Aggressive Dog?

Hi Carrie,

Sorry this isn't being answered in a timely manner, but blame Rover for not allowing your question to be posted until whatever employee returned from vacation or something to that effect.

Obviously this job must be over by now, but a really important thing to emphasize to clients is that ALL pets have to be listed with Rover. That way the customer gets charged for the additional pets if you have your rate set up (which you don't) to do so. I've read many posts on the board about clients sneaking in additional unlisted pets during house sitting jobs. Do yourself a favor and stand firm; don't let a client just pass off additional animals especially ones you haven't met. When you do a M&G at the client's home you will be able to tell exactly how many pets there are and get them listed.

Hopefully it all went okay and you and the dog survived.

I dog sat yrs ago for 4 dogs all who I had met prior (they were my neighbors dogs), 3 small dogs and 1 large dalmatian. They were crated when I got there but were acting super aggressive (barking, growling, showing teeth...), I was too scared to let them out. I had a family member come try to help me, but that didn't help. I ended up contacting the owner and she told me to open the outside door and then open the crates up, she said they'd just run right outside to do their business (they had a small fenced in area right outside the door). However, by the way they were acting I still didn't feel safe. In the end what I ended up doing was sitting down in the room and talking calmly to them. Eventually they started to see me as less of a threat and as they each calmed down I was able to open the crate up and they ran out. The 3 small dogs didn't take too long before they calmed down enough for me to feel comfortable letting them out. However, the large dalmatian took longer but I sat kiddy corner from him and eventually he quieted down and actually sat down in his crate then I felt comfortable opening the door (and he ran right outside). But before that there was no way I was opening that crate up (he looked ready to attack. I had no problems with the stay after that.