at a 9 day stay taking care of two handicapped pups. Iāve watched these dogs before, and before only one used to be handicapped, the other was just older but could do things on his own. Fast forward to about a week ago and the owner told me that he no longer can use his hind legs and needs a harness (much like his sister) to walk around. Alright, no problem. Iāve been in animal care for about 6 years now, Iāve dealt with a lot and figured that Iād be able to establish a routine with him like I had for his sister. But I get here, and I can already tell heās kind of miserable. He tries to get up on his own, not understanding why he canāt stand up and walk around. He sleeps most of day, but when heās awake is when we have issues, he has trouble settling and getting comfortable, so I have to pick him up (keep and mind, both him and his sister are around 60-70 pounds) and move him around to help him get comfortable. He loves water, but canāt get to his fountain. He used to love wandering in their fenced backyard but canāt now. I canāt leave the room if heās awake or else heāll whine and bark because he canāt follow me. Everyday has gotten worse for him, heās more uncomfortable, harder for him to settle, not responding well to his medications anymore. And all the while, Iām letting the owner know everything about how heās declining. I really love these dogs, and to see him like this was truly heartbreaking, this stay was becoming so hard for me, not only physically with having to hold up two dogs whenever they needed to move, but mentally and emotionally because I could see how much he was struggling. Last night was the worst night for him. I took him out 5 times between 10pm-1am. He just could not settle. And I apologetically texted the owner at 1 letting her know that nothing she has suggested is helping, and Iām really struggling with this stay. She says sheāll call the vet in the morning and see if I can take him in and he finally kind of settles but every time I move, he jolts awake so I doubt he really got any sort of sleep overnight. This morning he was so uncomfortable, crying, barking, canāt sit still at all. So I tell their owner how he is, and though I hated to ask and have never asked before, I asked if they could possibly come home sooner, not only because of his issues, but because I was becoming physically sick over the exhaustion from taking care of them and how difficult itās been and not sure if I could push through the rest of the stay. The owner told me that I could take him to the er vet and that the soonest theyād be able to get home is tomorrow. So I took him, and he practically screamed the entire way there (he hates car rides, and I tried to make him comfortable but he wasnāt having it) We walked in and we were seen almost immediately due to the amount of distress he was in. I explained to the tech and doctor what was going on with him. And they took him to the back to get his vitals and check him out. After a bit of waiting, I was taken to an examination room and they had told me to call the owner. I did and they explained what was going on with him, something with one of his hip disks, itās hard for me to remember even though it just happened. And they said the most humane option for him, since heās in so much pain and distress, would be to put him down. It was heartbreaking to hear his owner sob. Theyāre out of the states, so the soonest they could get home is late tomorrow night. So heās being hospitalized tonight so they are able to say goodbye to him. It was heartbreaking. This whole stay has been heartbreaking. My gut knew there was something wrong from day 1 and I kind of hate that I was right. The owners are glad that I was here, and that I knew something was wrong. But I feel terrible for them, I know they love their dogs so much, their dogs are their kids. Iām staying with their other dog until they get home tomorrow, she seems okay for the most part, but itās obvious she knows somethings wrong. Anyways. Thanks for reading my vent if you did. I just needed to get it out ā¤ļø
Oh hun, Iām so sorry you are going through all that. It sounds like a very rough sit. I think you handled it admirably. I am proud of you for recognizing your needs and advocating for yourself while balancing the best interests of the dog. It might not feel like it, but you did good. You did all the right things. I donāt know how old you are, but Iām sending you some mom hugs anyways.
Thank you. So much. I canāt begin to tell you how much I appreciate your response. Iām turning 21 next week, and have a pretty good relationship with my mom, but honestly, I could use all the mom hugs I can get right now ā¤ļø
You did a wonderful job advocating for this dog, and I hope you can get some rest now and be assured that you did all you could for him and then some.
that dog will cross the rainbow bridge with their family but not in pain because of your actions. thank you for being kind
It is the absolute worst feeling when youāre in a shitty situation that you saw some red flags but took the booking anyway because āIām probably over exaggerating/it will be fine.ā Iāve been there for sure š
I fully gaslit myself into thinking I wasnāt actually seeing red flags, Iād just gotten used to my regulars and very uncomplicated requests
Accepted a housesitting job with no overnights for a few days. She was a big Labrador. I met her and she was excitable, but not too bad. They said she wasnāt big on cuddling on the couch or anything. I get there the first morning and feed/walk her. Everything is good. I go to sit on the couch to hang out and she wants to be up with me. I figure maybe she does want to cuddle. Nope. She wants to tackle me and lick me with all her strength. She was probably 70-80lbs and pinned me down. I realized that staying there for 3 days straight except nights that I could not sit anywhere except for the kitchen table and had to play tug of war with her constantly so she wouldnāt jump on top of me and push me over when sitting. Nightmare.
