Is anyone else unimpressed?

No one ever said pet care on Rover is easy!! Pet care is a service business and has been severely impacted by Covid the past 2 years as clients' plans change often and cancellations happen frequently. Most new clients to Rover create their profile and then search for a sitter on the same day.

I sense your frustration and understand as we've all been in the same place. I wish you good luck going forward!

Actually there is a fair amount of misleading recruiting designed to make caring for pets look easy. This website even has a page “Get paid to play with pets. Rover makes it easy...Earn money doing something you love.” And posts similar on social media, which may easily lead the uninitiated to think pet care is easy money. In my opinion, if you give it your all, (which the pets are worth), it is not. It’s a very demanding and the best compensation is the furry appreciation, not the well earned financial reward.

It takes time to cultivate a select client base, which can only be done by exchanging messages with lots of pet owners, some of who will never be a match. During the past two years, people’s needs for pet care have changed and the pandemic has presented curveballs into their own planning. It is most definitely a service based business, which at times merits long term thinking with possible exceptions to the rule, especially when you meet people/pets with who you’d enjoy having a lifetime years long relationship.

To prospective & former clients like above: I’m sorry you had a bad experience. I hope you realize that it is made up of independent contractors/small business owners., who differ greatly. A sitter with poor communication or who suggests doing business outside of rover is a huge red flag. However many of us other sitters care about other people’s pets as if they were our own and at times sacrifice our own needs to provide the very best care we can, which some clients have provided completely unsolicited testimony/verbal feedback stating their dog received more time&attention&care at sitter’s home than at their own home, sometimes resolving medical conditions present upon arrival at sitter’s home.