I normally use the large boarding facilities which often hire young kids to do a lot of the general maintenance during business hours. I thought I’d try Rover for my young wirehair german pointer Marlene. From the moment I walked into his house I felt at ease. He even slept in the living room where pup’s sleeping bed was one night to make sure she felt safe and cared for on her first night!

If I could give ZERO stars for this individual it would be more appropriate. I would not trust Chris to watch a houseplant, or even my furniture. Where do I begin?... My wife and I arranged to have Chris watch our two dogs over her 30th birthday weekend. We were going to Miami... I had arranged flights, hotel accommodations, dinner reservations, spa appointments, shopping trips, etc... all to make her weekend unforgettable. We had messaged Chris a few days before our original 0800 drop off to actually verify the hand off since we had so much involved in the planning of this trip. He informed us during our conversation that he had arranged to have another dog at his house the day or two before and the other dog was scheduled to be picked up around 10-11am on that Saturday. Our dogs are friendly and he told us that this dog was friendly too so we said okay. We decided to drop off the dogs around 0900 and everything was agreed upon. We arrive to Chris' residence at about 0905 and called Chris... no answer. We called Chris again.. and again.. and again... and again... with no answer. All over the course of the next 25 minutes as our flight departure time approached closer and closer. We began to feel the paralyzing fear of Chris (and the Rover service) ruining this delicately planned (and expensive trip) because of the one glaring main fault that no one seems to talk about... Sitter abandonment. We called Rover and told them what was happening, and they customer service rep said they'd try and call Chris. They called back around 15 minutes later with the same results. Nothing from Chris, and not even any answer from his emergency contact information. My wife was able to get passed the secure gate into his apartment building as I began to call our airline to see if we could transfer to another flight or get a credit applied for a future flight. She was able to see into his apartment to see the other dog he was watching asleep on the floor. With no sign of Chris anywhere to be seen. So not only was he absent for our dogs, but his service for watching, About an hour had passed at this point, and we decided that there was no possible way that we could even let Chris be near our dogs at this point. There was no trust anymore... definitely not in him, and none in the Rover service. Our weekend was ruined. Plain and Simple. Chris, and ultimately Rover, had created an immensely false sense of security in the promises of their services. We were now faced with trying to scramble and salvage this weekend but ultimately it was already ruined before it began because of this experience. We got another call back from the Rover Customer Service department on our ride home. Still unable to get in contact with Chris, we began to discuss how Rover would begin to salvage this completely ruined experience. The representative informed me that they would be taking steps to refund the payment on our account, and then offer us a TWENTY dollar credit for the next time we used Rover. UNBELIEVABLE. Unbelievable that this was their offer, and unbelievable that they would even assume that we would be using Chris, or Rover, ever again. I told them that this was an outrageous offensive attempt at correcting their mistake and inability to deliver a service that they promised. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told "there are no supervisors here on the weekend".... UNBELIEVABLE. I'm going to take a wild guess that there are many people with animals that travel on the weekend. These people need a service to care for their furbabies while they are gone. These people use Rover. Inevitably, there are possible customer service issues on the weekend. Rover elects to have UNSUPERVISED, basic level customer service representatives staff their phone lines on the weekend. This has to be one of the worst business models I have ever witnessed in my entire life. We were able to find a less than ideal situation for our dogs over the weekend that cost roughly TWICE what we were going to pay to Rover. We didn't reach Miami until well into the evening, and thankfully, we didn't suffer any cancellations fees for some of the services that we had to cancel last minute. However, the weekend had a dark cloud hanging over it the entire time because of how is started. We will never use Rover ever again. And we hope that Rover takes the proper step to remove Chris from this service. As mentioned before, we would not recommend Chris to take care of your pets. He is irresponsible and has no regard for the importance of a service agreement.