Oh wow. I had a Rottweiler once that was like that. You had to constantly be giving her attention or else she would be on you. I work from home and had to use vacation time because I couldnāt get anything done. I wonāt be sitting for that dog again
You have to wonder - was she like this *because* she doesnāt get attention from her owners? Or do they simply not have jobs to balance against her needs
Iām in the same boat. 80 lb pitbull who is all beef. If he wants to lick my face, I have no say in the matter.
This happened to me too!! But it was a mini poodle so a little different. The only chair I could sit in was the high stool kitchen bar chairs lol!
I know a dog who's 160+ pounds and he'll easily knock you down. He's almost as tall as I am - I'm 5 ft 3 for reference. He was nice, but he's the biggest dog that I've ever been in close proximity with.
client who has had clipped toe/fingernails laying on the table in a prominent place every time Iāve gone. different clippings each time too.
noā„ļø
š¤®š¤®š¤®
So to be very clear NEVER comment on the FB group run by Rover. Been a member for years and was removed and blocked by commenting on the current situation with their changes. All I have ever done was post positives comments. No warning either. š¤¬š¤¬š¤¬
That sucks but everyone should keep in mind it would be really easy for them to lurk in here. :-/
May I ask what changes youāre referring to? (Pls feel free not to answer if you think itāll bring further trouble. Rover reps probably do lurk here)
Iām caring for two special needs blind geriatric huskies that need 24/7 care and the owner just happened to forget to let me know that one of them poops IN THE CAR. I feel like Iām a patient and understanding person and Iāve cleaned 6 accidents in my house in 2 nights but the poop in the car was justā¦. Yeah.
How is the noiseā¦.I feel a husky cacophony would only add insult to injury atp
It was ok. At night we would sleep in the room w the door closed bc the cat so she would be very vocal and upset about it but we had a talk and she stopped screaming and opted to just BLINDLY open the door, and then the locked door
Just got done with a 22 day housesit at what had to have been a $2m home. With all that money, they buy the absolute worst kitty litter on the market. I could never get that litter box fully clean- and also the older cat pees next to the litter box a lot, and they just put newspaper on the floor to catch it. I brought my own puppy pee pads to put down because I was sick of cleaning pee off the floor. Same people have a dog who loves loves loves toys (especially plush ones). Owners have one toy. They use grocery bags for poop bags, which is annoying when leash poop bag dispensers are so easy and inexpensive. So I ended up donating some toys and a poop bag dispenser and was tempted to bring over some better cat litter, but did not.
Grocery bags for poop bags is how I know people didnāt grow up poor / donāt walk their own dogs. We reused those as shower caps and multipurpose bags when I was growing up so I have an *intimate* awareness of how selectively permeable (let alone outright fragile) those bags are. If you wanna reduce reuse recycle at least offer your newspaper bags god damn Letting your cat just piss on the floor because you wonāt spend a little more for their and your peaceā¦..not giving your dog toysā¦at this point your animals are ornamental
Seriously, half of them had a hole in the bottom. Was super glad when the Amazon box with the real poop bags came.
I HATE the grocery bags as dog poop bags, especially if they don't check them for holes first. š¤¢ In NJ we don't get plastic bags at stores anymore, but when we did I'd use them for cat litter but I only ever used ones without holes. Also peeved by rich people with 0 enrichment for their dogs/cats. It makes me so sad for them!
I use Rover and also have a kijiji ad. My current booking is from kijiji. They asked for May 19-21. Fine, no problem. So today I was confirming the pick up time and they said between 2-3 TOMORROW. I sent a screenshot of our messaging clearly showing they requested May 19-21. They replied that they were referring to the dates of the nights they needed, so the night of May 19, 20, and 21st. Itās not a problem to extend the stay, but I have never had anyone request dates that way before! Talk about causing confusion!
