Disclaimer: I'm a crazy dog mom and this might be overkill but when it comes to my dog, I'd rather be too careful than be sorry later. I also don't leave my dog anymore after it didn't work out with 2 sitters from rover - either we take him along or we take turn for international trips.
We used Rover and now host as well. Here are what we tell friends and family:
- Meet and greet is a must. If the sitter has a dog, look at their dog's behavior and see if it's well trained or not. Bring your dog to the M&G and see how the sitter and their dog interact with your dog. As a host, we require M&G to see if we're a great fit and occasionally have to say no if the dog (it's really the owner) is not a great fit.
- Dog lovers are awesome but they don't necessarily make great sitters. Find someone who can introduce/maintain structures and boundaries to the dogs they watch as well.
- Ask about what their routine with their dog. As a host, we enforce the same rules for all dogs staying with us. We walk twice a day ~2-3miles total (we'll do separate walk if the client's dog needs shorter walk). Our dog is not allowed to jump on the furniture or people and the same rule applies to the dogs we host. If they come to us knowing no boundaries, they'll leave knowing at least some. We follow balance training and if the owner follows positive only training and minds our method, we're completely fine with not getting their business - we understand that not everyone is our client (we're not really doing this for the money so we can afford to be picky on who we want to take on).
- Note if the sitter asks questions about your dog's routine (exercise, meal and medication schedule, known allergies, known health issues, vet and emergency contact info, any aggression or reactivity, any resource guarding issue, separation anxiety, etc).
- Ask if there will always be someone at home with the dogs and WHO that person is. You want to meet this person as well. We got a great referral for a host and when I asked about this, they said they go out shopping for up to EIGHT hours. We settled for 4 hours alone time with doggie gate to separate the dogs unsupervised (too many horror stories about fights when no one is watching). Then the night before we left, they texted and asked if it was okay to bring our dog rock climbing. They will tether the dog at the base and they will be many people passing by. We cancelled the booking and cancelled our trip.
- You usually get what you pay for. We had horrible experience with a Rover host with hundreds of 5 star review. She was the cheapest I could find and being a mustachian, of course I picked her. My dog had separation anxiety and I was worried if he was eating while we were gone. She wasn't responsive and after multiple unanswered texts and calls, we had to cut our trip short and booked a flight home the following day. When we picked him up, the host wasn't even home. Her father in law, who we never met and had no idea about his capability of handling dogs opened the door and gave us our dog. His bed was peed on, the leash smelled like pee, the dog smelled like pee. By the time we got home, the car and our hands all smelled like pee. We don't let this happen our watch (as a host). All dogs get multiple bathroom breaks throughout the day. We just got another client who said they'd been trying to find a reliable sitter for over a year when they found us. They almost gave up but they realized the issue could've been because they were going with the $20-25/night hosts. We're definitely more expensive than most people on rover but we also provide more since we only take no more than 2 dogs at a time.
I know you want someone to stay at your place but the same rule of thumb above still applies and I would definitely get several referrals, preferably from someone you know. A friend of ours had a vet tech stayed at his place. She didn't let the dog out for bathroom breaks, threw a party and had sex in his bed (I guess she had no idea he had cameras). In fact, because of the unsuccessful stories from our friends plus our own experiences, we decided to start hosting to help them out.
But then again, some people had great results and never had any issues with their sitters so good sitters are definitely out there, you just have to weed out the bad ones.
