Should sitters be allowed to sedate your dogs without your knowledge?
Mine dogs were drugged and raised it with Rover, although the vet agreed they sedated but because I did not a have a blood test they say there is not proof. Here is my experience:
We traveled for a week over Christmas and came home a day early. We called the sitter from the airport to ask to pick up the dogs and they responded to pick them up later in the night. We ended up picking them up at 6p. When I picked them up my dogs were lethargic and uninterested in seeing me, I had to pick up my dog to put him in the car. When I turned around to get a debrief on the week, the sitter was gone. By the way, when I am gone just for a couple hours my dogs are jumping out of their skin to see me - they had not seen me in a week and had no emotion and immediately fell asleep. It was obvious something was wrong, my heart sank! When I was driving home, my dogs were sleeping! These are two golden retrievers that have not seen me in over a week. Arrived home and they essentially did not greet my wife or daughter, proceeded to drink 1/2 gallon of water each (learned this is the bodies way of flushing out the drug from their system) and they just laid down and slept. We had a friend over and she asked "what is wrong with your dogs". One of my dogs proceed to defecate in the house when the door was open - he has never done this! My wife sent a note to the sitter to ask what they had given them, as it was obvious they were sedated. They responded nothing and big dogs drink water, and they referred us to Rover Customer Support - essentially saying this "conversation is over". I took the dogs to the emergency vet where they agreed the dogs had been sedated. Also the next day one my dogs stool was grey in color, my sister who is a nurse stated that may be a liver issue - now the drugs could have taken a toll on my dog's liver! The only way we would have known our dogs were sedated/drugged is we came home a day early. Really sad these sitters are able to continue to watch dogs. I have raised this with Rover and they have stated they can't prove it and advised us to post a review - so beware. When people start telling you that you don't know your own dogs and their behavior is normal - beware!
So I paid $985 for the sitter, $310 for vet, and Rover gave of $350 credit - $35 being credit for stress. Rover's response was that the sitters are an independent contractor and I would have to back to them for the remainder. I would not be nearly as upset with Rover if they would had stepped up ...