Ooh yeah, Iām calling š¤” client on that one. The booking period is for as long as the sitter is with your pet, till they part with your petā¦.thatās 5/19-22 in this case.
Right?! This isnāt a hotel stay with a checkout time.
And if it wereā¦..theyād still refer to you as checking in on 5/19 and checking out on 5/22 after a 3 night stay
Sure, only referring to hotels as a time when people price out *by night*
Thank you! I have never heard of booking dates the way he did, probably because it doesnāt make sense! Heās lucky that we donāt really have lives of our own so weāre almost always available Lol
Uggghhh I just made a post about this. My current peeve is owners who let their dogs off leash in their yard with an open gate- and then just fuck off to go work on something. So irresponsible š¤¦āāļø I saw someone do this and their dog just wandered off down the street while they're cluelessly calling out to him looking for him and being blatantly ignored. It's a nightmare to dog walkers who are walking a reactive dog. The fact that small dog owners do this a lot is even worse. There are dogs that could EAT yours on sight and you just don't care?
Hate this shit. Donāt care if they claim they have electric fences. I donāt walk dogs past those yards, I wonāt work with those clients Doesnāt even matter if my dog isnāt reactive or is large. Iām not going to expect it to not react if a 10 lb chiweenie torpedo flies out of the yard and latches on
Exactly, lol!!
I have no complaints, vents, or lamentations at this time but I appreciate this thread. Would be a nice one to repeat every Sunday.
Iād be down for that! Or at least, Iāll post another crowdsource-type post next Sunday. One I was thinking of was for people to drop their stock message wording or to request help with communications - Iāve noticed a lot of the posts here are from people who arenāt sure how to reply or word things, whereas for others (myself included) it comes a lot easier.
Owners that request a 5 am, 6 am or 7 am drop offs. I hate when over requesting a super early drop off they also text the day before to confirm the drop-off time (they make you think they are super into being on time) then, depending on the case this varies, but usually they end arriving 30 minutes or 1 hour late. These clients are my kriptonyte š¤¦
EVERY. TIME. With no communication!
š¤”š¤”š¤” Spent most of the meet n greet in the back yard. Dogs were nice, moderately well trained. Left through the back gate. Didn't look too closely at the house (big mistake) bc it looked lived-in messy upon first glance. They said they had moved in recently. During the stay I quickly discovered the house was gross. Like uncomfortable to be in, I don't want to touch surfaces, some places smell very bad. Dog pee soaked into carpet in living room. Garage was full of trash that must have been there for months based on the amount of trash and the smell. I did not in any way judge them, it just made it really hard to be inside the house. The booking was 2 weeks. I spent most of the time outside with the dogs (which the owners loved) because the back yard was normal and not gross. I counted down the days until it was over. The dogs were nice and the weather was nearly perfect for almost the whole two weeks, so it worked out okay. They left me a $100 tip and a great review, so in the end it was worth it. They asked me if I'd be available again for some trips this fall and I said yes because I didn't want to risk a bad review by telling the truth. Sometime this summer I am planning to reach out to them to tell them I moved and they are too far to be in my service area anymore (even though that is not true). If anyone has better ideas I am all ears.
I sometimes wonder when clients come back to their houses and get hit with the smell, do they think, "Oh wow, we live like this," or "the sitter trashed my house." The fact that they tipped you suggests that they knew it wasn't on you. Good call being outside and glad the weather held...I beg you not to risk it again in the fall
I was worried about it so I took photos at the beginning and end of the stay. I left the home cleaner than I found it and I took all trash out from when I was there. I also kept the dogs out of the carpeted living room unless they were supervised. They had a front living room that was hard wood and the kitchen was laminate, so they still had plenty of space indoors. There is no way in hell I will ever be going back there. They could offer to pay me double or triple and the answer would still be no. My exact plan is to text them (to their personal number) that I had to move out of state unexpectedly for family reasons and wanted to let them know with enough time to find a different sitter. Then block them on Rover so I won't show up in search when they're looking this fall.
WHY DO YOU FEED THEM RAW MEAT (like not a actual raw diet, raw grocery store meat). STOP YOUR DOG ANUS IS GOING TO COME OUT FROM THE WET STOOLS.
the guest bathroom was practically taken over by the cat and i think they assumed i would shower in there but between the dirt and cat food i just used the master bathroom showerā¦ they also had 0 tv in the house and i felt like a pioneer
I don't like the way sitters treat other sitters. A huge amount of sitters (not all) have a giant owner bias, they tend to criticize and punish harshly instead trying to help out. Is not all sitters but a huge amount fall in this category.
