Why aren't people available after they say they are?

As a sitter I actually had a similar situation from the other side. An owner contacted me about a service for the next day, which I did show availability for, but they wanted to drop the dog off at the one time I wasn't available. I tried offering alternative times and even offered to pick the dog up after my prior commitment, but the time he needed was all he could do. Rover doesn't allow sitters to block off time slots on our calendars, so in this case I wasn't available to fit this customer's needs, despite my calendar showing otherwise.

I would suggest reaching out to Rover Match like Walt said. And like Erica mentioned, I do think that most sitters want to be available, and hopefully they will make an effort to work with you and your schedule! Best of luck to you.

All Rover are independent contractors and are responsible to maintain their own calendars and availability, some are better at it than others, sorry to say. Call our Rover Match consultant team at [Edit: Rover’s contact options have changed. Visit the Rover Help Center at https://support.rover.com/ to find the phone number, help articles, or chat with the team] and they will assist in booking with a sitter that is available, it is a free service. You can also read more about it here: https://support.rover.com/hc/en-us/ar...

Sorry you are not having the best of luck. My advise would not to give up, make sure you are looking at the sitters calendar on their profile page and that they are marked as available. As long as they are you should hopefully have better luck at finding a sitter available. Most sitters want to keep their calendars up to date and not have to turn away new clients. It counts negativity against the sitters Search Ranking" when they decline a request and especially when they are not available but yet their calendars said that they were. (at least this way you know that the sitters are getting penalized)

Hope you find a wonderful sitter, best of Luck!!

The Rover app does not filter out sitters who do not service the area you live. Here is the response I got today in questioning why I get contacted by owners outside my service area:

Thanks for letting me know. Even though you have the radius set up to two miles, it is still just a preference. Sometimes these request can slip through the system. This is not something that we can change just yet.    We’re constantly looking for ways to make Rover better than ever, and always appreciate hearing from community members like you. I’ve passed along your suggestion to our product team.   Thanks again, and feel free to send more feedback or suggestions anytime.