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What motivates you as a Rover sitter?

I'm curious to hear what motivates you as a sitter. What makes you want to watch more dogs, or provide a better experience? For me, I think I love to provide a high quality service to my favorite clients. I love becoming friends with my clients, and having their dog look forward to coming to stay with me. So, I'm more focused on getting repeat clients.

  • Do you want to get more 5 star reviews from clients?
  • Do you want to hit a financial goal?
  • Would you like to get more positive feedback from Rover?
  • Do you love making new doggie best friends?
  • Do you like to get referrals from your clients?

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For myself, I am at a point in life where I want to have kids, but I am not financially stable enough to do so. So I have dogs as a replacement, but my fiancé says we can't have any more.. So I dog sit instead!! It keeps me happy and him happy. The money is nice too.

10 Answers

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I sit for multiple reasons. For me it is more about the dogs and their owners than the money. I am lucky enough that we don't need the income from sitting. When we moved from Seattle to San Jose I gave up my full time job, rather than find one down here I have taken classes, do "crafty" things, take care of the house and hang out with my dog. These are all well and good, but aren't the best replacement for the community of family and friends that I left behind.

I find that through Rover I get to hang out with a variety of dogs and meet some awesome people. As Laura said, the guest dogs help keep me motivated to go out and play, they have helped my dog feel more comfortable around groups of dogs (she was always good one on one, but was shy and would hide between my legs if multiple dogs tried to say "hi" at once), sharing her toys is no longer an issue, she has lots of playmates and most important (if you ask my husband) is that it stops me from getting a second dog at this point (though I do get to compare and contrast what I like and don't like about all of the breeds I sit for).

Also, I found Rover as an owner looking for a sitter. I wanted an alternative to boarding. We had done the traditional kennel, where we had to pay more for her to be played with, as well as a place that was more like an off leash dog park, where I could watch my dog sit in the corner on their camera. She hated both of those, so Rover was a wonderful find.

Bottom line, I really like being able to give people the experience that I want my dog to get.

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The income is definitely a big factor. We've had a couple months where our rent was nearly covered just by sitting part time.

It's also a great experience for our dogs. They get to meet a ton of new friends and it gives me a ton of opportunities to fine tune their manners - leashed greetings, walking manners, play manners, sharing toys, treats, beds, etc. One of my dogs tends to be easily overexcited by other dogs, but dog sitting has given me a way to work with her consistently and she has made a ton of progress.

Additionally, when I'm hosting dogs it gives me more of a reason to get out of the house and go on adventures with them. My dogs are really good at looking at me with these lazy eyes that say 'no, it's alright, let's just lay here and watch some more Netflix.' It's really hard to motivate myself to get up and go for a walk when they're being lazy, too. But with extra dogs here there's far less being lazy and I'm motivated to take the guests to all my favorite picture spots to get some great shots for their owners.

Comments

It also helps convince me that I don't need another dog. Two is plenty. Having more dogs around, no matter how well-behaved, is a lot of extra energy and dog sitting reminds me of that.

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I love animals. I always want more even though I have 3 of my own dogs, 2 cats and a rabbit. It gives me my puppy fix:) Plus the extra income is nice.

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I have Always been an animal lover. We owned horses and kept them on our property in Illinois. Our kids were in 4-H with the horses and cats. I was mentored by Natural Horsemanship Trainers and learned a lot. Many of the training techniques work with dogs also. Plus, I always cared for family, friends and neighbors dogs when they were on vacation. I also worked for a small pet sitting company when our house went up for sale to move out of state. I Love pet sitting and do it for the love of the job. It is also Great getting paid for what I do. It "helps" with the bills. I don't make what I did when I worked as paralegal or office administrator but I didn't enjoy those positions like I do pet sitting.

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We love dogs. My partner and I have fun hosting sweet friendly canines of Portland, spoiling them with attention and exercise as we would our own. We also love to travel (why we don't currently have a dog of our own). The money we earn from hosting pups helps fund future adventures.

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Socializing our puppy! It's been great for her to be learning how to interact with other doggies and learn social cues. The money is an added bonus that allows us to pay for extra socializing classes and such.

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What motivates me as a Rover sitter? Like Kathleen D., I don't make what I did when I worked running an office, but I didn't enjoy those positions like I do pet sitting. Besides, there is so much competition right now, it took me 6 months to find a Full-Time job last time I was laid-off. When I was let go for a "Work Force Reduction" this time, I knew I at least wanted to do pet sitting part-time as a little income while looking for a full-time job.

Another reason is to get our "Dog Fix". Since our income has not been stable for years, and our last dogs required so much medical attention, we need to wait to adopt another dog when we both have Full-Time jobs for better financial stability. In the meantime, we have fostered dogs and now my income with Rover helps a dog charity!

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Thanks for your input, Laura! That's awesome to hear about your own dog's improvements. I also love being forced to get out and do something active. Life is just better with a dog walking by your side. :)

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Since I've been having a lot of trouble finding a job (relatively small area, I'm young, I've never had a paying job before) I turned to Rover to hopefully start making some money. And it's a perfect opportunity because I just absolutely love dogs, always have.

What I'm hoping for is to make enough money for me to move closer to my university. It's a bigger area, with a LOT of busy dog owners, so there's a good chance to make a good amount of money by dogsitting there. And I'll hopefully be able to find another job as well, so I can go back to my university and finish up my bachelor's in animal biology. But I wouldn't give up being a Rover sitter!

So even though right now my primary focus is making enough money to move out, it's very closely seconded by my desire to meet tons of new dogs of every breed! And of course, the opportunity to learn more and more about different clients, dog ownership, and entering the working world.

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What motivates me about being a sitter is that I can and have met up with

some cute dogs and families that I have cared for. I have a dog of my own and hopeing to meat many more.