Why do people refuse to crate train and just go straight to pee pads? š¤® That doesnāt count as potty trained and Iām sick of people trying to say otherwise
I hate the houses that smell. I always wear a mask at the m&g (I have lupus) and I can't smell through it. So, when I finally get there and it stinks I want to cry. I make sure these days to take a whiff before I agree to sit. If it's too smelly I can't do it because I get nauseous and will get physically ill if the scent is too much. At one 2 week long pet sitting I once had to message the client and ask as nice as possible where their air fresheners were because I was feeling ill. I mean, at least this time it was a good smell it was just too strong. When I was working at another pet sitting place I had a client who had a cat. Their house reeked of ammonia. The guest room they wanted me to sleep in had been pissed all over by said cat. I washed the sheets, I poured baking soda on the carpets and vacuumed it up and still had to sleep on the sofa.
I just finished drop ins that lasted a week and a half. I had to BE at the house at 7AM. Not the worst but I do not normally wake up at 6AM so it was rough.
At a booking now where the client went overseas and forgot to mention her dog has been on her period for 2 days. I'm sitting for a whole week. Another client who I did a meet & greet with a massive Alsatian. Not only was it a 40 min drive 1 way but the dog was not trained(kept jumping up and getting right in my face, kept going at my ears when sat down), she also had 2 cats and when I messaged to say it's not a good fit, didn't even get the decency of a response. Another client with the most exhausting dog I've ever spent time with, would not sit still, kept digging the sofa pillows, jumped onto the kitchen counters to steal my food, kept barking at me when I sat down and last but not least, kept trying to steal the poop bags from my hand while I was trying to pick up it's shit and caused me to touch it. The last one I took 3 days to recover from because I was so emotionally and physically exhausted š
I like this mega vent thread a lot. I'm just feeling kinda burnt out after a few years now, I'm suddenly just not finding myself worn thin that I'm in school and working 2 jobs. I have amazing clients and I love them all to bits, I'm just having a bit of a mid life crisis or something
An owner did not disclose his dog was food aggressive until I confronted him about it. He then said āmy apologies for not telling you soonerā my brother in Christ you own a 100+ pound dog that has teeth bigger than my pinky nail. Youāre gonna just say āsorry ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆā after your dog tried to eat a bone off the ground and I tried to get it out of his mouth? Fuck u man
Jesus Christ I hope you still have both hands
I am 1 week in into a 2 week dog drop in visit 3 times a day at 7am, 1pm and 7pm. I love the dog, but Iām so close to losing it with this schedule.
Help me understand - what about the schedule is killing you?
I feel like I am on call for 12 hours a day for 2 weeks straight. I also sometimes work evenings, so I end up sleeping only couple hours having to wake up at 6.30am.
Ahh thatās awful. Iām so sorry
These longer term drop ins are always draining. I have 6 daily dog walks so its exhausting to get up early and stay out later for that one dog. The extra money is fantastic but ugh while you're doing it. I totally relate
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Agh yeah thatās a vicious cycle (sensitive skin ā” irritated skin ā” bad smell usually due to yeast and bacteria ā” irritated skin)
I hate that I'm not more strict when it comes to making sure that everything an owner says about their pet(s) health wise is accurate. I had one person have a guinea pig that she said was neutered but on my last day of the second booking with her, she said that he wasn't fixed (but she had it on the schedule with a vet at a top NYC 24/7 vet for after the booking). Not that it's an issue since she was honest about it, but I wish she had told me earlier - since we did have two multi day bookings together and she listed on his pet profile on the app that he was neutered before he got neutered. Most owners are good about providing their vet's contact info in case of an emergency, but I've thankfully never been in a situation where I had to take a Rover client's pet to a vet, emergency or regular. I should be more strict about it since there are laws about certain vaccines here in NYS, but I don't know what's stopping me.
Iām uninformed - is care for an intact guinea pig different? I still think itās so wild that rover doesnāt insist on/verify vax records
It's not different, but it's strongly recommended to do such if they have a female guinea pig friend to prevent breeding between the two. It's more about whether a male and a female guinea pig will breed or not versus whether it'll benefit them medically. If it was a cat or dog, then it's more crucial to get them fixed.
