I've heard many stories of people who hired a dog walker or someone to do a check in visit only to find out that the dog walker did not in fact spend the proper amount of time with the dog.
Rover does time the interactions for drop-ins and for walks it tracks the walk with GPS. A lot of clients have alarm systems that timestamp when the alarm is deactivated and then activated again so that may be another way. There are countless other digital nannies you can use.
At the end of the day though the best thing you can do is meet with sitters until you find one you trust and that has great reviews. Then treat them like the professionals they are and have a little faith that everything will be ok. Most of us (sitters) care about animals and want to do a great job for you and your pet.
There is information about how the dog walking map function works, although it is from the sitter's perspective:
https://support.rover.com/hc/en-us/ar...
But, as Becky stated, the Rover app is required for those services to ensure the customer's peace of mind that their pet has had the proper care.
It doesn’t appear that our walker stayed over night the 5 Days we scheduled- bed had not changed and toilet paper was barely touched. Wondering how to know if pups were left alone every night.
There is no fool-proof system for ensuring the sitter was there, unless you have cameras on your property. If you feel that the sitter did not provide the services you paid for, I would suggest checking in with the sitter first to see what they have to say.
I know, personally, I often sleep on the couch while house sitting AND I always remake the bed if I sleep in it. Since I have midday walks, I usually don’t use my house sitting clients’ restrooms that often throughout the day.
That is a serious concern and I see where you are coming from. I for one make it my goal to make it LOOK like I wasn't even there, just to be professional and respectful. I've even had one of my steady clients (5 years) say the same thing, "You can barely even tell she was there!" But if you're--
very concerned about it I would talk to the sitter directly for starters.
If you are concerned, open up a dialog with the sitter, and then if you're still unsure, reach out to rover. Consider investing in an inexpensive security camera for your front door or the like. They have dropped in price and you can keep aware of movement of people coming and going in your home.
If you book the sitter through Rover they have to use an app that records when they are there.