Ah gotcha, didnāt realize there was a lady guinea pig involved in this situation too May i ask how you price out guinea pigs and other non-cat/dog pets?
Most of the other non-cat/dog pets I've met are super easy to work with; they require maybe two-five minutes of work at most; the hardest part is taking out the fresh hay for them to eat since their habitats are small. If it's easy, then $5 max depending on how close they live to my apartment. If it's hard/further away than I'd like, then not more than $10 assuming that they're not the only pet in the apartment.
Thanks! And would you only add on $5 whether it's 1 vs 3 guinea pigs, or do you scale up?
You're welcome and I scale up - especially if one or more of the guinea pigs requires more involved care.
I have a dog right now, only a 2.5 hour visit, but for some reason I canāt put my finger on the dog and his owner just drive me a little nuts. I just took him on a walk and he made me go through the middle woods and I got attacked by mosquitos and need to do a tick inspection on both of us, only an hour left but Iām just so pissy ngl. Heās a great dog heās just too smart for his own good.
I tried to help a person out who was traveling out of country, last minute because the other place bailed last second. I assume during drop off they said hell no. Because when the dog was dropped off he was a massive working Shepard with no control, and nearly hurt my toddler a few times. I feel bad for this persons friend as they were the emergency contact. But even they knew this dog had no business being rescued or sat in an environment such as mine. Young people want to do the right thing by adopting, but they have no idea what that actually means or entails.
When I was a year into pet sitting, I got a booking request for 2 dogs and 3 cats. The total amount was pretty good for me back then and they lived 10 minutes away so even though it was a last minute booking I thought- okay this is a great opportunity to get extra money from one booking. I came to the meet and greet and this couple lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate. Apartment had shit all over the place and you literally had to squeeze in between boxes and furniture and other things that were piled up everywhere, they said they just moved in which I kind of understood but they had 2 huge dogs and one of them was a partially blind diabetic senior boy. Iāve never taken care of special needs pets before but I was willing to learn and help the owners who were desperate to book a sitter last minute. They showed me how to administer the insulin shot and told me to keep the water dispenser full each visit because he drank a lot! The other pup was relatively easy to take care of but she had lots of energy! But I could handle that so I agreed to book them and would start my first visit tomorrow at PM time. They only booked 2 visits a day and assured me that the roommate would take care of the pups during the day. (Allegedly the roommate worked night shifts and thatās why they only needed me twice early at 6:30AM and 6:30PM.) they told me to put the dogs in crates after I visited and the roommate would let them out as soon she would get home after her night shift. Cats only needed food and water plus litter robot checked for any malfunction. Cool no problems there. First visit started the next day in the PM, the dogs were in their crates. I fed them dinner, administered the insulin shot to the senior pup and took them on a walk. Put them back in their crates overnight. Came early in the morning before 7am, senior pup peed a huge puddle in the crate and was completely soaked in it plus he threw up his food so it was a huge mess! I cleaned up everything with toilet paper because I could not find any paper towels and bathed the dog in the shower. Let the owners know and got no response. Locked the dogs in the crates again (knowing that the roommate will come back soon from her nightshift and let them out) Came back for the PM visit and the dogs are still in their cratesā¦ the senior pup has peed all over himself againā¦ I cleaned him up, including his crate and the floor around it. Reached out to the owners once again and got no responseā¦ took the pups on a walk and when we came back I noticed that the roommate was home. I asked if she took them out during the day and she said ānoā and that she didnāt even know she was supposed to. I tried calling the owners to figure out the situation. Overall I spent almost an hour cleaning the mess and the pup himself plus 20/30 minutes walking and feeding cats afterwards. I would spent over 2 hours at their place when they only paid for a 30 minutes drop-ins. Next day exact same thing happened so I left the poor senior pup in the bathroom with a gate up and he threw up and peed everywhereā¦. I cleaned once again and he starts drinking and throwing up his dinner just as I finished up cleaning the previous mess. This time I knew yo bring paper towels and gloves with me to clean it up. Still no response from the owners!!! This would happen for the rest of the booking, which was roughly for 5 days straight. The owners finally called me back and apologized for the mess and that the roommate misunderstood them and thought I was coming 3 times a day and she only needed to check on the dogs from time to time. (Which she never did btw! ) - and the other poor pup was confined in her crate for almost 20 hours a day!! I asked if i could maybe leave her roaming around in their bedroom to which they said no and that she's used to being locked up for prolonged hoursā¦ she obviously was miserable and whining all the time as I would leave or arrive to their place. I felt so bad for these poor pups that I decided to walk them for a bit longer and hang out with then for some extra time to which the owners said there was no need to and the dogs would be fine. Finally the last visit of the booking ended and I was ready to go home and sleep and forget about this nightmare of a bookingā¦ the owners call me around 4/5am next morning saying their flight got delayed and the dogs need to go outside soon and the senior needs his insulin shot. I was soooo exhausted and mad but i agreed only because my heart was breaking for those dogs. The owners finally arrived back that afternoon and asked me if I could bring the keys back because that was the only set they had. I dropped off the keys and they said thank you and here's a tip for your awesome pet care and handed me an envelope. When i opened it in my car, there was a card saying thanks for your help this week and $5 in $1 billsā¦ needless to say next time they asked for my help I declined.
this was horrendous from start to finish. Sounds like it was a while ago but if not I feel like this is reportable in terms of neglect
I knowā¦ I wish I knew back then that I couldāve reported them, those were the worst 5 days not only for me but for those poor dogs! It happened back in 2018ā¦ I kept thinking about them for a long time and wondering if they were doing okay. Eventually half a year later the lady reached out to me again asking if I could watch only the senior pup, who by that time was completely blind, and he only needed to be taken out once a dayā¦(he could pee in the shower during the day) and the other pup allegedly was given to her mother who had a house with a yard.
I like to say that we as a species don't deserve dogs. But some humans, specifically, do not deserve the dogs who share their lives.
Oh, where to start. * Long time client, love her and her animals, but she has yet to pay for the last trip, *again*! This crap has been going on for years, and I'm so tired of it. She always does pay eventually, and with a nice tip or a gift card to a local restaurant, but come on! I'm tired of the excuses! "I'm on work duty this week." "I'm off work this week so I didn't leave the house." "I'll be by this weekend to drop it off." The weekend is over now, where the heck are you? Times like this make Rover sound really good for payment options. * Long time, older client who has become increasingly wishy washy with age has yet to confirm exact dates for the first of June, when she might need my help watching her daughter's dogs. She seems to have abandoned me for her own dog's care; it's a new dog, and she seems jealous that the dog likes me. Her mind seems to be slipping as of late. But she does this kind of crap all the time: Calls to see what my availability is, talks about needing help because she can't care for her own dog and her daughter's dogs at the same time, then suddenly changes her mind and does it all herself. But this time I have another client who wants the same time frame, so I really need an answer... * Speaking of that other client, not looking forward to it at all. I love the client, and their animals, but they now have five dogs and four cats. Four of those dogs are a year or under. Four puppies! Dear God. And it's overnight. Nor have I had a lot of overnights lately, so I'm out of the habit. I need the money since things have been slow, but this... * And a long time client (going on 7 years!) whose dog I let out at lunch twice a week just informed me she's thinking of retiring in August. She's my best paying regular, and the easiest dog I care for. I do not need this right now, and I'm really depressed that I'll be saying goodbye to my girl after all these years... * Long time regular client recently added a puppy. I assumed they would increase the pay; they paid extra when the stepdaughter's puppy stayed there for two weeks. I was mistaken. Not even a freaking tip. They already get away dirt cheap. I'm afraid I'm going to have to talk to them about raising prices, due to economic and personal circumstances of late.
> to drop it off How does she pay?! A carrier pigeon laden with bags of coins? These days 95% of people have a device which can handle Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, cash app, and more with them 25/8. If you werenāt venting with the desire to receive suggestions please ignore this next part: instituting a late payment fee and communicating this to your clients would be totally justifiable. Your clients who pay on time wonāt pay it any mind, and any who serially delay payment will either take notice or pay extra for the privilege.
Lol, it's actually my fault. I'm low tech; cash or check only. I don't even have a smart phone. I don't text. All old school. I find it so much less stressful, most of the time. I live in a small town, where everyone more or less trusts one another to do the right thing. She's a local doctor. She is trustworthy, just not punctual, lol. She lives just a few blocks away, so she personally delivers the payment to me. But I love the idea of carrier pigeon! I wonder if we can train her grackle to do that...he would be more punctual than she isemote:free\_emotes\_pack:thinking\_face\_hmm And thank you for reading! I'm just venting into the void. It's been a rough few months.
Ahh sheās a doctor, say no more. Definition of reliable but not punctual!
Iām extremely privileged to not currently need Rover/pet sitting as my main form of income; as a result, my prices are pretty high and Iāve majorly pared down my regular clients. I had 2 problem clients; one of them I cut loose, the other I chose to keep on. Fast forward to now, I landed a regular client who is extremely wealthy, has a huge mansion, and 2 sweet and easy dogs. Even though we had already agreed on a price prior to our third stay, at the end of it the client basically asked me to name a price. I sent them the remainder of the total we had agreed on, and they casually tipped me $200 on top of that. Immediately after, I had a sitting for the problem client. Like my āgoodā client, #2 is pretty well off, has an extremely nice home, and 2 easy senior dogs. Unlike #1, though, #2 is extremely stingy and questioned my price at the end of the 8-day stay. I explained that my actual rate is a lot higher and that they were welcome to pay whatever they felt I deserved. They then claimed they had no problem with it and didnāt fulfill my payment request for 3 days; I finally had to tell them they had until 5pm on the third day to pay me, to which they claimed to have forgotten and immediately paid. It really pissed me off bc I know going off app opens up that risk and Iām really careful with who I take off because of that. And I think what made it worse was the direct comparison - #2 is very status/appearance obsessed, so it was just laughable when they were whining about the price, meanwhile #1 is telling me to name a number and throwing Benjis at me, lol.
Sitting 2 dogs. Dog "a" and dog "b." Dog "a" is fixed, female. Dog "b" is male, not fixed. Dog b tries to hump dog "a" at every opportunity possible. Harrases her continuously, doesn't let's her relax, he is always on her face. Bites her ears. Dog "b" cries and whines when I put him on crate to prevent this from scalating. He jumps all the time. Dog "a" had enough and snapped at him several times for the humping and in general annoying behavior. Dog "b" doesn't gets the message and keeps harassing her. This is going to be a long wekeend...
What I now tell other sitters is to not get too comfortable with a client, even if you think you have a great relationship. I walked for a doctor for a year when I found out I was expecting. I was always reliable, on time, and showed up for last minute requests. I continued walking and boarding until three weeks before my due date. I went all summer and winter long walking with no complaints. I didn't even slow down and continued getting a mile or a little over a mile in. On the very seldom days I wasn't available he had a back up walker that he hired a few months before I delivered. Well the delivery did not go as planned. I planned on starting back up a week after having my baby but my daughter needed to be saved and I ended up getting an emergency c section. The doctor claimed he understood and told me to let him know once I had clearance. Due to his dog being a puller I was told by my doctor that I had to wait until 6 weeks post partum. Well when the 6 weeks was up I told him I was ready to go......he replaced me with the back up walker. I would walk in crappy weather if he wanted me to and like I said, I would go above and beyond to make sure his dog was taken care of with last minute bookings. I would board his dog as well and took his dog many times when I was at my limit already. If it was only walks and boardings here and there I wouldn't have cared but this was many walks and boardings every week so I lost a lot of money right after having my baby. I still have many awesome clients but I'm a little more hesitant with that situation. *Also, there was no reasoning why. I already had a child so that wouldn't have been an issue to continue.
I just would really love for owners to stay up to date on the flea & tick meds. I donāt have the time or energy to comb for ticks post walk- but if Iām coming away from a walk with ticks trying to reach my waste band, your unprotected puppyās going to end up with more than one tick. It really sucks, as a sitter, knowing that Iām lowkey putting your dogs at risk every time we go for a walk.
If you would be comfortable, I think a lot of people could really benefit from a tick related educational post on this subreddit. I made a joke about tick season to a wag walker I pass on Sundays and it was a totally new term to her. And I only consider myself, like, 60% educated on ticks
Oh, Christ. Reminds me of the time I wanted to get checked for Lyme & the nurse didnāt have any idea why I was so concerned about a bug bite. Just in case anyone does read this- Lyme disease diagnosis & the ticks that carry Lyme are on the rise, in both rural & city areas. Iām currently in a suburban area on the east coast, Iāve already had to pull five ticks off of myself in the past two months. Please, please check yourself for ticks every day that you do a walk. Lyme disease isnāt a joke and can be life threatening if left untreated. Wear the bug spray & check all the little crevices on your body.
This one that will always be known as the Dirty House. They had 2 cats and booked me for 2x per day. At the M&G they had several extra cars that they said they were holding onto for family (in reference to where I could park). The husband half of the couple was who I met although I'd been talking to the wife on Rover, and he was a bit unkempt and smelled of weed but they both seemed nice. He showed me the basement where the cat care was located, and there was a bunch of junk but also some senior care stuff lying around, so I thought maybe they'd recently been caring for an elderly relative in this basement apartment and that's why there was a mess and a musty smell. Somehow, in that brief visit, I failed to really register how filthy the house was. Two of the cars were up on blocks and fully rusted-out once I took a closer look. The smell was such that I wore a mask the whole time I was there. There was a pile of stuff that needed to be recycled in the kitchen. They had invasive weeds growing INSIDE THE HOUSE, creeping up the window like a horror movie. There was a massive dead spider in the sink. Both cats were grossly overweight, and the one had had mats cut out of his long fur (so they weren't grooming him). They had 2 litter boxes, and the cheap scoop snapped in half the first time I used it so I brought my own. When one or both of the cats peed partially outside the box, I found only dinner napkins (brought my own paper towels after that); I asked about cleaning supplies and they said there should be a bottle of Simple Green in the kitchen. There was - it had about a centimeter left in the bottom, and was so old/disused as to have COBWEBS on the handle. The worst, though, was when I ventured upstairs because I hadn't seen the other cat at all for the whole week and I just wanted to get proof she was alive (in the 2 weeks, I only caught a glimpse of her tail once downstairs). Now they hadn't said anything about upstairs; there was a basement kitchen where they had their food and the litter boxes. But as soon as I started to ascend, a smell 10x worse hit me - old dirty house and old newspaper and rot and, yes, cat urine and poop. I discovered they had 2 more litterboxes in the laundry room that were disgustingly full with poop scattered on the floor around them. Not a word about this to me and it was so disgusting up there that I just left it, figuring they at least would have clean boxes in the basement. The kitchen was also indescribably filthy up there, with food splattered on the walls and stove, garbage overflowing, mounds of dishes in the sink and the open dishwasher. I have no idea how anyone could live like that - the basement apartment was one thing but this was clearly their main space (I did manage to spot the 2nd cat so I never went up there again). Honestly, if these people had had children, I seriously would've considered calling the nonemergency line for a welfare check or something - that's how awful the living conditions were. I fully admit that I only stayed 10-15 minutes for those 30 minute visits because that's all I could stand. This was over a year ago but I still think about that house. They reached out to me again last summer and I turned them down, saying I had just gotten a new job and was going to stop petsitting. The job part was true, but I kept on a few preferred clients...just never in a million years this one.
Joined Rover a few weeks ago after 5 years with Wag and just got my first negative review from a client. Iām really upset because I do not think I did anything wrong, and this is only my third review so my rating is shot. Basically it was a very last-minute walk, about 30 mins notice, so I didnāt get a chance to chat with the owner or meet the dog beforehand. The dog was barking like crazy when I got there, with his tail wagging but I still wanted to give him space to warm up to an unfamiliar person in his home. I have walked hundreds of dogs through Wag and this is generally my approach when a dog seems agitated. So I just tried to talk to him in a friendly voice and got his leash to get him excited to go out. As soon as Iām outside with him, I get a call from the owner asking me why I didnāt pet her dog or greet him properly (she had a puppy cam and had been watching). I explained that I usually give new dogs their space, and she seemed to understand. Fast forward to now and she left me a three star review saying it was ākind of creepyā that I just āstaredā at her dog, āgrabbed the leash,ā and ādidnāt seem excited to see an adorable pup,ā and that she ādoesnāt trust people who donāt react to dogs properly.ā I left a polite response explaining what happened, so hopefully future clients will understand. Anyway her house was disgusting, lots of trash and flies, and her dogās bowl was full of chicken nuggets, so sheās clearly a bit off. Still frustrating to have my rating nuked so early in my Rover career
I am a sitter/dog walker and one of my clients walks the dog with me. Whatās the point of hiring Me? Heās elderly but even so, he doesnāt hire me 24/7 so thereās no benefit
Honestly? Heās probably paying you for company and/or so he doesnāt have to hold the leash every time
For sure. And heās a nice person to talk to but I have always been use to walking dogs alone. And he tell me he was gonna walk with me. Itās just annoying that thereās people that expect dog walkers to be some sort of company